Cousin Gheisha and her Little Family.

Photographed by Allan Zepeda

http://www.allanzepeda.blogspot.com/

Looking Back

I attempt to live everyday looking forward. It’s been my way for as long as I can remember. Much too often I’ve seen those around me fall time after time because their attention is focused on what’s behind them. So what I’m about to say might seem out of character and counter productive. But sometimes when you’re so focuses on the “horizon” it’s hard to see where you are. Sometime it’s important to look back to see how far you’ve come, or maybe to see that you’ve gone nowhere at all and you’ve been going in circles all along.

So today I was thinking back… [It’s a Friday night. I’ve had a long long week. We’re trying to stay above water at the job and Boss Man and I have been treading water all week trying to stir up some business… while I was cooking listening to Salsa, releasing the weeks pressures, I got to thinking w/one Margarita under my belt.]… Thinking back five or six years…

It’s almost incomprehensible when you compare my life now and then. To think how back then my family was such a big part of my life. In many ways they were the MOST important thing in my life. They were part of my every weekend, my daily thoughts and my nightly worries. A family crisis was just a train ride away. Don’t get me wrong I love you my family dearly. But I no longer feel like I’m holding my breath anticipating the next thing. Still I think… I miss… I wonder… but never in a million years would I have believed that one day I would be 100’s of miles ways living my life. A life where I primarily worry about me and my husband. I'm not trying to find a way to fix this one or rescue that one. On the other hand, no escape from my own personal hard times to my Tia’s and mom. No place to run and hide. It’s come to be a, “face it head on” “find your own way” kind of life. It’s quite liberating although at time lonely with all of my favorite people so far away.

I have to tell you Friday nights are always the hardest. More often then not I was on an E train on my way into Queens, to laugh with the ladies or chill on the stairs with the guys. To have drinks with Marisol or Dancing in my living room with family. Now on my drive home on Fridays I pass on my normal News Radio for the Hip Hop station or a good Salsa CD. It makes me feel just a bit closer to home.

As I look back at who I was then I am stunned at how completely different it all is. Looking back now I see how far I’ve come not so much in the progress sense [most of that is just stuff, material things], but in the personal, ME, life altering way. I think back at my relationships then. Relationships I would have staked my life on, now no longer exist, friendships I would have never dreamed of flourished, things I thought would always matter no longer do, and sometimes I look around and wonder how I’ve come to this place or how it is that I never saw the truths I see today.

I look around and find I’m in a place were things are not perfect but I can’t think of any place else I’d rather be. In a place where the small things in life are wonderfully amazing and surprisingly fulfilling. I look around and see that I don’t need perfect, I just need peaceful. That the truest people in my life with time showed themselves in ways I would have never thought. And above all as I look back the one thing that made the most difference is truth and honesty, truth and honestly within myself. Once I found that I no longer needed to hold on to the past, the honesty of that freed me to move into my future. I don’t regret these changes the same way I don’t regret the past. [… moving on to Margarita #3 Happy Friday!!!]

A Sign of The Times

Sorry guys, no more Mendez-Davila-Gonzalez Family Newsletters, at least not in the conventional sense. We all know I’m way too narcissistic to give up the communication completely. In an effort to keep in touch and cut costs, this blog is my solution. So check in occasionally and share your thoughts.

Breaking News!!!!

Finally!!! At Long Last!!! Por Fin!!!
It’s done, the reading room is done. But more importantly I have a place to escape the world. Family, I present to you my reading Chair. My solace, my escape, my comfort, my CHAIR, my DREAM CHAIR!!! Now it truly is perfect. My perfect room; it truly doesn’t get more ME then this room.

"By River Piedra..." by Paulo Coelho

What an amazing book!!! It was recommended by Laura C. and gifted by Marisol on my trip to New York where I gave Marisol the opportunity to be the boss of me for one day. Part of that day was a trip to Barns and Nobles (the rest of that day is a story for another time – maybe…) this is one of the book I took home with me.

The book is “By River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept” a small but powerful book. It took me all of a day to read and only a moment to be completely captivated. It’s a sweet love story; where love and spirituality are metaphorically interchangeable.

With every page I was inspired to look inside myself; to think about my life and consider my path and my choices. It reminded me of a time in my life of simple, pure and raw love. Love for the sake of love, no definitions, and no expectations just him and me and the need to be, just be forever. As the years go by it gets more complicated, but it doesn’t have to, it can still just be about a boy and a girl or a girl and her faith. Spirituality simplified. Love simplified. Simple, Pure and Raw.

“And you? Who are you?”...“I am just like everyone else who listens to their heart: a person who is enchanted by the mystery of life, who is open to miracles, who experiences joy and enthusiasm for what they do. It’s just that the Other, afraid of disappointment, kept me from taking action.

“But there is suffering in life,” …“And there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it is better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.”

“… Afraid of disappointment, kept me from taking action”. I love that! OMG, how often do we hold back because of fear; missed out on experiencing life for fear of being hurt, fear of disappointment, or fear of loss. But we have to risk our sanity, our hearts and our dreams to gain happiness. If we don’t, what’s the point? What are we protecting? The alternative is “…to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.”

The main character Pilar goes on a journey with an old childhood friend. Despite her better judgment, she breaks free from the safety of her structured life and takes a chance and for a moment she lives.

My favorite passage:

"I began to imagine how I would like to be living right at that moment. I wanted to be happy, curious and joyful- living every moment intensely , drinking the water of life thirstily. Believing again in my dreams. Able to fight for what I wanted.

Loving a man who loved me.

Yes, that was the woman I wanted to be- the woman who was suddenly presenting herself and becoming me. I felt that at that moment, the Other left my body and was standing in the corner of that small room.

I observed the woman I had been up until then: weak but trying to give the impression of strength . Fearful of everything but telling herself it wasn’t fear - it was the wisdom of someone who knew what reality was. Putting up shutters in front of windows to keep the joy of the sun from entering - just so the sun’s rays wouldn’t fade my old furniture. I looked at the Other, there in the corner of the room- fragile, exhausted, disillusioned. Controlling and enslaving what should really be free: her emotions. Trying to judge her future loves by her past suffering.

But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it’s what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointments and sadness.

The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us.

And to save us."

No matter who we are, or where we are in life; we are always in search, or at lease we should be. Seeking to renew ourselves, to improve ourselves, and on some level wanting to be loved. There is always room for improvement in every relationship, even within us ourselves. How often do we allow our past to taint the now? We allow the petty yesterday to choke out the happiness we can have today.

“Pay attention to every moment, because the opportunity – the ’magic moment’ – is within our reach…”

Cooking Boricua Style

I have no recipes of my own to share this time around. I’ve been cookin it old school, back to my roots. Cooking like grandma use to do. With ElBoricua.com. I’ve been cooking up all of my old favorites including killer alcapurias and perfect pasteles in less the 2 hours start to finish. So my advise for all of you Modern Latinas, stop calling mom for the old family recipes and check this site out trust me you’ll be Hooked!!!

Did I mention no need for all of the manual guayando, I have two words for you FOOD PROCESSOR!!!

More Pic's of the SOOOO ME Room