Celebrating Love

Valentine's Day just passed. It's been a bittersweet holiday for me for the last two years. My dad passed away on V-day in 2008, but at the same time, J and I started officially dating on V-day in 2001. I know the focus of V-day is romantic love - the love that Hollywood and romance novels portray as knee-shaking, stomach-churning love. The romantic love you see connected intricately to infatuation, happily-ever-after, and fairytales. So those that aren't in said relationships pooh-pooh the holiday. After all, there's no point in celebrating a holiday on love if you don't have "love," right?

Actually, one thing about this holiday that I've come to understand is that the celebration isn't about just romantic love. It's about celebrating life, and those people in our life who we love. I'm talking about mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents (those who are lucky enough to have actually met their greats). I'm talking about friends, best friends, friends who've been there for you. Friends you love and friends who love you. I'm talking about extended family. Family you've married into. I'm talking about anyone and everyone in your life that you love. That's what this holiday is about. It's about reaching out to those people NOW, before it's too late, before they're sick or worse, gone. It's about saying I love you. It's about sharing why you love them and how much you love them. It's about family and friends and loved ones. It's about love in the grandest form of the word.

Romantic love is nice, sure. But it's only a tiny bead in the weaving of relationships.

We were supposed to start V-day with a mass for my dad, but it was too cold, and at my mother's suggestion, we stayed home in the morning making heart-shaped pancakes for L. Then, when it warmed up a little, we went to my mom's and spent the afternoon there. Me and my mom, J and his mom, and L. Little L who sometimes reminds me so much of my dad. We had my mom's famous chicken and meat lasagna, and we had wonderful conversations. We laughed. We walked. We drove around. But most importantly, we spent it together. The five of us. It was nice. We often get lost in all the "have-to's" of day-to-day life that we forget all the "need-to's." There's a difference.

The National Anthem

I have to admit - I don't like football. I don't really watch it, although I finally began to somewhat understand it. I'm lucky that my hubby is not a die hard fan because, honestly, I don't know what I'd do. However, even I watch the Super Bowl - sometimes. It's pretty cool when it's hosted in my hometown, though, and it's a neat perk being able to open our sliding glass door and hear the residual engines of the F15's that flew over the stadium during the national anthem.

But this post isn't about the Super Bowl. It's about the national anthem. For Super Bowl XLIV, Carrie Underwood sang the national anthem, right after Queen Latifah sang America the Beautiful. Both renditions were spectacular and were sung by two talented women. But I have to say that hearing the anthem that symbolizes our country gives me the goosebumps. I can't help but remain silent, staring at the screen, the hairs on my arms standing, and my heart beating faster. Before I know it, tears are threatening to make their escape from my eyes. It is a powerful song. Add to that a satellite image of our soldiers with their right hands over their hears, the look of exhaustion and pride etched in their faces, I can't help but say God Bless America - I am proud to be an American.

I know it's not a perfect nation - I criticize its flaws rather often. But then again, what is a perfect nation? Karl Marx had his idea of a perfect, equalized utopia, but we all know that doesn't materialize well. Human weaknesses, like greed, get in the way quite often when trying to create utopias. But this is a pretty okay nation. Although romanticized, the ideals that brought us together are those same ideals that keep us kicking and dub us "the land of opportunity" - because here, if your want something hard enough, and you work for it, you have a very good chance of getting it, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or creed. Sure, there are some across all the aforementioned that have a tougher battle, but life doesn't discriminate.

My father lived in this country for over thirty-five years. He became a US citizen, and yet he still complained about this nation, about the atrocities it committed, and about the modern globalization, conquering other nations by implementing McDonald's and Burger King food chains. I would always tell him, if you don't like it, go back home, home being Colombia. There was some truth in his ramblings; I was astounded at seeing BK in Paris, and Pizza Hut in Medellin, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. When I go to these places, I go to experience their cuisine, rich in flavors and spices that are not present here. But that's a topic for another musing.

The crux of the matter is that this is a great country. We have opportunity and although some of the politics doesn't make sense and gets lost in political jargon, I don't think I'd have the same opportunities if I lived elsewhere. Well, maybe I would in Canada, and I'd have free government health care, but that, too, my friend, is another story.

This country was founded on the quest for liberty and as a shelter for persecution. Sometimes we forget that and we persecute our own. But then I listen to the national anthem, and Carrie Underwood's powerful voice as she sings it, and the symbolism behind it roots me.

I hate titles

I really do. I don't feel confident or comfortable in having to create them. They are my Achilles heel. I have been trying to come up with a title for this project I'm working on, my memoir about my father and me, and bleh. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nothing good comes to mind. Well, actually, something decent comes in Spanish - Viejo, Mi Querido Viejo after Piero's song which my dad really liked. But it's still not great.

I mean, what could I title a work that is about the relationship between an ex-priest father, who is an older father, and his stubborn, looking-for-love daughter, a relationship that was intellectual at best and explosive at worst, a relationship where I wished him dead many times and then cried in earnest when he died because I realized I really did love him and he really did love me. What could I possibly title that?

Work in progress...

All she heard was silence,
creeping, clandestine,
behind the running motors
and the beeping.
Her hands wrung together
as she waited, listening.
But there was only silence.
It entered her ears and lungs
suffocating her,
muting her,
until she didn't know if up
was down or down was up.
She heard a muffled moan
and looked towards the
fluorescent white lights,
the neon newness of their
hue hypnotizing her so
she smiled, a reflex.
She wasn’t scared, just tired.
A siren sounded off
fireworks in the background,
those iridescent crimson,
indigo and mother-of-sea pearl
fireworks; they competed with the silence.
But the silence won, victorious over
other sounds that crowded her insides,
elbows poking, knees rubbing, sweaty skin touching.
She was only left with silence.

Boiling Point: Enter at Own Risk

It never fails. Every month, right around this same time, a switch is flipped on and the nightmare begins. I wake up fine - maybe a little tired but otherwise seemingly content. Then it happens. I slam my foot, the one with the broken pinkie toe from last semester, against my son's high chair. Or, I break a glass while I'm washing dishes. Or, I spill the contents of my red, SOLO cup all over myself, the table, and the floor, only to then slip on the liquid and end up sprawled in an angry heap. From that moment on, I feel the pricks of irritation stabbing me, never ending. I want to scream, to punch my pillow senseless, to break the rest of the glasses, to curse abominations at anyone and anything that crosses my path, incorrectly of course. I don't act out, usually, on these impulses, of course. I do have some self control. But even that is tested during this time.

It only lasts about three days, so there is relief in sight. But before the relief arrives, I am subjected to conflicting attitudes. I tremble, delirious in rage. I get defensive, and then counter-attack, probably before it's even warranted. I go on a cursing rampage, even if the words never actually leave my lips, although a few do sometimes escape.

If the flip is switched while I'm driving, or out and about, watch out world. I actually speak my mind and challenge injustices directly. Although I may do that somewhat every day, the qualities of my sign bind me to political correctness and avoiding conflict. When it's that time, I lose sense of being socially correct and pounce on those injustices with a feline force. I really do have to be careful, though. One of these months, I'll pounce on the wrong person. I don't want to consider consequences now, though. I'll think about those in three days.