Grandma Almerinda's Kitchen

The smell of cake fresh out of the oven fills the air as Aunt Irineia pours generous amounts of lime glaze on top of the golden brown, slightly burned crust. And that’s the way it was supposed to be! I was home from school; my two youngest siblings just finished their homework and are now playing on the street with the other kids. Neyma, who lives just next door, brings Paulo Renato in his stroller and Juliana in her belly. Dayse comes over with Christiano, just a few days older than Paulo, and Jacqueline in her belly. Funny how those babies always come in pairs. Cousins Monica and Elaine are arguing, as always. Aunt Gloria and her three boys show up from across the street. Silvina and her daughter Silvia are there too. My mom comes straight from work bringing eight loaves of warm French bread that she picked up in the bakery by the bus stop. Grandma Almerinda makes a big pot of coffee. There are not enough chairs in the kitchen, so we take turns. Noise, laughter and stories are passed along with cups and plates. That’s the image that comes to my mind at the mention of the word family.

That scene was played and replayed every day with small variations. It was our ritual, our identity. Those afternoons defined us and our relationship with the world outside. We learned to talk and listen. We learned to trust and keep to ourselves. We learned to pass the bread, but take our slice too. We learned to appreciate imperfection and not care about the burned crust as long as it tastes good. We learned that some people never learn, as Monica and Elaine, now 52 and 47, still argue. We learned to offer our seat when we’re done with our coffee. We learned from the stories, but made the same mistakes anyway. We never used the word love (funny how different cultures save some words like they might wear out), but it was there.

In some way, that kitchen was our womb. A warm, comfortable, familiar place where we belong. Our origin. The place we come back to whenever life becomes too much to deal with. There we found nourishment and shelter, and we couldn’t possibly need anything else. But life takes you places, and that sense of belonging also helped us let go of the blue walls and venture into the big, real, unknown world. And so we did put down our cups, we pushed the chairs under the table, and off we went, to conquer the world!

Time goes by. We move, marry, divorce, our children grow up, we become aunts and grandparents ourselves. Grandma Almerinda is gone... but we are still in her kitchen, whenever we need to just be. That is our true home, our comfort, our haven, our happiness, our heaven, the place we will all come back to someday.

An Unexamined Life

I wanted to post something about Philosophy today. Actually, more about "philosophy" (no capital 'P') but in the end it all boils down to the same thing. Yep... I know I can get dozens of rabid pro and con comments just from that last phrase, but let's not go there right now. I had a rough idea of what I was going to write, but then I remembered a paper I wrote for my Philosophy class a few years ago, and decided to publish that first. The paper was about the movie An Examined Life.

So, here it goes:

My life started when I was about twenty years old. I was in my third year of college, unhappy, my world had changed, my life seemed to have no meaning, and I was seriously considering ending it, but I knew my family would be devastated. So, instead, I started writing in an old notebook, every day, whatever came to my mind. It didn’t occur to me to read what I had written until there was just one page left to write. So I read it, and that was the day when I woke up. I was very surprised by the things I wrote, but even more surprised by the fact that I didn’t know myself. Until that day I was merely an eating and breathing machine, functioning in auto-pilot.

That kind of self discovery is, to me, what Socrates meant when he said that “an unexamined life is not worth living,” and my own story was the first thing that came to mind when I started watching Examined Life.

I was a little disappointed by the movie, because most of the interviewed philosophers seemed (judging from the subjects discussed) to wear a shield that dissociates the person from the philosophy. I don’t think we can really, meaningfully learn anything if we don’t know who we are first. We can read a whole library and still process everything above the surface, without letting the knowledge grow roots inside the essence of who we are, and letting ourselves grow above the surface, being enriched by that knowledge.

It seems to me that is the case of Avital Ronell. She probably has a great deal of “book smarts”, but that appears to be just a coat of varnish on a sterile surface.

Dr. Cornel West, on the other hand, is the extreme opposite. His references to music, life, death, desire and pleasure reveal someone who internalized and digested his books, mixed his studies with his own experiences and emerged transformed by them. His philosophy is as alive as he is. I know exactly what it means when he says “It takes courage to examine yourself.” But his enthusiasm shows that it is well worth the trouble.

What gives us the right to eat meat? I have struggled with that question a great deal. I didn’t eat meat for three years, and I don’t feel that made me a better, or more ethical person. It got to a point where I started to fight friends and family to defend my position, until I realized it was causing me more harm than good. The fact is that death is an intrinsic fact of life. Our bodies are constantly fighting and killing microorganisms in order to stay alive. We kill flies and roaches to protect ourselves. We kill plants. Where should we draw the line? It is not a matter of “right”, but a biological fact that we kill things in order to survive. Otherwise we would have to ask what or who gives a lion the right to kill a zebra.

Michael Hardt approach on Revolution is curious. Dictionary definitions apart, I understand “revolution” as a tool to reach a desired result when other tools were unsuccessfully used, especially in the context of political revolutions in South America. Hardt mentions “learning to do revolution in America”, or “practicing revolution”, but he fails to identify the need for a “South American model” revolution in America. Without a cause, in my opinion, a revolution is nothing more than a criminal enterprise.

And Cornel West is not wearing a seatbelt. Not cool!

Physical Disability

I don't like to talk about this. Not because it's painful to talk about my life experience, but because what I write here is only half of what I really communicate. The other half is in your head.

We all judge what we see, hear, read, or touch, according to our own perceptions and beliefs. That is why it is so hard to find the right words, the right tone, to communicate my thoughts. The very title of this post will elicit a good chunk of your own agenda, and you will try to color me accordingly. I hope your mind is open enough so you can really see me.

You see... I can't give you a list of my afflictions. Because surgeries don't matter. Whether I have one, two, or no breasts, doesn't matter. Whether I limp, whether or not my spine is perfectly straight, whether or not I'm in pain, none of that matters. I'm not trying to gain your sympathy. I just want you to look beyond my imperfections, beyond my ugliness, because what really matters is what's above my neck.

My thoughts, my strength, my refusal to give up, my refusal of your pity, my refusal of your fear. That's what matters.

I am capable.

I can't give up.

Jobless in Deltona

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I wonder if that applies to trying to get a job...

How do you try to get a job? You apply for jobs you think match your qualifications, right? That's what I did... and nothing. After a while you finally get that something is not right, so you try to adjust your course. That's what I did.

Nothing.

Okay, maybe I should lower my expectations... Which is fine. I don't think I'm above any kind of job. I just think my brain can accomplish a lot more than the rest of my body. I don't want to go into details about that on this post, but I have what I consider a mild physical disability, and a good brain that I believe more than makes up for that.

Long story short... in 2006 I accepted a job as a grocery store cashier. Part time, because it seems nobody hires full time employees anymore. My legs almost killed me on the first months. I had to practically crawl to my car at the end of each shift, but I eventually got stronger and used to the physical demands of my job, which really wasn't that bad. I had fun doing my job, and I had great coworkers. But...

In 2009 my husband passed away after a long battle against kidney cancer. I was still a part time associate at my place of employment. And reality hit me. That's not going to cut it. So I went back to school.

Graduated with a 3.99 GPA. Passed my boards. Got registered and licensed. Problem solved!

Not really...

It's been almost a year. I applied to hundreds of positions within a 2-hour-drive radius from my home. Scored a few interviews, and no job.

So here we go again... Well, maybe I should lower my expectations. So I applied for a bilingual job (I speak Portuguese) that had nothing to do with my field of study, but, WTH, a job is a job.

So, here's my dilemma. I understand that if I keep doing the same thing, I'll keep getting the same results, although the advice I hear from everybody is "Keep applying, keep applying!"

I have to do something different, but I have no idea what, and finding a rich husband is out of the question.

So... what now?

By the way, I am 53 years old.