Posted by rock at 08:27 PM on March 15, 2004.
Posted by rock at 08:45 PM on February 14, 2004.
| "Thought flows in terms of stories - stories about events, stories about people, and stories about intentions and achievements. The best teachers are the best story tellers. We learn in the form of stories." Frank Smith |
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My Tia Sisi--my dad's little sister (her mother was the dancer)-- is one of the people in my family I'm closest to. We think alike--well I mean in the sense that we believe people can talk through anything--and we always do. It's not always easy to find family members who can talk things through without judging, so I count myself lucky. 
There she is in my Abuela's arms--click on the picture to get a better look. One of my earliest memories is the first Christmas I can remember, when I was about 3 years old. I remember waking up on the sofa bed at my Abuela's apartment and next to me, like a little meowing kitten, was my Tia Sisita, just recently born. Abuela and Sisita lived in Hollywood, right off Sunset Blvd. My dad would take my sisters and I over to my Abuela's on weekends. We'd have dinners of homemade cuban food like you just can't get in any cuban restaurants--puerco asado, arroz blanco, frijoles negros, ropa vieja, and platanos, oh yeah... the best platanos (tostones) I've ever tasted! We'd have alot of fun rollerskating those Hollywood sidewalks in the 1970's. And Sisi likes to remind me that we played "school" alot and I was the teacher. Well, I actually became a teacher in 1989! http://aces.tabulas.com/rock/thumbs/5074_j77N2.jpg That's me, during my second year of teaching in my 1st grade classroom on Halloween-click to get a better look. You know... I never wanted to be teacher. My mother was a science teacher, I'd seen her struggles with unruly students, staying up late grading tests, and striking for higher wages. I didn't want that for myself. I was going to be a psychologist, then a sociologist. But, during my last year in college I read an article about education in a buddhist magazine and that was it--I decided to teach. Tia Sisi hadn't wanted to teach either! During my 2nd year teaching she came to visit my classroom a couple of times. She became inspired after sitting in on one of my parent teacher conferences during which a parent thanked me for teaching his daughter to read because now she was teaching her mother to read! 
It was an amazing moment, very joyful and profound. With teaching, you're always planting seeds and you don't always realize the far reaching effects of what you do. This was one of those rare times when the effects of your teaching reveal themselves. Sisita ended up teaching kindergarden at my school a few months later! There's Tia Sisita, with her kindergarden class--click on it. We had a monopoly on the kinder/Gr. 1 trajectory for several years! It was alot of fun. And, our students could never understand that she was my aunt since I'm older than Sisi. They just couldn't wrap their brains around it. So, they used to say that Tia Sisita was my Tia Abuela (Grand Aunt)--to my great delight! 
It's funny that we both just seemed to fall into teaching and that teaching just seemed to come naturally to us both. It seemed to be in our blood. Well, apparently it is in our blood and that fact goes way back. Take a look at this picture of my great-grandmother, Fidela, sitting in her turn of the century Cuba classroom, surrounded by her students. Sisita brought this picture out of Cuba 4 years ago, when she took my Abuela (her mother) on her one and only return trip to Cuba--44 years after Abuela left Cuba. Strange how things happen, isn't it. Sometimes you think you're making a choice... and sometimes it's really just fate. The tough thing is trying to figure out which is which...
Posted by rock at 12:42 AM on February 8, 2004.
| "There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it." George Bernard Shaw "To you I'm an atheist, but to God I'm the loyal opposition." Love and Death, Woody Allen |
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Between the mid 1960's to the late 1970's, my Abuelos had a store on Brooklyn Avenue in Boyle Heights. El Encanto (The Enchantment) was a wondrous place--a small store filled with religious items such as santitos, rosaries, mantillas, and prayer books, along with a few things imported from Spain like Maja powder and castanets. Here's one of my favorite pictures of myself, my sister, and my Abuelos in front of El Encanto. That's me on the left. See all the santitos and crucifixes? Click on it to get a better look.
I was surrounded by catholicism, went to mass on Sundays, read the bible stories, and prayed EVERY night. When it came to religion, I was exposed to nothing other than the straight and narrow. Being very contemplative and observant, I'd sit at the entry of the store on one of my Abuelos folding rocking chairs that we had given them by saving up Green Stamps, and I'd watch the people who walked past. The parades of people marching past always made me wonder--about their lives, where they were all going, what they believed. I watched the nuns that came into the store, the people who bought the santitos. El Encanto was a quiet oasis that fulfilled my inherent need--to think and observe. The santitos really interested me--staring out from behind the glass store cases, perfect and admired. I was never scolded but it was very clear to me that I should not touch or play with them as they were fragile and to be respected. But, sometimes... hee, hee, hee--I played barbies with them. Mary and the baby Jesus, along with a few of their friends, would have whole adventures. "Blasphemy," you say? Perhaps... but I realized very early that whatever religous/spiritual power there might be was not in the santitos themselves but in the persons buying them. When I was about 9 years old I became aware that I could not look at a sign without automatically reading it. I'd sit in my mom's big old green plymouth as she drove, trying to look at the billboards without having my eyes register the meaning of the words in my brain. I couldn't do it and that puzzled me. It didn't make sense. If I had learned to recognize the meaning of the words, it meant I had taught my brain to do so. If I could do that then surely I could teach my brain not to register meaning. hmmm... So, I began to try to teach my brain not to think. I would lay down, close my eyes, and concentrate... on nothing--nothingness. Each time my mind thought, "I did it," I realized I had made meaning and I started over again until the same thing happened. I was able to do this for longer and longer periods of time. 
When I was a 15, I discovered Buddhism and realized that's what I was. I was buddhist! I had contemplated, even taught myself to clear my mind and meditate without even knowing what it was. I wasn't against catholicism or any other religion. But, buddhism just seemed right--as if it were in my blood and I began to practice it in earnest. One day, when I was in my 20's, my Abuela asked me how I could practice buddhism when I had been raised catholic. I explained that it just felt natural to me. During our conversation she told me that her Tio Bartolo, her mother's brother, had been a Theosophist. 
Apparently, Tio Bartolo was some sort of minister. My Abuela recounted that he had a beautiful gown or robe of embroidered white linen, that he wore when he performed ceremonies. He even traveled to Los Angeles in the 1920's to attend a lecture with Krishnamurti. I was very interested by this fact. So... not everyone in the family followed the straight and narrow as I had been led to believe! But, how did Tio Bartolo find Theosophy? I'm not sure. But, I do know that President McKinley authorized the use of government transportation to take a group of theosophists to Cuba in February 1899, with large supplies of food, clothing, and medicines. For the next few years, groups of cuban children, orphaned after the war, received care and education from the theosophists. From 1906 to 1909, they opened three Raja Yoga schools--in Pinar del Rio, Santa Clara, and Santiago de Cuba. News travels fast on an island, and somewhere along the way my Tio Bartolo came to find a different way of practicing religion and viewing the world... just as I did.  |
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| Raja Yoga students at Egyptian Gate and Peace Tree, San Juan Hill, Cuba, 1910 TheosophicalSociety |
Posted by rock at 02:47 AM on February 1, 2004.
| "It is said that if you move a single pebble on the beach, you set up a different pattern, and everything in the world is changed." The Man Who Was Never Born |
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And...how far would the effects of your choices go? Can one ever know? There was an old "Outer Limits" episode called The Man Who Was Never Born. Martin Landau played a man who traveled back in time to save mankind from a plague. But in the end, when there was no turning back, he realized the changes he made resulted in his never being born. It chilled me then--it chills me now. Choices--cause and effect--I've wondered about choices since I can remember...
I remember... laying on my Abuelos' bed, smelling the cafe cubano Abuela strained through a homemade coladora, and staring at the picture to your right. Click on it. Do you see what I've always seen? ...large as life, sweet, kind eyes and slightly upturned lips--the subtle smile--the bright face. She couldn't have known what was coming. No. She was my mother's sister, and her picture sat on my Abuelos armoire, with a vela and fresh flowers, until their deaths. I'm her namesake. My mother made a promise to La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre--if she delivered my mother (pregnant with me) and my brother (8 years old) safely out of Cuba, my mother would name her first born daughter after her sister. Three months later she named me--Nancy. Here's a picture of Nancy, 13 years old, 3 months before she died. 
Click on it. She died in an accident--a terrible accident--and the choices that were made have haunted my mother all her life. Here's what happened. Abuelo had an old Model T ford he used on the property between his cattle ranch, dairy, and grainery in Bayamo. The train had a stop at Abuelo's grainery, where they'd get off, walk across the street to the overseer's house, take fresh horses, and ride to the vacation home Abuelo had built--a lovely, spanish style house, with red tiled roof. Abuelo had the Model T for scrambling around the land. Sometimes he'd have to put a few drops of gaseoline in the carburator while turning the crank to get it started. You always needed two people for that--one to pour the gas and one to crank the handle. Most times my mom helped. She was older than Nancy. Now, here's where you wonder about seeing things coming--and choices. This one summer day, Abuelo needed help to get the car started. Choices were made--yep, choices--and Nancy obliged instead of my mom. She grabbed the gas can and poured--just a few drops--gently poured--carefull not to spill any on the ground. But, click, click...whoosh a spark ignited and flames shot out of the carburator. Still holding the gas can, Nancy jumped back, spilling the gaseoline on her sleeve. Hungry for fuel, the flames climbed up her sleeve and burned her. Abuelo quickly put out the fire and a cousin of the family, who was a doctor, was called immediately. He said she was fine, but unfortunately she developed a fever. She had recently battled Hepatitis, and was still weak. Family gathered, and someone traveled to Santiago to get plasma. That's all she needed--plasma. Nana says she could hear Nancy moaning for hours. By the time the plasma arrived, Nancy was dead. My mom says it should have been her. You see, she didn't have Hepatitis, so she wouldn't have died. She claims my Abuela cried, "It should have been you!" In her grief--what did she mean? "It should have been you"--helping Abuelo... burned... dead? Did Abuela even say that or did my mother, in her own grief, believe the words spoken? And I wonder...choices... if it would have been my mom, would she have survived? If not, I'd never have been born...
Posted by rock at 10:30 PM on January 29, 2004.
Posted by rock at 11:17 PM on January 28, 2004.
I guess it's in the blood. 
Well, I inherited the thick cuban legs, but none of the talent. Still, I danced my chubby little heart out throughout the mid 1960's. We had this old suitcase record player a neighbor gave us and an old record of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." I'd play "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies," and leap and twirl, practicing the steps I'd taught myself from an old, torn ballet book, while my little sister sat on the sofa, watching and clapping for me. Posted by rock at 11:24 PM on January 26, 2004.
Posted by rock at 10:25 PM on January 26, 2004.
