So here’s my thought on Twitter self-promotion: it makes me feel contradictory, cynical and manipulative.  Because they are expressions of my life, my work, and my passions, my blog, Facebook and Linked In, are wonderful tools that I have no issue exploiting.  However, when it comes to Twitter, I honestly do not see any purpose to it, other than that it places me and countless other peoples in need of attention, in the inferior position of selling ourselves for a mere 2 seconds of fame.  

And not even that.  I’ve been on it for about a week now, and have arrived at this meaningless conclusion: most people on there don’t have a thought they want to express as much as a need to attract followers.  In a way, it’s kind of like infantilizing ourselves because of a need to be popular.  I find it difficult to maintain my dignity while I post and try to attract followers interested in what I have to say.  I feel conspicuous, ridiculous and desperate.   

I’ve been told to give it time, that it will grow on me, that I’ll see it’s benefits soon enough.  I know I don’t have the patience and the time to waste in making meaningless connections with people who keep re-tweeting breaking news.  I’m interested in thoughts, stories, ideas.  Originality.  Something that stops my racing mind in its tracks in order to explore something new, something it hadn’t considered.  Quotes by dead, white men do not count.

As a marketing tool, I suppose it could only work to the extent that followers actually click on my link.  Otherwise, it’s a waste of time.  Yet, I cannot bring myself (though I’ve tried) to re-tweet the same thing over and over.  This reminds me of a line from a book by Kaufman/Mack: …sucks up every available brain cell and like the canary, whose brain cells regenerate every year, all previous data is erased forever, and all you hear is this year’s song.

For the moment, I suppose I’ll punch away at my posts once or twice a day.  See if it grows on me, as some have predicted. 

beloved village of happy memories!

I’m sitting here at the kitchen table, an hour after midnight, and wondering about life.  I have a huge extended family.  Presently, it is mostly comprised of cousins living on two continents, as the grandparents and some of the uncles have passed into eternal life.  With some I speak daily, with some weekly and with some, sadly, just monthly.  Sometimes those months stretch into years, and before we know what’s happened we’re grown-ups, our children are in school, and, if any are like me, plucking out our gray hairs.

the courtyard gate

I remember when we were young, chasing each other and the poor chickens around the yard.  Going to the countryside for summer vacations, more than twenty of us crammed in Tanti Maria’s two-room mud hut, laughing like crazy far into the night, sitting under the mulberry tree during the day, eating mulberries, sunburned and tired out from playing in the river across the road.  Then, later on after we came to the states with the little ones born here, babysitting them, or pretending to (and yes Ruth, I did drop you on your head when your family lived in San Pedro.  But you fell on the soft bed and not the floor).  Growing up together, meeting each Sunday for lunch at someone’s house, laughing, crying, arguing, beloved Tanti Maria dying, then Buni dying, and suddenly we were grown.  Marrying off, having children, our once young parents reaching middle age and cradling grandchildren.  How time passes by!

I am reminded of a song Tanti Maria used to sing those long ago summer days after her husband died.  Something about life being a quill pen with which we constantly write upon a road.  When we get to the end, all the scribbling along the way will never be forgotten and never be erased, but will remain preserved in the album of eternity.  How true.  And all the more reason to reconnect with the ones we’ve lost touch and keep on making those enduring memories.

I saw the saddest thing today while out to coffee with my husband, and it truly broke my heart.  There is this woman in my neighborhood, elegant, refined, of a certain age and she was at the coffee shop too, yet instead of coffee she was drinking first a glass of wine and then a beer, all the while crying silently and looking out the window.  I didn’t know what to do.  My instinct was to go and wrap my arms around her shoulders, my common sense said to ignore it.  And so I did nothing.  I told myself I was sparing her dignity a blow.  But was I really?  In hindsight I realize I should have reached out.  One human to another.  One woman to another. 

I can’t help but feel ashamed of myself for failing at such a simple human response.  I pride myself on my compassion, but where is it when it’s really needed?  It’s a cowardly sort of compassion at best.  Hiding behind ‘what ifs.’  The real reason I didn’t go was because I didn’t want to embarrass myself were she to turn on me and tell me to mind my own business.  It was my pride that didn’t want to risk a blow.  You see, I frequent that coffee shop daily.  I have a certain image to uphold.  I’m the woman with the cute kids that always orders the same thing and tips well.  I don’t make conversation other than with my kids and the people behind the counter.  I smile and nod at the other regulars, but it’s a tight-lipped sort of smile meant to discourage any attempt at starting a conversation.

When had I become such a snob?  Why am I bent on portraying myself in a certain false light that has nothing to do with the real me?  With what I really feel inside?  I have all these pretentions, all this contempt for superficiality, yet I myself am a superficial person. 

That’s it for today.  The more I think about it, the more ashamed I am of my spineless reaction.  I pray that woman is all right.  I don’t know where she lives, but I am going to that coffee shop tomorrow and if I see her, I will go and say hello and ask if I may join her while I drink my coffee.

I am fascinated by my kids.  One day, not far into the future, they will be adults, with their own ideas, stories and expectations.  How I raise them will have an immense impact on how they’ll turn out.  I watch how they interact amongst themselves and their peers, and wonder at how unique in character they each are.  

When my son was born I vowed to surround him and remind him of my love every day.  And I did.  But sometimes I became so obsessive about my being the only one who knew how to give him what he needed, that eyes would roll behind my back.  Gradually I allowed my husband and then my parents to have some say in raising him, though I drew the line at discipline. 

Discipline.  Such a weighty word; it is different things to different people.  One’s own culture is a defining determinant.  In mine, a rude and insensitive child is said to be missing the first seven years of home.  There is no bigger insult for a parent than to hear that about her child.  It implies laziness, a snub to social graces, and a lack of class.  Such a parent is often referred to as a peasant.  No one means a gentleman farmer, either.

I was raised in a very traditional family, with our mom constantly putting the fear of our dad in us.  His power was real.  Discipline meant spanking or a slap across the face.  If we had misbehaved, our dad’s arrival from work meant we were going to get it.  Sometimes she forgave us, or forgot, and we were spared.  However, if our misbehaving would have caused them public shame, punishment came without fail.  I remember when I was 12 and at some family friends’ house for lunch, when I had made a rude remark to my mother, and oh boy, how quickly my dad’s palm found my cheek.  Because I had certain pretensions of impending adolescence, i.e., there was a cute boy there, the humiliation and the lesson learned stayed with me throughout my life.

Knowing what they considered discipline, I forbade them to physically discipline my son.  Even verbally they were allowed to instruct him only in a positive and loving manner.  Yet, telling my parents of my wishes was difficult as there still exists that certain propriety between us.  Parental expectations, whatever they may be, aren’t turned off when a child reaches adulthood.  Not in my family, in any case.

Despite it all, my son has turned out to be sweet and well mannered.  I don’t exactly know how we did it except through leading by example (I’m busy patting myself on the back now—and yes, arrogance is bad manners too).  Yet, I would have to add that he is by nature a thoughtful, kind, intuitive person.  Possibly, the absence of a television in the home has something to do with that.  I will not get into a nature versus nurture debate because I believe they both equally shape a person, and also because I don’t want to go down that path. 

Now on to my daughter.  I will confess that I wanted to have a girl so I could have someone to play dolls with.  I bought a huge, expensive dollhouse soon after I got married just for that purpose.  It has moved with us from one basement to another over the years.  I am eagerly anticipating the day when my daughter and I can start filling it up with furniture and a doll family.  However, as my daughter isn’t much into sharing, I’m a bit worried that she won’t want to let me play. 

My daughter is my son’s opposite in temperament.  Same upbringing, same set of parents, same discipline methods.  Not one to be ignored easily, she makes a fuss if she doesn’t get what she wants.  The other day she was repeatedly asking me to fill a mixing bowl with sudsy water and let her wash her hands and feet in it.  I told her no and why.  She kept asking and I kept repeating myself.  Finally she placed her hands on her little nonexistent hips and said: can you just say yes?  Trying not to laugh because first, I wanted her to see that I was serious, and second, because she doesn’t like us ‘funnying’ at her, I repeated a firm no.  She let loose the loudest, shrillest wail and walked away calling me a ‘mean mama’.   Well, that almost did it.  I was all set to let her give her feet a bath in my mixing bowls, until I saw her watching me from the corner of her eye.  I wonder how such a little human can have me figured out so well.   

I am happy to report though, that she isn’t lacking in social courtesies.  Apparently she arrived equipped with an innate comportment to be envied.  Her attention to detail is impressive.  I see her watching me and using her napkin to wipe her mouth the same way I do, and it’s eerie.  My mom says that I was the same at her age.  My mom would stop to chat with a neighbor and two minutes later when we turned toward our house I would tell her everything I had observed. 

It’s true that I often am so fascinated with the details, that I lose sight of what I’m aiming toward.  Yet, for all that, this matter of manners is one thing that I will not lose focus of.      

For quite some time I have been debating of going into business for myself.  While I enjoy what I do tremendously, I figured I was capable of being my own boss, and so with support from my family and friends ventured forth and started the process.  The field, healthcare and geriatrics, is not a new one to me.  I have been around it (and actually managed two of these homes), for a large portion of my adult life.  However, owning one, and having the sole responsibility, is a different matter.  It isn’t one to be taken lightly, and so my hesitation. 

Then an opportunity presented itself and I couldn’t put it off anymore; and it would have been a shame to (it has been stressed), as one rarely comes across such an opportunity.  So, I’m embarking upon this adventure through faith and hope, although the course of getting licensed is a lengthy one, and I am not a person with an abundance of patience.  What I have in abundance though, is a love of people and a desire of making a positive impact while sharing in the life stories of others. 

In the meantime, and helping with that patience issue, the following quote has been repeating itself in my mind: “Time isn’t something that always proceeds at the same pace.  It is we who determine how quickly time passes.” (P. Coelho) I have decided that until I become licensed I am going to love my dear ones and read and write like crazy.  Because, as Margaret Atwood says: “Art is long and life is brief and mortality looms.” Now that is something I have all the patience in the world for.