Doña Cecilia



          Last week for Spring Break, I spent five days in Bogotá, Colombia.  I had lived there for over a year as a Fulbright Fellow in 2002-2003 and return about every two or three years to visit friends who I now consider my family.  Previous to this trip, I had not gone back since the Fall of 2008.  Bogotá is my favorite city in this world.  I’ve lived in five countries and nine cities and still, it’s Bogotá.  I love it because it’s beautiful, international, historical, delicious, cultured, smart and full of books.  I love it for all these reasons and even still, my affinity runs deeper. 

              This affinity, this connection to a country so far removed from the country I was born in or the country I grew up in, is hard to explain.  I guess the best way I can explain it is like this; when I am in Bogotá, I never get lost or scared.  I have intuition there.  I can always navigate people or public transportation with ease to find my way.  Ask me the first thing about which bus to take to get from my old apartment building in Vitória, Brazil to the mall across town, and I have no idea.  In Brazil, I couldn’t tell you how to get anywhere beyond walking distance to the school where I worked, the bank, the supermarket, my waxist, and the beach.  Beyond a five-block perimeter, I am totally lost.  But when I am in Bogotá, I never get lost.  It’s an energy.  The ground always feels really familiar, even when I am just discovering a new part of the city.  Even if everyone just assumes I'm Japanese, I hardly ever feel out of place there.  My Colombian friend Paula said it best when I tried to explain it to her one time in England.  I was telling her how much I loved Bogotá, how amazing and familiar it always felt.  She just looked at me and said, “Oh, you must have lived there in a past life.”  (She gets it because her past-life city happens to be Rome, Italy). 

            I get along better with Colombians than Taiwanese people.  This breaks my father’s heart but it’s true.  I got really lucky when I lived there in 2002.  Because I worked in the feminist movement, most of my closest friends to this day are Colombian women who are brilliant, have traveled, speak different languages and care about the world and its people.  And most importantly, they have all opened their homes, hearts and families to me at one time or another and not once ever allowed me to feel like I was alone in that foreign city.  Because of all these reasons, Bogotá is like home. 

            Yet, as much as I love to return home, this trip in March was more of an emergency trip.  I had originally planned to go in June, but my friend Carolina’s mom was on her death bed.  I never even knew.  I mean yes, I knew she had cancer but she has had it for two years now and I just assumed that she was fine, that her treatments were working, and that she would be okay.  So I was shocked when I called Carolina a few weeks ago to tell her that I would be there in June when she said, “well, I hope my mom is still here.”  I couldn’t believe it, I had no idea.  I started crying and tried to work out a way in which I could get there, fast.  I couldn’t really afford it at that moment, hence the June date.  I fell asleep that night and woke up at 5 the next morning to read, thinking about what Carolina had said.  I had to get there.  And as the beautiful synchronicity of the moment, God and the universe would have it, my mother, about an hour later, walks into my room and says to me, “Tina your frequent flyer miles expire today so if you’re not going to book a ticket, give them to me.”  I booked my ticket to Bogotá.

            Carolina was a friend from Los Andes University when I took classes there during my Fulbright.  I don’t remember how we crossed paths exactly on campus but I remember clearly the first day we had lunch.  It was in El Corral, the upscale hamburger joint on campus.  She spoke English because she had lived in Australia and she told me “I LOVE hip hop music” which was strange for a Colombian girl.  From her, I learned quickly that in Colombia, if you are going to be late for anything, all you have to do is repeat the words “Que pena” profusely to absolve you of your untimeliness.  She also told me that she had come from a family of die-hard Communists.  “Tina, my father studied in the Soviet Union in the 1970’s and both of my parents were members of the Patriotic Union.*” Don Samuel, her father, describes his time in the USSR a little differently.  He says:  “Yes Tina, I remember those labor camps, we would eat the same shit everyday…”. 

             I would almost always stay with Carolina in Bogotá when I lived there and when I went back to visit.  When I was sick or my apartment needed to be fumigated, I stayed with Carolina.  When I went to visit after returning to the States, I stayed with Carolina.  They often invited me to their weekend home in Anapoima, Colombia.  Some of the best and most memorable conversations I ever had in Colombia were   

with Don Samuel and Doña Cecilia (her mom) about Pasto (the region they are originally from), the Patriotic Union, social movements, politics and the news.  Doña Ceci was always a character.  Like Don Samuel, she 

Don Samuel, yo y la Doña Cecilia en Anapoima, 2006

 had been a Chemistry professor at La Nacional (one of the best universities in Bogotá which is historically leftist.  Sometimes the year needs to be extended due to the constant protests).  She was a total ballbuster with everyone.  She would say to me, “Tina, I saw those women in Pasto and they would come to me and say, ‘Oh, my husband hit me…’ and I would get so mad and say, COME ON, YOU JUST PICK UP THAT FRYING PAN AND WHOOP HIM BACK!”  (Hilarious in Spanish complete with hand gesture of grabbing imaginary frying pan.) Many a time Ceci and Samuel have made me wonder why my parents can’t be Communist heathens too :(

They also put up with all my bullshit.  The elephant that is always in the room when I hang out with them or their extended family is the one time I went totally crazy when Carolina invited me to a family Sunday outing during my time living there.   The only reason I had gone was because she swore we would be back at a certain time because I had something due the next day in school.  I was naïve though to not know that a Colombian family outing on a Sunday never has a clearcut expiration time, especially if they drive you into the mountains and decide to stop and eat at every single meat or dessert place along the way.  By 8pm I’d had it, I felt trapped and it started to piss me off that Andrei, her brother, was driving so fast down the narrow curves of the mountain that I started getting really scared.  I pleaded with him to slow down but he wouldn’t stop and went on and on about how I couldn’t boss him around.  So at yet another restaurant on the side of the mountain that night, in front of Carolina, uncles, aunts, Doña Ceci and Don Samuel, I began to yell like a crazy person across the table at Andrei, throwing at him whatever Spanish profanities I could conjure up in my mind.  I was so mad that I was in tears and the words could barely even come out right.  On the way back into the city, I didn’t ride with him but with Carolina's cousin and before we even got to the apartment building, I jumped out of the car at a corner and took a cab back to my apartment.  Okay so yes.  That was totally crazy.  But they forgave me and never turned their back on me.  And I loved them for it.

So what do you mean that I will never see Doña Ceci again? 

Sitting in the waiting room at the Santa Fe hospital last week was surreal.  One of those things where you can’t really integrate the moment with what is actually going on.  I only lost it once (of course, in front of Carolina’s extended family) when I started crying hysterically and Carolina had to come out of her mom’s room to tell me “Hey Tina, just remember that you’re here to comfort me okay?” before I stopped.  By that point, her mom was already in and out of consciousness. 

  

After a long day in the hospital.  Caro, me Tania, Andre, more friends and family
March, 2011


             I got to see Doña Ceci twice.  The first time, she couldn’t talk and could only nod her head.   It felt like I wasn't even seeing her because nothing on that bed was her.  Doña Ceci was never literally or figuratively shrunken, immobile with tubes throughout her body with an inability to move or speak.  During that first visit, I couldn’t feel the moment because she wasn’t there. 

                The second visit was better, even if it was on the day that Don Samuel had called Carolina and Andrei at seven in the morning to hurry and get to the hospital quick.  I had stayed with them at the apartment the night previous but awoke when I saw Andrei grabbing clothes and bustling about the room where I was sleeping and asked him, “What’s going on?”  He said, “We’re going to the clinic.  I think my mother is going to die today.” 

                 By the time I got there, Ceci’s condition had stabilized.  It was a false alarm.  She had had trouble breathing the night before and the doctor thought that this would finally be the end.  But she was “okay” again.  I arrived and saw their long-time employee Lolita come out of the hospital room with her 17 year-old son David, in tears.  Ceci had always loved them both and been another mentor for David.  Carolina asked me if I wanted to go in.  I honestly wasn’t sure.  I didn’t think I should be there anymore.  These last moments should be for family.  I didn’t want to use up her precious energy with anymore of my bullshit.  “No Tina, go.”  Carolina urged. 

I walked in and there was Ceci but this time she was sitting up and looked right at me.  I was slightly at a loss.  I told her how much I loved her, how much of a hero she was to me and that my parents were thinking about her.  I kissed her hand, kissed her cheek and then stopped talking.  She just stared at me for a few seconds before she said in a soft voice but still, matter-of-factly:

“Tina, you haven’t said anything to me.”

“OH!  You want me to keep going!!!??!”  Now I knew even less what to say.  “Uhhh, okay, well can you believe that I still don’t have a boyfriend?”  I said, now half-laughing.

            She just stared at me, somewhat blankly with a sad expression and then said,  “What a pity.  So much knowledge.”  And after that, she wasn’t coherent anymore.

Oh Doña Ceci, ballbusting until your last breath.  How much I love you woman!  I left.  Those were the last words she said to me and that was the last time I ever saw Doña Ceci.  She died the day I got back to the States. 

            I’ve been sad ever since.  It’s been a week now and everything just feels harder.  I don’t want to be here.  I want to be there.  Even after only five days there, it’s strange to be in Buffalo again, walking down the halls of U.B., seeing snow, being with Americans.  It’s weird and there are very few people that I want to talk to.  I also can’t feel my blessings at this moment.  I’m a little handicapped.  My body seeks gratitude but sadness wells up in its place. 

            But I need to try.  I have to move on.  Finals are in a month and a half for God’s sake!  So here I go:

 Dear God, thank you for letting me see Doña Ceci one more time.  I know I was supposed to be there.  You are amazing with your ways.  What a gift she was.  God, she wasn’t a “believer,” but I know that you don’t really care because her heart could easily compete with her brain to fill the Campín stadium in Bogotá.  Thank you for all the time spent with her, everything I learned, everything she gave.  Don’t let me take her last words for granted.  Sure, she may just have been sad that I don’t have my partner yet, but God, I know she was also sad because I had studied and traveled so much that in a way, it was her way to say, "Tina, you've been given so much, do something more constructive with it."  Help me fulfill her wish.  Thank you.  And God, be with Carolina, Don Samuel and Andrei.  They are like family to me.  Take care of them now and always, let me see them again as much as I can, as soon as I can. 

               God, let this little tribute be the end of my sadness and the beginning of a new day.  Let me be able to feel that day again, grateful for your many gifts because I am grateful.  Thank you. 

            And Ceci, Doña Ceci, Gracias por siempre darme el amor, a veces no merecido, que usted siempre me había dado.  Gracias por siempre cuidar de mí y ofrecerme todo que usted tenía cuando yo estaba cerca.  Siempre la voy a recordar cuando me toca luchar por alguien.  Acompañeme por fis y ayúdeme con las fuerzas que usted siempre tenía y que voy a necesitar en esos momentos.  Gracias por hacerme reir siempre y enseñarme que más allá que pilas o cualquier otra cosa, una buena lucha requiere mucho amor y dedicación.  Nunca me voy a olvidar de sus enseñanzas.  No tengo nada más que decir sino gracias, la quiero mucho y que desde miércoles de la semana pasada, Bogotá jamás sería lo mismo con su ausencia. 

Adios mi Cecilia bella. 

   

With Carolina and Doña Cecilia in Bogotá, September 2008



Familia Feliz (Andrei is in England doing Grad School), 2008

*The Patriotic Union was a political group formed by ex-guerrilla members who were allowed to de-arm and demobilize in exchange for legitimate participation in the Colombian political process.  All their democratically viable candidates were murdered in the mid 1980s.

 

             

Reflections from a Law School Bathroom

For the record, I have cried publically, twice, so far in law school.  Mind you we are just beginning our second semester. 

The first time was last semester in ConLaw when we started going over all the classic civil rights cases.  Plessy, Brown, Katzenbach v. Morgan…  Once we hit Korematsu, I lost it.  And it was totally awkward because I sat in the front of the room of hundreds, on the left.  There was no standing up and casually walking out of there.  I was trapped and there was nothing I could do to suppress the tears or the sniffling.  I think I actually started heaving a little.  Laura, who sat next to me from my section, wrote frantically on her notes,  “WHAT’S WRONG???”  When I could not calm down she later turned to me and asked, quite rationally, “well, can’t you just meditate?”  Before I knew it, a small pack of tissues landed from behind on my table in front of me.  (Thank you Stewart!)  I began to wrap my face and head in the scarf I was wearing so pretty soon it looked like I was wearing a navy blue and cream plaid flannel hajab.  Since the earth had not kindly opened up and swallowed me at that moment, it was all I could do to disappear. 

What had happened was that I had been transported.  Ten years ago at the same school, I learned all these cases for the first time.  But then it had been different.  I was a young Political Science major and I really believed in everything.  I believed in the world and I had faith in everybody and everything.  Most of all, I believed in my own power, that I had power, and I was going to go out into the world and stop these injustices from happening anymore.  God had been generous with me,  I had gotten the Fulbright, went to Colombia and afterwards had the opportunity to study in one of the most prestigious universities in the world.  Yes, I was privileged and I was going to infiltrate and make a difference in the system. 

Funny because once I arrived to England and started my grad degree, things didn’t go quite as planned.  Imagine my shock when the department I had gotten accepted to, Land Economy, spent most of its time on English Town and Country Planning.  And I had thought I had come there to learn ways to create land reform in countries of armed conflict.  When told that everything was “Economics” and not just leftist ranting, I was forced to then watch the world renowned Economists fight over the most pressing concern of whether or not Economics was a hard science.  Is it Math???  I don’t know???  Just throw in some more numbers and models that only mathematicians can understand and then call the chart “Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa.”  (By the way, no one ever actually said that but that’s what it pretty much felt like.  I did have a professor who suggested that slavery in the U.S. would have ended on its own anyway because it was losing its economic viability because slaves began to shirk.  Sure that’s hearsay but it did happen and for one of my exams, I wrote a 15 page paper on why I thought she was wrong.)  However, what I DO have on tape, (because I used to tape all my lectures in one of my favorite classes) was how land reform should be accomplished in the following way, “you do as the Americans did with the Homestead Act.  You send all the European settlers out West.  Sure it wasn’t a good thing if you were an Indian but…”  This was the second oldest university in the English-speaking world. 

        

My friend Nicho, Paula, other friend Tulika and Tulika's mom

I had two best friends at the time, one was a Swedish girl named Anna and the other was my Colombian friend Paula.  I met Paula in French class and we bonded for the most obvious reasons.  (Just imagine me squealing in the middle of class, “TU ES COLOMBIENNE!!!!” JE VIENS DE LA COLOMBIE!!! and forcing her to hang out with me until we became friends.) But Anna, (my liebling) and I met on separate terms.  I don’t know how it started but existentially mental people are like magnets, we always find each other, anywhere.  We played football (soccer) together for St. Edmund’s.  She was your typical and gorgeous, blonde hair, blue-eyed Swede and I was, well, crazy little Asian-American me.  She was a Botanist?  (Sorry Liebling, I can only remember that it was an environmental subject and that you were always belligerent about tuna fishing off the coast of Ecuador).  Anyway, the first day we hung out off the soccer field, I learned her story.  Before Cambridge, she had travelled the world with the money she had received from her father’s inheritance when she was young.  She ran with the Russian cocaine circuit in Israel, travelled all throughout Africa and her scariest moment was when she made it through a checkpoint in Johannesburg solely because “I was white, Tina.”  Her best friend was murdered by a drug dealer in South Africa.  She loved science fiction novels.  She couldn’t sleep either.

            Anna and I would often go running together and went to the same “counselor,” or free, on-campus therapist.  Her name was Leslie.  Nice, plump, a little-older than middle-aged British woman.  Much better than the first therapist Anna used to go to who used to say things like “Oh don’t stress out, school is hard but everything will be okay.”  (That is the most cliché thing a therapist at Cambridge could ever say since it is notorious for mental disorders, depression and rampant drug use.)  But the problem wasn’t school.  (How could it be?  I spent most of my classtime in Café Nero with Paula.)  I don’t know why, but Leslie got it.  Anna and I both loved Leslie.  She got it.  She understood that, no, it wasn’t an exam we were upset about but more like we were having problems reconciling all these pretentious theories, castles and callous formalities with well, the rest of the world.  It’s a little difficult to go from the daily realities of social cleansing, war and displacement to old white English men trying to prove that Economics is really Math.  Leslie not only understood us but did the most perfect thing ever, at times made us feel like what we were saying was the most, natural, blasé thing ever.  She used to fall asleep during our sessions.  “OH MY GOD!”  Anna exclaimed when I asked her if she did that to her too, “She does that with me too!  And I think I’m telling her the juiciest, most interesting story ever…”

            So today, I cried again.  This second semester of law school began full-fledged this week and it was stressful.  We were all stressed.  All the doubts I had in my mind last semester of “Really Tina, what the fuck are you doing here after you promised yourself you would never put yourself through academics again” began to re-root in my mind and become firmly planted.  I cried yesterday because my internal fight or flight was telling me to put the book down and stop reading before I was plunged into that hideous battle with insomnia again.  I didn’t understand any of the ten pages it took me two hours to read in my CrimLaw book.  I came downstairs and was shaking.  “Stop it.  Stop it Tina.  It’s a different moment now.  Stop.”

            Everyone has been stressed.  And today when I sat in Property and began the group project, I was already a little tense from the night before.  Our row had been assigned to answer questions as a group.  The girl at the end who led our group was eager to get her voice out, a little irritated but answering the questions, making it a point to let us all know that she had spent an exorbitant amount of time reading and outlining the night before.  I asked her to re-read one of the answers she was telling us and where she had found it in the book.  She said she didn’t know and had it in her outline because “I always outline everything I read every night.”  She was quite vocal, making it a point that the professor who sat in earshot could hear her.  I asked her if I could see it because I didn’t understand the way she was telling it to me.  She snapped at me “well if you want to see it, you can come over here and look at it.”  (She was four people down from my row.)  Reluctantly, she conceded and passed me her outline.  I didn’t know where in it she was referring to so I got up, walked over to her and asked her if she could show me.  She really didn’t like this and made it clear.  I began to get upset too because I felt that all the attitude was unnecessary and she was yelling at me because I didn’t know where exactly she had written down what she was saying.  I told her, “I’m sorry, but I have a learning disability where I don’t understand everything when people say it out loud so I have to read it.”  Then she pointed it out but I was mad that I had to say that.  Really mad.  I told her to check her attitude and stop speaking to us like that and yes, I gave her the hand.  She went off “don’t you EVER put your hand in my face…”  When the groups reconvened and class resumed, I got up, visibly upset, went to the bathroom and cried until class was over. 

            I obviously cannot be a litigator.  And this is not about making her look bad.  She was stressed too and I’m sure she felt like we were all a bunch of free riders at that moment.  But I was upset because yes, on her side she was right, she was cutthroat and she would go far in this field.  I spent the whole time crying in the bathroom wondering if I still even wanted to be in this field.  I should go back to teaching little kids how to paint.  But that gets boring.  So I’m between intellectually-stimulating adults who are rewarded for acting like douchebags and loving kids.  There must be a middle ground.  Maybe I can teach law to five year olds?

            I’m okay now and no, not all my law school classmates are cutthroat or mean.  On the contrary, I ran into many of them in the bathroom (yes, because I was still there when class ended) who asked me if I was okay and didn’t just walk away when I nodded.  One girl who I didn’t even know had witnessed the whole thing just said to me when I told her I was fine, “Don’t worry, that girl snaps at everyone, even professors, she just thinks she’s better than everyone because she graduated in three years.”  No, no I insisted, all this really wasn’t about her. 

            And it isn’t about her.  So what is this about?  Understanding.  Last semester, I had noticed the girl who had yelled at me, (who is a youngin', but a very intelligent one) because she was always vocal in ConLaw.  I had always been impressed with her knowledge and how well-prepared she was.  I don’t know how, but I found out through the gossip line that she was trying to transfer into a better school, (I think it was Georgetown) and that she was a staunch Socialist.  So basically, what had happened today in Property was that I ran into the me ten years ago, and she had yelled at me. 

            God, bless her, bless this moment and bless us.  May her path be fulfilling and may she have all the success she desires.  Being a Socialist in this day and age is a rare and noble thing.  Especially for someone her age.  May she carry it out and make use of her intelligence and education in a way that is much more effective than I was able to.  And God, please be gentle with her when you teach her that the biggest power that we all have is not what we do in the movement, but how we treat others and create the world around us.  That was definitely difficult for me to learn too. 

             On my dresser is a postcard that Anna sent me after Cambridge for Christmas, a black and white postcard of the destroyed town center of Cologne in 1945, after World War II.  On the back she wrote:

                        Hello Tina,

            Maybe you’ll think this is the most depressing Christmas card you have ever received, but for me – and I hope that I can share this – [it] symbolizes the enormous survival capacity that exists in humans. They shelled Karneval and ripped the piss out of the Austrians and the Swiss, even though around them was total destruction.  It does not matter which city you look at, London, Berlin or Cologne, it’s all the same.  Seeing this picture also kind of puts ____ events in a bit of perspective as well – you don’t think!  However, as humans are only 50 years later people start to forget, and even worse: remember the events overly one-sided.  Perhaps what I wanted to say is that most people don’t get it and will never do but it’s ok.  Maybe the point of struggle to fight to rebuild and heal is to have those few hours of Karneval in February and walk through the destruction and laugh, not at it but to be alive.  It is the single meeting, the one life, no the one second of reflection over an old photograph that makes everything worth it.  And no coca-cola colored, dressed old man in the white beard is going to tell me anything else!

            BIG HUG + Happy Christmas!

            -Anna Z.

The Liebling and I on my birthday in Cambridge.
Ich Liebe Dich Anna. 

          

           

Je suis Tina!!! :))))

                    Hello, my name is Tina and I am currently a law student in Buffalo, New York.  Since I spend most of my time pursuing a degree that is becoming obsolete by the nano-second, I figured I might as well whore myself out to blogger-world in the meanwhile.  I’ve just started, but bear with me.  I don’t want to waste everyone’s time just converting all of my random thoughts into virtual spew (I must save that for my classes!) so for now, I guess I will just share a few tidbits about me and my motivation.

So basics about me:

1)      I’m 31. 

·         Not too old to be old.  Not too young to be young.  Caught in the middle.  I enjoy it and I’m grateful for the life I have.  Really, I am.  I haven’t always been but I’m getting there, to that place of gratitude where you realize, it’s going to be okay.  You can’t hide too well on these blogs so if I sound bitter or angry or sad, you’ll sense it.  But mostly I like to keep myself between zen and flabbergasted over the current state of world affairs.  But then I go zen again.  This can go on all day.  Meditation has changed my life. 

2)      I am unmarried and probably mest-gene deficient.  

·         I love kids more than anything.  I love my friends who have kids.  But, I’m not sure that I actually want one for myself.  Could I change?  Sure.  But right now I have a dog and even THAT’s difficult.  I love him more than life itself (will post picture), BUT nothing makes me more angry than having to stop reading a book or cooking myself a meal to take him out and take a shit.  I mean I do it, because I have to, but I resent it.  It’s like that.  Also, I suspect that all my co-dependent enabling has given him a slight Elektra complex but I’m not really sure. 

(It’s just that sometimes he starts panting when I cuddle with him…AAAHHHH, nevermind.)

3)      The current state of young American females depresses me. 

·         My sister (25) and cousin (21) are youngins.  I go to a state law school with a bunch of youngins.  Being 31, sure, I’m not old, but I’m not a youngin.  For me, a “youngin” is someone who has internet on their iphone or blackberry, grew up in the social media generation and knows how to do crazy things like add a hyperlink to a blog (which I will accomplish one day)!  They grew up in the land of reality T.V. and think that fame through sheer overexposure and no talent is okay.  They watch shows like “Kendra” or “Girls Next Door” and forget that those girls, as nice as they are, are hookers.  Kim Kardashian is their overlord.  Don’t get me wrong, the Kardashians are glamorous, and yes, the asinine shit that they say can be totally endearing and entertaining but they have completely retarded the growth of female intellectual development and quashed whatever previous desires for substantive rights we used to have.  I mean, yes, marriage and family are important but surgerying yourself to make you look hot enough so you can fuck your way into a marriage?  That makes me sad. 

4)      I was born in Taiwan, lived in Los Angeles as a child and moved to Buffalo when I was 9. 

·         I also lived in Venezuela, Colombia, England, Brazil and Miami in my 20s and am back in Buffalo again.  I consider Buffalo my home but I would like to go back and visit some of my ex-homes and tape them and share them with whoever is reading this.

5)      Last and most important thing for now before I force myself to outline Deterrance Theory.  I meditate and LOVE the spiritual world. 

·         I love this notion that everyone is a part of me, a piece of me and I am a piece of them and everything is as it should be.  After a crippling depression in my mid-20s, I embarked on a spiritual path (now mind you, this is just for me, it doesn’t work for everyone and if someone else had experienced depression and had to take a more chemical path that is just fine too, no shame in that game) but I began to read and yes, manifest many things.  One thing I realized is that the message is universal.  It didn’t matter if I were reading Deepak, Khalil, Rumi or Miguel Ruiz, the message was, essentially, the same.  For my 30^th birthday, I went to the Amazon Jungle and met a Shaman who had no access to electricity and lived in an indigenous hut about a kilometer into the jungle.  Even he had the same message.  The universal, mindful one.  This isn’t a spiritual blog but when I have more time, I am willing to share.  This path has done so much for me, but, the most important thing?  It’s taught me to rein in my ego and put that massive beast in the corner where it should be.  Of course it never stays there (or I wouldn’t be here writing) but at least I can now have a handle on her. 

                  I wish you all peace and good-will my friends.  Even to Kim, Snooki and those other girls who are distracting America while the Tea Party is toting guns into town hall meetings and putting forward good-looking history revisionists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4SuzEWI_0o&feature=player_embedded# who are scarily influential yet like to make shit up and pass it off as factual information.  Even them.  Why?  Because no matter what, we are all humans, trying to play the game and we can only do our humble part.  And of course, in the big scheme of things, we are unimportant and this moment is really as it should be.

Good Night!

 My little panter...

Me in the Amazon Jungle...