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but Christmas is always on the 25th of December.

Rockefeller Center... I think that the true meaning of Christmas isn’t completely about the birth of Christ, because in actuality Christ was born on a date that isn’t December 25. According to the Hebrew Calendar, he was born around the festival of Sukkot- a Jewish holiday that celebrates the concepts of faith and trust in G-d. I am not Jewish, and I am not eligible to be Jewish by traditional means, but I have many people in my life that became close to me that are Jewish. With that, I think that this holiday with the accurate date of Christ’s birth would be an excellent way to bridge any gaps that may exist between the Christian and Jewish communities.

In any case, what I have found is that Christmas is the one time of year several things happen:

1. People are generally friendlier, nicer, and considerate.

2. This is a great time to be in retail, particularly if you are on a commissioned sales plan.

3. No worries about overeating, everyone else is doing it anyway.

4. Its one of the few times annually that family members re-connect with each other.

Yet what Christmas means to me is really a great way to end a year and start a new one. What better way to experience the joy of giving, wonder at the miracle of life, all with the gift of family?

More thoughts on this holiday season to come…. cheers.

Crushed…

Me reading the paper- Coney Island, Brooklyn Cyclones Field.

Crushed. My grandparents are getting older, my nieces are growing, and my parents would be indestructible if they had someone like me nagging them constantly.

My original blog was “you can never come home again” that saying couldn’t be farther from the truth….at least in my case.

Sure, there were some changes. Vacant lots all over Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens were developed into cookie-cutter luxury co-ops. Some things closed, some things opened. But I did get to see all but one of my best friends. And the love remains the same.

I’m at a personal crossroads, I have attachments here in the islands, but I want to be there to watch my nieces grow up, my parents grow old, and spend more time with my grandparents. I remember why I left, and I wonder if I fulfilled my purpose here.

Well it doesn’t matter at this point, because I am still pregnant for another four semesters. And once I give birth to the piece of paper known as a B.A. then I can make a better decision. What was really amazing was how much and how little the city changed all at the same time.

I was happy that I got to eat Nathan’s hot dogs from Coney Island for breakfast on Tuesday. It was so fun being back on the other side of Brooklyn

Nathan will kick Redando's culo!

The side that I am not actually from. Although it was really upsetting to hear that Coney Island Astroland Park was closed, indefinitely. What was really interesting was that later on in the trip, I was shopping at Union Square’s annual Holiday market and bought mark-up Brooklyn Apparel from a store that was right next door to Nathan’s.

Not that it matters, but we went to watch the inflatables be blown for the Macy’s parade on Wednesday night. We met up with a friend who was from Makakilo on O’ahu and now lives out of Newark. I was kind of floored throughout the entire trip to see my partner sitting in my parent’s living room and dining room. It was even funnier when he was on the subway. To his credit, he made like he belonged really well.

 

 

Me and My Sister

Do we really look alike?

 

The best part of this trip was to see my sister as a mother. She really surprised me because I never thought her to be child-friendly, and she’s doing her new career as Ma-ma so well. I realized that despite our many differences, she will always be my big sister- my life is indeed incomplete without her.

So, what’s next for me? I mean, I have some attachments here, like I mentioned before, but seriously considering relocating back to New York after graduation is a possibility. I’m not too sure how this would work out. I have a few semesters to think about it though. In the meantime, I am just going to focus on my writing ambitions, this new business opportunity that I will start in January, and finishing the rest of my education. My friends are in different circumstances but still the same great people- which is what really matters. My family is growing, I have two adorable nieces that I want to watch grow up. My life here was maybe just a season, like my Aunt Lisa said a few years ago.

This trip was a bittersweet experience. Not once did I have a moment where I thought “This is why I left in the first place” because really? This place and that place are so different, no experience is the same.

Pfft. Keep to myself and do my own thing. Hope for the best and move on with my life. Cheers.

 

 

Life After Death…

There was a death in the family this week. One of the neighborhood Aunties lost her battle against pancreatic cancer. This family, is part of the extended family that has been very good friends of my family for many many years. I spent most of my childhood with the children of this family, and because of this family I am aware of my Filipino heritage.

When my parents met, they were both dietary aides in the hospital across the street from where I used to live. My mother befriended a Filipino woman,  (whom I affectionally call “Tita Norie”) who also worked in the same department. Tita Norie, helped my mother learn about Filipino cooking and culture, and my mother and her have been best friends for over 30 years. My mother is the Godmother of her oldest son, and this Tita Norie was the woman who carried me home from the hospital when I was born. Naturally, when more of Tita Norie’s siblings emmigrated from the Philippines, she introduced them to my mother and in a cute way, my mother became like a hanai sister to all of the siblings. My mother has maintained friendly relationships with Tita Norie’s sisters, brothers, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, stepfather and Mother.

This is a tough time for Tita Norie and her ‘ohana. And I’m feeling out of sorts, because I have been so close to this family since childhood. My heart breaks when I see my dear “calabash” cousins post Facebook updates expressing their grief.

It reminds me of when my mother’s oldest sister, Aunt Dee Dee passed away. She was my Godmother, and the disciplinarian Aunt of the entire family. (Every family has one, either Auntie or Uncle who is the tough one.) I remember as children, my maternal cousins and I would go to great lengths to avoid her, because if we didn’t sit up straight, walk straight, fold your hands while waiting for food, not touch the cat, not touch the dog, not touch her stuff, don’t talk with our mouths full….. well, we would “get it.” In fact, so serious was Aunt DeeDee’s demeanor – all my mother had to say when I was naughty was : “I’m going to tell your Aunt DeeDee” .

When she died, I had strong feelings of guilt, for not taking the time to see her, and spend time with her when I was able to. In fact, the last time I saw her, she was bald from surgery- and she always had long salt-and-pepper hair. Her English was a bit off, I think she reverted back to pidgin- her first language and long gone was the thick Italian-American-Brooklyn accent coming from the mouth of a Hawaiian-Korean woman. She was nothing like I remembered, and it made me feel like bad. The last thing I said to her while she was alive was “Aunt DeeDee, no matter how big I get, I will always be scared of you.”  And she laughed. Had she been in optimal health she probably would have said “That’s right!”

But really, now what? I’ve still yet recovered from the pain of losing my cousin George four years ago, I’m also in pain because we had to put down Neo, a rascal but loveable dog that was part of my family in Waianae. Sometimes the days seem to go slower, sometimes too fast. Life goes on, but sometimes it feels like life goes on, and somehow the greiving survivors have stopped.

I’m grateful that the ones who have left us are no longer suffering. I’m grateful for the memories and the legacy that they leave behind. I’m just really bothered by the loss of Tita Ely, even though I didn’t know her so well.

I hope that it comforts to know that there is a smile after every tear, sunshine after every rain, and a purpose to all things under heaven.

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I might just have to again. After all it is my major.

 

The dog pictured above is Sammi. Yes, she’s my new boss. Too cute! And smart too!

One week till I go home (for another week)

Are my term papers done yet?

PO-IT-TREE (Cheesecake)

An exercise that my Creative Writing Professor did with us was to look, listen, and smell a slice of cheesecake, and then write a poem about it.

Lou Zitnik is super awesome. Take his class, if not for credit, then for fun.

So I looked, listened, and smelled the cheesecake. And here is what I wrote….

Cheesecake tastes…..

Like a ride on the L train

Like the scent of Chinatown

Cheesecake tastes…..

Like the sound of eight keys jingling

Like the Angels of Midtown

Like the shoppers of Fifth Avenue

Like a panhandler’s frown

Cheesecake tastes like

The Sunday New York Times

French food at three a.m.

Like the family in Brooklyn

Like the voice of my best friend

Cheesecake tastes like

The bars of the Village

The beef patties of Crown Heights

Like the busybodies of Empire State

Like Times Square’s lights.

Cheesecake tastes like

the memories that I miss

like the city that I loved.

 

Can we say H-O-M-E-S-I-C-K?

THREE WEEKS UNTIL I BEAT THAT BLOCK!

Dear Hawaii

Dear Hawaii,

From the tales of my mother and Aunts, and the memory of my grandmother- and the desire to make my own way, all the while keeping a promise to my beloved Georgie- I have found myself here for the past three and a half years.

I love you, but it’s not an ordinary love.

I never wanted to shovel another snowflake again….but isn’t tropical weather boring after a while?

I wanted pristine beaches, surfboards and shave ice. But, where I am, it’s not the “doing my homework on the beach” that I envisioned.

Honolulu was supposed to be Manhattan with a beach, but instead I found a flux of outsiders, insiders, all trying to claim the same grain of sand that fueled all their dreams.

The mere thought of entering into a culture that I thought I could connect to was arousing. To re-connect with what was lost, only for me to find out that maybe, just maybe… I was not connected in the first place.

Instead of exploring classes in the Hawaiian language, I want to re-acquaint myself with Spanish.

I dreamed of poke fish and bowls of poi, and now- I would give anything, ANYTHING for a knish and a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee, from an actual Dunkin’ Donuts store.

I have no better choice than to drive a car, a car that I am not so comfortable with, and a car that I would rather save the money towards something else. I never needed a car before, and here I am getting exactly what I want, and I don’t want it so much right now.

Don’t get me wrong Hawaii, you are a beautiful place, with lovely people. There is aloha here and there is a genuine sincerity that is not found elsewhere.

Yes, the tourist industry is right, you are a breathtaking, relaxing place. But I’m hungry for more.

There is no place in the world like this, but then again, there is no place in the world like this.

You are a paradise.

But your paradise, may not be for me.

Sense of Self……

Really, what is it a sense of self?

Are single people incomplete?

When it comes down to what matters most, how many people can see the bigger picture?

Food for thought….

So there is lots of buzz about the upcoming “Precious:  Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire” movie that is scheduled soon for a release (I’m not counting that it will be shown here in Hilo, or maybe even the state.) I would very much like to see it, in fact I want to pick up the actual novel today at the bookstore at some point and start reading it. I saw the previews and I can tell that this movie seems really really intense, and what a pleasant change of pace to see Mo’Nique embrace a role that is outside her usual comedic role. Mariah Carey is also showing off some latent dramatic talent as well.

But here is what is alarming to me. One of the issues in this novel and movie is incest. And it has shown up often in African-American themed literature and plays. Tyler Perry, Alice Walker and others have written about it in their respective work. Stepfathers and biological fathers raping their daughters, all sorts of violence against women, and such and such. My concern is that I’ve seen this issue come up frequently in African American literature and film, and not so frequently elsewhere. My question is now… is the African American community disproportionately plagued with sexual abuse, particularly incest?

It’s my wish that no community is plagued with such horrific acts. Yet it comes up more often (at least in my eyes) in African American literature and film than most. And that isn’t the case, because these things can and do happen to any racial or ethnic group. So why aren’t more groups talking about this?

A dear friend of mine from High School wrote her college entrance essay about another essay she had written in freshman year of High School. I know this first hand, because we were in the same English class freshmen year, and she had asked me to read over her essay. In her admissions essay, she wrote about how we were assigned a memoir in the ninth grade and how our teacher returned hers back to her saying “it wasn’t black enough…”

What the…?

This friend has an African language name. She lived in Harlem. She abstained from school on Black Solidarity Day. But she was not defined by her race, sure it comprised a portion of her identity- but she was renowned for her intelligence and articulated manner before her race. (Disclosure: There were more African-American and West Indian students in my school that other groups.)

I was never raised to see color, as a product of an interracial marriage, and neither was my mother who herself was also a product of an interracial marriage. So you could imagine my shock as well when that ninth grade teacher told my friend that her essay wasn’t “black enough”.

I suppose what I want to say is that although it appeared to me more often in African-American works, the topics of abuse and incest are not limited to African Americans. It happens everywhere, and I see an inherent danger when a particular group of our society is the one with the courage to speak up on it- because if  people do only from a particular community then it can become an issue that will be stereotypically casted as “that kind of people’s problem” by busted-minded racially insensitive people. More people need to come forward and speak out against the crimes against humanity that occur- regardless of race, religion or all the labels that specify and actually divide our world. I give credit to those who have the courage to speak up about the problems that face humanity, and I hope that more will be empowered to speak up, so that we can raise awareness and hopefully live in a world where this sort of thing is in the past.

And with that, I will leave you with the trailer to “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”

Hard to Stay Away….

It’s really really hard for me to NOT blog about the current events that has been going on, not because of several personal factors, but because seriously? I think that my resignation to “turn a blind eye and deaf ear” to the childish antics of the county government is a cowardly move.

I’m resisting the urge to return to blogging about local tidbits for now, but it might just come back and bolder than ever.

*******

I had to drop two classes from my 18 credit courseload because maintaining my part-time job with full-time responsibilities and my ongoing process of moving caused me to substantially fall behind in a few classes. That, piling with my upcoming vacation back home (You can come home again!) and the recent downturns that happened personally would have resulted in big fat F’s.

I’ve also been battling this serious respiratory infection and a somewhat down mood. I’ve not touched a single personal project that I have started.

I think that the real challenge for me is to stop blogging about politics and stop caring for now. It’s an easy target and seriously, not what I want to do as a writer. I’d much rather be sitting on Oprah’s couch talking about my latest NYT bestseller. But time management has always been a serious problem for me, in addition to my smoking which is not helping since I’m not willing to stop just yet.

Oh well, I’m going to watch a few more episodes of Law and Order, perhaps a b-rate Hong Kong movie, and call it a day.

Although some days, I feel I missed my calling and should have pursued that acting career.

Hmm, let me address this topic, because I am the king of grudge holding, and I am not at all that trusting of everyone I meet anymore. Furthermore, seems like some people close to me are having issues with the above…issues.

1. Forgiveness. Forgiveness is what you need to give to someone who has hurt you (including yourself) in order to move on with your life. Hello, we heard it everywhere else before- but if you don’t forgive you will be bitter and losing out. Forgive him/her. Forgive yourself.. Move on. Forgive= to give as before.

2. Trust. Trust yourself to trust that person again. Trust that person again. Because you don’t trust that person who has hurt you that you (pretended to) forgive, then you are torturing yourself and torturing the other person. You will entertain every nuance of every thing every day until you bite the damn bullet, let it go, forgive and start trusting again- like before. Not to say NOT to take it with a grain of salt, but don’t be playing soap operas out in your head. Might as well just quit your job stay home and watch television all day.

And to you who has recently left that relationship? Please know that I love you with all my heart, but girl why are you always making a relationship with these toxic men?

This is a public service announcement has been brought to you by the role I have been playing as therapist all weekend.

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