Resolutions

In the east ends of the Island, we awoke today to snow. The sky and ground share the same deep white powdery feel. The only distinction between the earth and heavens are the bare brown trees outlined by pockets of snow deep within it's crevices and perched on it's limbs......White, contrary to popular belief, is not an actual color. It is a reflection of all colors. Perfectly fitting I suppose, for a day such as this, the eve of a new year, a moment to reflect and to prepare to begin again.

Last year, like almost every year, I had a list of things I swore to myself I will get done. Lose weight, get organized, get out of debt, save, be a better mother, stop biting my nails, make more time out for my boys, make more time out for my husband, for my friends, for myself....eat healthier, be present, be open...I will not sweat the small stuff, will write more, paint more, worry less....I will be better, be bolder, be fearless, enjoy more, seize the day, make the most of it....I will be the very definition of balance, I will be zen........Needless to say I ended up heavier, more tired, more stressed, depleted, depressed, nail less, absolutely confused, considerably disoriented and disorganized. The only time management I was able to see was Time managing to paddle and punish me, winning yet again. If you want to set yourself up for failure make resolutions.........

Perhaps my idea of what should be is not necessarily the most rational taking into consideration my age, my mental state, my workload, and my inability to discipline anything, let alone myself.
Perhaps I need to rethink resolutions and try social story strategies, breaking it down into smaller more attainable steps,focusing on 1 goal at a time. Turn that list from typical Resolution list to an IRP (Individual Resolution Program)....Maribel will resist the chocolate 80% of the time.....Maribel will put down that cocktail and exercise 80% of the time.....Maribel will complete what she started 80% of the time......Maribel will learn to accept the 80% and not throw it away because it is not 100%.......Maribel will learn to let go 80% of the time.....

When I was an apprentice under the Artist John Kacere, he would assign certain drawings that I had to do and then observe the way I would tackle a clean sheet of paper. You are a dessert girl, he would proclaim, explaining that I would pay most attention to what I loved ( the human figure and face) and somehow let everything else fade out completely. His great lesson was to pay attention to the whole page, work it from drinks and appetizers to coffee and dessert and then you will leave yourself and everyone satisfied,,,or with heartburn and indigestion....or a hangover....He would say "let go of the first time get it right mentality", work and rework it until you are comfortable with it. Be thoughtful, be studious, be observant....erase mistakes and try again. Round what needs to be rounded, Shade what recedes, highlight what protrudes... Details, subtle and not so subtle, are of paramount importance to the essence of the piece. Everything has a place and purpose....Everything matters.......

So on this whitest of days, on the ends of the Island, I think of all the colors that have graced my year. 2009 has been challenging to say the least. My new years resolution? Tackle this new clean year the same way John Kacere taught me how to look at a sheet of paper. Hopefully a little more patient and forgiving....respecting it's essence, paying attention to it's details..........

Happy New Year

Regrets.....

Anchored by the "what if".....
unfulfilled potential shades
what could have blossomed..............

My Igloo........

Baby it's cold outside!
Over 24 inches of icy glacier like snow outside my door...I think I saw a few penguins skate on by.....Might be an Eskimo's wet dream....but more of a nightmare for my poor hubby and sons who had to shovel out somewhat of a path, and dig out 2 cars....

It's been 2 days of being held hostage by Mother Nature, and apparently no talks of a negotiation are in the works. Two days went by and still our neighborhood has yet to welcome a plow. Nothing. Our block is one deep, slick, densely iced up road that swerves into a new street at each bend without breaking a line....one continuous curvy perpendicular line from one major roadway to another. All I need is a luge and I'm set......
Seriously though, a block that is otherwise safe, now is a frosted slip and slide of a disaster just waiting to happen..... get the popcorn...and the cell phone....I got front row seats.....

Still, in it's North Pole way, it's quite beautiful. The colors of the sky bounce of the white of the snow just like the ocean reflects the summer sky.......every house wears the same white uniform of snowy roof, thick layers of snow lining porches, steps and banisters......Christmas lights on trees glowing through the windows and colorful outdoor lights outlining the homes shine bright....
Gabe tells me it looks just like Christmas now....he is aware of what it's supposed to look like, the ornaments, the tree, the stockings, the holly and mistletoe, the bows, the sparkling paper,...Rudolph, Frosty, Santa Claus, the Peanuts......he is aware of what it's supposed to smell and taste like...the cookies, the hot chocolate, the candy canes, cinnamon.....he is aware of what it's supposed to sound like...the music, jingle bells, the rustle of the wrapping and unwrapping of presents......For him Christmas has finally become a complete sensory experience....An understanding that Christmas is so layered it becomes a feeling.......
And for me, after so many years, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas simply because little by little I'm learning to exhale as my son is taking in the world around him and learning how to make sense of it in his own way........

Every year after diagnosis my son Will would ask Santa for a cure for Autism and for Alzheimers.
Every year I have continued to ask for the same thing, except my letters were not addressed to the North Pole, they were addressed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue......Perhaps one day an elf without lobbyist affiliations will take it seriously.........

in the meantime...
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....NOT!!!!
I'm dreaming of a sandy warm Christmas.......mine, it'll be white.....white....white.....and maybe we'll be able to get out for Christmas.....if the plow ever comes!!!!!!!!

Clementine is Savoring the Christmas Spirit ....and it tastes like Chicken

The debate over what provisions should be allowed in the universal health care policy has me on edge. Everything that I have heard so far has me a bit worried. Suddenly change seems like alot of the same, which has me questioning...can you really change???? Yes we can what? Obama I love you, but I'm a little confused....

However, the Health care policy is not my pressing issue right now.....There is something sucking the life out of my enjoyment of our Christmas tree....No, it is not the Grinch who stole Christmas.....It's Clementine who is stealing my Christmas ornaments....gently plucking them off of the tree (like selecting a chocolate morsel of delight out of a big box of Godiva) and sucking them down like underage Frat boys with fake id's attack beers and shots of jagermeister at thier first bar.......How she is able to differentiate between the glass ones from the non glass I do not know.... What I do know is that I'm running out of patience as quickly as I'm running out of balls....Christmas ones that is..........

This is Clementine's second Christmas with us. Despite the fact that she slyly eyes the sparkling ornaments with the same lustful look she gives Reeses tail, she has managed to wrap us all around her oversized paw. She is funny, loving, silly, joyous, mischievous, playful and a bit over the top. A complete character. But she is a klepto. We should have renamed her Winona....She has a bit of an issue with authority, mainly she thinks she's above the authority....And she thinks she can get away with just about anything with a tail wag and a kiss on the nose......which, by the way, works......

She fills up the house....granted she's a Great Dane so she fills up any house.....but her energy and her demeanor match any twinkling light on the tree, and glitters as sparkly as any ornament she has devoured.....and digested............and expelled....

Now if I could just get her to leave the tree alone, leave poor Reeses alone, leave poor Lexi alone (my other 2 canine baby loves) and stop jumping on top of me as soon as my husband gets out of bed.....She has fluffed me up like a pillow and I have unfortunately retained the shape!!!!

Which makes me think of just how out of shape I am...and then my mind wanders back....

So President Obama, please do what is right by us and reword " reasonable" and rethink what you are capping, and who you are allowing to control these caps......Many people have lost their homes to caps placed by the health insurance companies you are courting in order to save their lives, battle their cancers, try to recover their children......I and many parents of ASD children understand all too well that "within reasonable treatment" means a complete denial of treatment that can help their child. I shudder to think what it would do to the Alzheimers patients.... If I had $10 dollars for every time I was denied help for my child, I would have been able to pay for the treatments upfront!!!!!! And still be able to go out to lunch.........

I suppose Universal Health care is really one of my pressing issues........

How about a fair Health Care Plan, one like lets say, the Congress and Senate enjoys...We pay for their health care and they don't refer to that as Socialism......Maybe Santa can put that under our tree...health care for all.....along with a few extra Christmas Ornaments to replace the ones Clementine and Wall Street stole.......

A kiss on the nose goes a long way............

But doing what's right always brings it full circle..........................

Which makes me think of ornaments.........

If you give a pig a pancake........

If you give a pitbull lipstick......

If you give a people what should be a basic foundamental right................

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

Just a few days ago I was carefully weaving the lights between thick bristly branches, making sure each section of our Christmas tree was completely illuminated. With every ornament came a smile. Simple memories attached to each one, some older than I am. Most were bought in anticipation of new arrivals, and in celebration of many milestones. The Popsicle frames with stickers and my childrens kindergarten faces preserved....the quirky snowflake cut outs they wrestled with in their classrooms during holiday craft time....the yearly ornament we buy to add onto our ornamental family history. Our living family tree, full of bling, glitz and lights which is more enticing than the regular family tree full of nuts, quacks and a few hot messes.....ok, so it's the same tree....only with a little more pizzaz.....but no tinsel.....because the dog (and finally after lots of therapy it is just the dog now) eats the tinsel and then it hangs from a whole new area.....enough said....

On Saturday we took the kids to go see the tree of all trees....The super steroid version of trees.....The Rockerfeller Christmas Tree. We drove in from Long Island. The kids were so excited about the city and the tree and the skyline. I was so excited because I was going back home.

When anyone asks me where I'm from, Brooklyn or Queens....I answer I'm a borough girl. I'm Brooklyn born, Queens raised, Manhattan educated and I worked in the Bronx. Ok, the only thing that tied me to Staten Island was a guy I dated while in college, so again, enough said.
New York is more than a state of mind for me, it's a state of being. As a child, when we would go into the city it was a complete sensory experience. From the aroma of the hot salty pretzels to the long thin hotdogs with the relish and onions and sauerkwart lingering, the roasted chestnuts and honey glazed peanuts, to the perfume that would seep from the stores as the doors open and close. That's what I would imagine wealthy homes must smell like. That essence of exotic flowers, delicate, lacy and soft. I would walk down the crowded streets with my mother and brother and it would feel like everyone moved as a unit and I almost had to jog to keep up. The lights, the beautiful buildings, the carefully crafted decorations. I would walk down the stairs in to the underground world of trains in Queens, and I would emerse into the spectacle that is the city. Alice in Wonderland......Mari in NYC......
By the time I was taking the F train in to go to NYU, NYC stopped being such a fairy land for me. It started with the large homeless population that would seek some shelter in the trains, and then I would again encounter laying on the streets, covered by cardboard. Volunteering in a soup kitchen my 4 years there I saw the homeless populations shift from people with obvious mental and addiction issues to the elderly who had gotten evicted from their rent controlled apartments, families who had lost thier jobs and homes. While it was difficult for me to know that there was suffering, those years in the city also opened up a whole new world for me I had no idea existed. The night life, alternative lifestyles, perspectives from all walks of life. NYC is a performance art piece that unfolds in the moment. The stage might be an island, but the audience is the world.

And now, before the tree, I couldn't help but think that perhaps this tradition, this grand gesture of hope and holiday spirit, dances like lights on every branch of this magestic tree. This, our city's history, a family tree, holding everyone's memories...one attached to the other.....glistening.....colorful.....vibrant.......bright.........

Silver bells, Silver bells it's Christmas time in the city...................

Trying to PEACE things together.......

It was easier to summon a Christmas Spirit when the perimeters of my world were confined to a few neighborhoods in Queens and the occasional trip into Manhattan to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Macy's or a Broadway show. Manhattan, was my Rome, all the artistic wonders, all the exquisite things could be found there. Easy to dream when exposure is limited. It's easy to believe in all things magical when your parents are nothing short of magicians. It's easy to believe in Peace on Earth, and everyone living like you do, when everything on television is a song and dance, and your friends exchange similar demands on Santa's elves, and there are parties, and there is excitement. From Thanksgiving to Christmas the anticipation of the big day hung on my breath like candy canes on trees........

Once my world became bigger than my bus route, my Christmas spirit began to ween.....At this point what motivates me are my children....but today, as I go search for the lights and the ornaments for our beautifully shaped tree, I try to make sense of how instead of moving forward as a world community, we can move backwards.......

Yesterday CNN reported that there is a horrifying Anti Homosexuality Bill in Uganda that is up for passage. This Bil if passes it will become a tremendous violation of human rights. There are many Human Rights groups protesting, but sadly, on our local news channels we rarely hear anything this global and pressing until a massacre happens and a beloved celebrity brings a camera crew and appears before Congress seeking help.....Durfur, Mr Clooney, Rwanda....etc, etc.....

This bill has these stunning provisions....ready?.....

Any gay or lesbian convicted of having se will be sentenced at a minimum of life in prison. If a homosexual person is found having sex with a minor, or sex more than once, they may be recieve the death penalty....

Any person found with HIV may be executed

The bill forbids any promotion of homosexuality which means that any organization that works with HIV and AIDS prevention and awareness will be banned.

This information was gathered off of CNN's website.

In other words, on a continent with a severe Aids epidemic, the answer becomes genocide...again....genocide is a big answer isn't it????. How does that happen?

In our own way, we are not much different. Here we say we would never ever do such a horrid thing, it is so barbaric. But every day there is an acceptance to violence against gays. Gay bashing is real. State by State the basic right of marriage is denied, protection of family under a law is denied. Human rights are in many ways denied.

In the Congo, women are being viciously raped, children are being viciously raped, and now it's reported men are being viciously raped by guerilla warriors. Womens rights have been repeatedly violated across the globe and every time you strip things down to justify this behavior you find zeolots distorting religion. Violations of Human Rights like Global Warming effect us all, doesn't matter how much we deny what goes on, or how hard we work to reduce and confine our world to our back yard. It's a ripple that turns into a wave, and if it's not addressed, it's a tsunami......

We need to stop this nonsense and give our citizens a right to marry whomever they please as long as both parties are of age and consent. We need to set the right example instead of pretending to be horrified by the lengths Uganda is about to go to, yet denying our own thier right to a full equal life. How does it come to be that Democracy can be used against advancement?

And I guess if anything is to be done for our brothers and sisters in Uganda who will be persecuted for being homosexuals, hopefully our gay and non gay celebrities will book a flight, bring a camera crew, and start filming documentaries.....and while they are at it. please look into Child soldiers and womens rights again, because nothing much is changing.....and then turn the cameras on us, we still have a lot of work to do......anybody interested in a documentary on what happens to our special needs kids when they grow up??? How about the ones that are able and willing to work and just can't get a job because of the intense discrimantion?????????

Yes Virgnia there is a Santa Claus.....There are lights and decorations to put up......In the season of hope, rituals and routines, songs and dance, Christmas classics, the anticipation that exists in the tiny piece of the world my children play in remains in tact. The universal prayer however, that hangs on my breath now the way candy canes hang on the pine branches, becomes "let us figure this out for our kids, so that thier piece of the world can join the other pieces and coexist in PEACE.....Peace On Earth......Can it be??????

Why NY Why??????

New York, you are breaking my heart. How can it be that the state that hosts one of the most progressive cities on the planet, reject a bill to allow gay marriage?

It used to be that we were taught love is love. Love thy neighbor as thy self, love is a very many splendid thing, how do I love thee? Just as quickly as we were fed bits and pieces of what love should be we were asked to assign an acceptable gender to it, make sure it's the same race, nationality and religion. While we were at it we were asked to make sure similar social classes and educational levels were adhered to. Yet, love is love right?

Love is out of the box. Love is unconventional. Love is layered. As someone who has been married for 16 years, I think I have earned the right to a little insight on this particular institution. From my experience, the focus needs to be put not on the gender of the couple, but on the intent, the understanding, the respect, the profound commitment involved in wanting to share your life with someone, despite the unexpected turns, the difficulties, the celebrations, the moments of reflection or discord....the focus needs to be put on the work it takes to keep a relationship honest and tended to, and the faith it needs to raise above ego, insecurities, vanity, misplaced pride, weakness.....the focus needs to be put on the love between 2 people who want more than anything to belong to each other in a way that feels natural, familiar, complete. Marriage is more than a just a certificate, or a union, it is above all a legal validation that a family with rights now exists. There is a responsibility that transcends the moral calling, and resides in a world of law and order.

Equal rights. We really have to start thinking about what that means. We still live in a place where prejudice still interferes with basic human rights. As a mother of a child with disabilities, I see it first hand in the most frustrating and infuriating of ways. As a Latina, I have had to struggle to rise above preconceived stereotypes, but that is nothing next to what people with disabilities face. And when it comes down to the Gay community, the violence against them, the stereotypes, the fight to be considered a family, the fight for a right to marry....just who are we as a society, as a country, as people to deny others their basic human rights? If we are to believe in a Loving God, then I just cannot see that God coming in between love, but rather blessing it.

When there are too many restrictions on love, how to love, who to love, exactly what does that love become? And when we place restrictions on a group of people and expect them to follow the same laws and be quiet, what does that make us? Funny how segregation finds different ways to reinvent itself.......

"If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere, it's up to you, New York, New York".......

We need to make this right..............