How Well do You Know Yourself?...

I was at a long weekend getaway with some of my friends, I believe there were 11 of us. A weekend to remember no doubt, one of those that come along perhaps once in a lifetime if you're lucky and it doesn't happen to everyone, although those who understand the value of love and bond will make it happen. Why do some people do and others don't I really don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that when something is important enough to us we make things happen and not everything is important to everyone.

We were an interesting bunch, we came from different backgrounds although somewhere along the way in our childhood our paths happened to cross and we became fond enough of those memories that we wanted to feel that same emotion that we do when people who share lifetime experiences with you come back into your life again. There's already that familiarity, the fond memories to relive, but we are actually making a new friendship, because the memories are lovely but we are living in this now reality that probably has nothing to do with who we were when our paths crossed for the first time.

It's funny because I don't remember us being a particularly close generation. As always there were little groups of friends within the generation who did frequent each other but as a whole we didn't promote many activities to do as a group other than what the school programmed as group activities.

Throughout the years these small groups kept contact with each other since they stayed and didn't move away, but I did, I left when I was only 23 and stopped seeing or knowing from any of them for years and one day I looked back and wondered what had happened to all of them. I really wanted to see how these children that were my little classmates once with the personality that I remembered had wound up as men or women.

This particular group  of 11 was chosen by the friend who organized this long weekend. His family has the most lovely farm in a town in México and Christmas was approaching. The farm has a large main house with several bedrooms and of course living room, dining room, gardens, an enclosed pool. It had other houses around with more bedrooms for guests and another one for the staff who took care of it all, the land, the houses and the animals.  It has a vast piece of land and there was even a stream that ran through the land, one of those places that comes out of your dreams.

The staff also took care of all the guests in this case our group, but I'm sure there have been many people throughout the years that visited there.

Our group couldn't have been more diverse, screen writer, producer,  psychologist, a police woman, a couple of teachers, an art dealer, several of them very wealthy and comfortable with their lives. I remember how I felt in that place, the same way I remember feeling when I was a child in my classroom sitting towards the back, I wonder what kept me sitting there? or what made it so that I would feel that same emotion again 50 years later?

I wanted to discover who they were as adults, it was a small group, we could have written a good screenplay of this magical long weekend because it was that, the fireworks in the center of town, the cemetery that we visited with the little old man who took care of it all these years. It was a cemetery for the British soldiers who once invaded that land. He told us the story that all the tombs had to face in a particular direction I believe it was facing the Queen or England. I couldn't stop taking pictures. My friend even found a tomb that belongs to a relative of his.

We visited a firework factory, went into town to watch the dances, the music and the always amazing Mexican food! My favorite.

We sat that one night around the fireplace and I said lets get to know each other, who are we now, what memorable thing has happened in your life since the last time we saw each other and they looked at me as if I had come from another planet, one challenged me and said you start so I did.

I talk about my life to anyone not because my life is a tragedy or important enough to anyone to know what I do with my days, is important to anyone other than me but because I feel that I have arrived at a place where I can see clearly that it is us who create our own reality and that love is all there is. It took me years of painful search to find that out and now I want to share it. The only way one can teach is through their own experience so I talk about my life with pride not to attract pity or any other emotion for that matter just to illustrate. I don't feel bad about my past, I loved that I lived it and am here to talk about it.

After telling them what my life path had been and where I was at the moment they all stared at me in silence and one of them broke the ice and said "Well not everyone is as comfortable sharing about themselves" another one chuckled at a comment I made, one who had NEVER even as much as glanced at me in all the years we've known each other said "Your efforts is what got us all together to begin with" as if aw poor thing don't feel so bad you did something right. One came to tell me you are behaving like a victim.

Of course nobody said anything about themselves after that, we all just kept on being these strangers that knew each other once. Some of them more because they kept in touch all these years.

I didn't feel the need to tell them I love my life, I don't care how you view it or how sorry you feel for me I love knowing that life experiences have a purpose, that we are not our ego, that we create our own reality, that we rejoice for the success of others, that we connect with others out of love not of fear or judgement. That we should help each other fulfill dreams.

Towards the end of the reunion the psychologist pulled me to the side with a lot of empathy to offer her help, I wanted to give her a hug and tell her don't worry I don't need any help I'm great but instead I listened to what she had to say and funny enough she asked me "How well do you know yourself?" I said I've taken the past ten years of aloneness to get to know myself better so I think I know myself fairly well, OK she said "can you describe the ridges of your fingerprints? any finger. Hm I thought, maybe I should just keep on looking for what's inside of me and see what else I can learn.

How well do you know what this life is all about, how much emphasis are you placing on finding that out while you're here, is there a purpose for you to be here? "How Well Do You Know Yourself!"...

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

55 and Suddenly Alone, What should I do for FUN!

Not long ago I became a senior citizen, and suddenly realized that I took back my life at 50. It took me 50 years to do it, but at least I did it, which is much more than I can say for most people.

Here I was all alone for the first time in my life, separated from a 30+ year marriage, and broke, but if I was going to just sit down and wait until the aftermath, the healing and the adjustment to changes before I started to have fun again, I might forget what it’s like to have fun and not remember how to get it again.

We just have to keep on enjoying the ride no matter how steep it gets, there’ll be coasting just ahead.

I know it works different for everyone, but this is how it works for me.

At first I started to travel all over Europe. I couldn’t get enough of it, I wanted to spend there months and months, perhaps even move there as soon as my kids went off to college, but since like I said I was broke, I had to do the best I could with what I had. Everything outside of the money to support my travel took a second place. Except of course for my kids, they knew they could always come to me for whatever they needed and I would make that happen as well.

I could write books about my adventures traveling in the past 5 years of my life, Europe, Israel, many small towns and cities in Mexico, the United States, Canada, at times I don’t believe some of the things I did, but I continue to LOVE every minute of it, even the things that went wrong for me on my trips, actually I love those more because they are the ones that give the spice to my experiences, and as a Latino woman, I LOVE SPICE :o)

I was sitting at home this morning thinking of something to do. My son was lazy, my daughter is on a trip, and I couldn’t think of anything. All I knew was that I was hungry.

So that brings me to “Los Panchos” in Pacific Beach.

I would describe Pacific Beach as a young surfer’s area. There are many beautiful young people walking around the streets. Tons of restaurants, and cute little boutiques with inexpensive clothes, fast food, supermarkets, hair salons, tattoo parlors, bars with hookah pipes, piano and dance lessons, gyms, there is even a rubber life-size dummy on the street outside a store that says “Punch me with a smile”, and of course I did :o).

There are furniture stores, and smoke shops that sell paraphernalia. And if you walk inside those shops to look around and start asking questions like I do, “Which Pipe works better? Why the different shapes and materials?” The attendant inevitably will look at this 55 year old woman who looks like a Jewish/Mexican mom asking about bongs and pipes, and they will reply, “well you get your tobacco and put it in here” and they are pretty much all the same, “it’s all in taste.” Although I know for a fact that’s not the case, because I happen to have a teenage son!!! OY VEI!

So the last time I was in PB (that’s how its referred to around here), I stumbled into Los Panchos, went in to eat and had this feeling of being back home in Mexico.

There is nothing really special about this place that would necessarily draw people in, just a normal size semi-fast-food type place; there is usually a homeless man outside by the tables picking up the leaves that fall off the trees to keep the place clean, I’m not sure who pays him but you see him with the top of a filing-type cardboard box picking up the leaves and whatever garbage he finds, places it on the boxtop, walks to the closest trash can and empties it, just to go back and look for more trash.

The place looks like any ordinary small restaurant in Mexico City where I grew up and would go to eat tacos every chance I got. It has booths all around and a sign that says “Please come in and have a seat”, kind of like saying “Mi casa es tu casa”. It’s decorated with tacky posters or paintings and banners advertising beer that go all around the place. There's a metal shelf by the side door next to the cashier that holds bundles of tortillas; I forgot I wanted to buy some!

But what will keep me going back to Los Panchos as long as I live in San Diego, is the food and the way I feel when I am in there.

The food is abundant and well priced. First they bring you fresh crunchy chips with spicy tomato salsa and a plate with spicy carrots, chiles and onions. I was so hungry and wanted to order a large plate, but decided to start with three small tacos and see if I still felt hungry after that. I thought for $3.99 for all three tacos, how big can they be? And to drink I ordered “Agua de Jamaica” (hibiscus water) delicious, refreshing, and very healthy for you, and they keep on filling your glass if you want more.

So for example take the three tacos I ate. Each one of them comes with two tortillas. They are small and easy to eat, with the right consistency and most of all fresh made. You don’t feel too guilty because they look small, but they have A LOT of meat, seasoned just right, and chopped even better. Then they sprinkle the right amount or fresh chopped onions and cilantro, a couple of slices of lime or lemon for you to squeeze it on the tacos, and you add some of that delicious salsa. The meat was a little greasy, (reminds me of the ones I used to eat as a child) but I figure if that is all I eat all day except for something light at night, then it’s not so bad, and besides, remember you are in PB, you can just keep on walking straight west when you finish your meal, do some window shopping, maybe get an extra piercing on your ears so you can wear two little studs in each, and go all the way down to the beach and jog or walk off the calories and feel invigorated and ready to do something else, like go to Old Town, it’s a very cute area for walking around and people watching, or just go to a movie, they change every week ;o)

I hope you enjoyed what you did with your day.

What should I do for fun tomorrow?!...

Anyone care to join me? :o)