TalkingGrid

23 BiTS of Caribbean Wisdom

1.)  Do it slow.  Take your time.  Things done slowly and carefully last longer.  Take time to execute your plans.  There is no hurry.  

2.) Don’t let the rain stop you from playing (baseball/cricket/hoops/Chess) outside.

3.) Never forget: EVERYTHING is negotiable. 

4.) The machete is a versatile tool… Yet, the cyber-pen extends further.

5.) Learning to climb a coconut palm may be the most entertaining thing you ever do.

6.) Rice and beans is a nutritious staple, which most budgets can cover.  Think about it.

7.) You don’t have to go to the gym IF you really walk a lot.  Physical work is rewarding.  Try walking a mile to the grocery store and only buy what you can carry home.  

8.) Everyone: from maid to C.E.O. can make a difference by intending to lighten the load for others.

9.) Nature, just outside the door, and even in a park, the garden… a moment of silence is worth more than gold.  Invest in silence.  Protect it.  

10.) Criminals pick mousey targets… try and develop the “TiGER STRUTT,” that works to say, “Don’t F… with my in any lingo.”

11.) Make time to eat.  Noon is the best time for a big home cooked meal.  Try it.  

12.) Take a nap.  Daily.  Fifteen minutes around happy hour goes a long way… toward keeping you feeling like a sexy silk wearing geisha.

13.) Olive oil is great on anything (don’t forget your skin) edible.  This is true for anyone that has Latino/Spanish roots.  Think TAPAS!  Yum.  

14.)  Nothing beats having cognac, on a sidewalk, in a plastic cup, with your domino buddies/compañeros.

15.)  Stand straight, walk quick, and avoid getting into the nets laid by expert fishermen to catch sweet jail bait LIKE you.

16.) Dance, today, because NO THING could be more significant.  Dance is urgent!  Get to it.  Now! You don’t need a degree to shake your body.  Yet, movement makes leaders leap to applaud the dancer that catches the EYE, nets the most clicks, and becomes a queen/dream prince of the universe.

17.)  Pick a target and focus.  By shooting for bull’s EYES you always win, because your failures are closer to the target.  No matter where you come from or where you are now in life you can become a game changer, a winner in the unending ever-expanding game of loving and living, by deciding to learn what you must, study what you don’t know, and give more than you expect to get. 

18.) Painting: takes a different track in every corner of the planet.  Yet in the Caribbean visual art is a part of every home from shack to palace. The Caribbean, for all its slowness is a creative hot-bed for the world.  The poor collect images of saints, to serve as patrons in the other/spirit world.  The well-off-enough might have a blend of maudlin landscapes, cheesy still-lives, and a handsome portrait of a Aryan Jesus, in a light blue robe, with a radiant fire-heart at his bosom… The wealthy… who knows… they might collect contemporary Dominican art… maybe, even hit Miami Basel for a hoot… I don’t know.  Yet, everybody, takes pride in decorating whatever little hovel or massive spread they are allotted by the cruel (ancient Italian… yet universal) goddess Fortuna.

19.) Paradise is not a prison, until you want to leave and can’t… the  mighty expanse of the Atlantic ocean holds in many that would love to live in another place… yet, the language(s)… our accent(s)… our roots…keep us part of the Caribbean no matter how faraway we go, we feel the pull of fertile land and dream of a garden place where we can just relax and allow others to serve us.  Ah!  Paradise is a tricky and slippery place where you can fall into the abyss of corruption which bubbles just under the surface of the cheerful, good-looking, whores, that saddle up to strangers and offer unspeakable services for laughable sums.

20.) Keeping a cheerful, cosmetically correct exterior is a worthwhile pursuit.  Yet, it will not stop you from biting the dust when the time comes.  Keep perspective on what really is worth the effort and find meaning in life by listening to the underlying silence which is familiar to all readers of spiritual books and those willing to stand up to big television sets in hotel lobbies are ask for them to be turned, “OFF!” immediately.

21.)  Exercise your right to say, “¡Buenos Dias!” to everyday and face life with a romantic’s delight in the waves and winds that will rock your boat.  

22.) Don’t forget that whatever keeps you feeling buoyant, up beat, excited is good.  LOVE is good.  Happiness.  Laughter.  All these goods are worth cultivating because they give the most lasting and nourishing fruit.

23.) When you walk through, “The Valley of Death,” don’t forget to take pictures and don’t forget you are never alone.   You have a connection to every living thing on this planet, including your food.  LOVE IT and LIVE IT UP!

Happy Holidays

Sincerely Yours,

Frau Kolb

“Powerful Selfie,” at LACMA, 2010, here Frau Kolb is sporting her “British House Wife Wig.” Dig it?

Cancer Blessings?

How dare Frau Kolb suggest that the cancer might mean an end to your precious life is a blessing?

Well, Frau Kolb is an expert on getting a kick out of whatever life throws up in the way of enjoying life. I am NOT, however a doctor, what you read here is my personal proposal, an invitation, if you will, to join me in celebrating the good and bad news, as good and bad news will bloom in your life like flowers in the spring time.

Here are 23 More Cancer Blessings for you. Enjoy!

24.) Self care is central to success in coping with any major crisis. This is really the time to pamper yourself. So… ramp-up your bath routine. Bath oils, salts, candles, lotions, scrub-brushes, and abrasive bathing gloves. None of it is “expensive,” really but when you really get going you can make a very nice day of being in the tub, especially as you undergo treatment.

25.) Learn something totally unrelated to your new condition. Focus on learning Italian, for example. You always wanted to learn French. This is the moment to go to the public library and take out the Farsi tapes or the Swahili. What would you like to learn? Investing yourself in picking up NEW skills will give you strength to face this new reality.

27.) Plan a no-expense spared trip around the world for yourself. Of course, you won’t go. Yet, you will really think about the trip. How you would travel… Where you would visit… The schedules of luxury cruise ships are available on-line; image yourself in the Penthouse Suite, if this appeals to you. If not… are you backpacking in the Andes? Tell me, where will you go? Read guide books and learn about what to expect when you arrive. The trip should be long and lavish. This is so much more pleasant to focusing on the HORROR the HORROR of treatment.

28.) Throw a PAR-TAY! Yes, I’m talking disco lights in the bathroom.

29.) Soon, you will have access to heavy duty pain medications. Take it slow! Follow directions. But, we gotta be grateful that they exist. They work better than a mallet to knock you OUT for a restful night of much needed sleep. When it really hurts, thank goodness, for Vicodin! Do not abuse your medications. Yet, use them to help you leap across the parts too far from ease to be healthy. In other words, don’t suck up the pain, take a prescribed pill when you require it.

30.) If you live where it is legally available, Medical Marijuana works for nausea and other “chronic,” conditions. It may also help with mood swings and depression, just request the right strains. There are strains, “Indicas,” that put you right “heavy,” state for sleep and other strains, “Sativas,” that help stamina, creativity, and giggles. You no longer have to smoke, the aroma(s) offends, because they have a wide variety of edible: tea, honey, candies, bagel chips, and lemonades infused with THC and immune boosting CBD. Try it only if you feel comfortable with the idea. I LOVE it because it makes me feel like a naughty teen to take a bong hit in my boudoir. Anyway… you might find you like the staff at the dispensaries. (They tend to hire very cute and upbeat people as “bud-tenders.”)

31.) Don’t just cut the cancer out, radiate it, take the chemo: do what you must. Do it fast. Do not hesitate because everyday counts. Cancers are not full of pity. They will eat you, because Honey, YOU are delicious! Embrace the rigors of radical treatment as long as you can and IF your condition is beyond bad… well take your meds, Champagne, and let Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker get the table ready for you when you hit the perpetual dinner party in the sky, do it with panache.

32.) You picked the best doctors or you are getting the best care you can from your less-than-ideal yet qualified, expert, respected, and good looking doctors, personal advocate, and entourage of fashionable, sexy, people. IF you did not put together the perfect care team for yourself, remember that as long as you live you can always make changes. Always. All you have to do is use your words, ask nice, play fair, and be sweet on change to get it.

Side note:

IF you find yourself totally alone, ask yourself “Why?” The answer must be: you. What have you done or failed to do to win the respect and love of others? Are you selfish? Are you self centered? Did you fail to maintain, through constant reciprocation your friendships? Are you simply mentally ill? OK! FINE! Know that whoever and where-ever you are you are worthy of love and if you allow yourself to connect with the universal reserve of good vibes, sometimes called “God,” other times, “Goodness,” and yet other times, “Mother Mary… Shiva… or whatever deity you subscribe to… if atheism is your bag, well LOVE it… because that is a religion, too… you have to do plenty of selective experiencing not to see the intelligence, joy, sparkle, that is everywhere where life nests… Because this is a time when YOU can make a change in the energy around you by being caring to the people that are around you. Let LOVE be the NEW YOU and your last day will be a lovely one. Be available and services will be provided. Remember: attracting good energy to your life requires determination on your part in that you must be willing to be and accept the kindness of others, as function of how you behave, yourself.

Another daring NEW (Cancer) LOOK!  Here Frau Kolb wears her, “Ghetto Fabulous,” Two-Tone wig.  Dig it?

33.) If you are alone.  Face it.  Find company within and books will sustain you.  Joy is possible, I’m sure, even for vegan straight-edge atheists with no family and no pets.  Maybe misanthropes can find strength in solitude.  I commend anyone that can find pleasure in who they are, what they have, where they are… It doesn’t matter IF you are a person undergoing extreme cancer therapy; you can still laugh between the vomit bouts.  For example: my best friend, the tall skinny spike healed wearing Italian-American, Los Angeles, bombshell, I told you about in the first 23 Cancer Blessings, also underwent cancer treatment.  She was invited to a party at the Playboy mansion and she went, bald but looking ravishing, she had to vomit from the chemo therapy.  In the rush of vomit-must, she pushed an old man out of the way to get to the toilet.  Hah!  Everybody thought she was just a drunk party person, needing to puke after too much booze.  WE laugh and laugh whenever we recall her moxie.  She, by the way, is single… sort-of… Yet, she never let the lack of a steady man worthy of her exuberant beauty, stop her from enjoying life.

34.) FORGIVE!  Forgive everybody for everything.  Bitter Bitch?  No more.  Now is time to LOVE and feel one with every nurse, every waiter, every human that comes and that may care for you if you OPEN your heart to loving everybody.  Yet, this doesn’t mean that you forget that some people are toxic.  Let those people go and embrace the ones that love you NOW.

35.) Don’t forget.  Let go of the waste.  Say goodbye to human trash, vampires, and other nightmare friends that have sucked you dry for years.  YOU know who I’m talking about.  It doesn’t matter who it is.  IF a person consistently brings you down, bursts your bubble, crushes your mood, erase them from your world.  You don’t need a hairdresser that doesn’t listen and has bad breath.  You don’t need a boyfriend who has a wife.  You don’t need to lie about yourself in order to look normal.  Accept yourself.  Love you.

36.) Moreover, you may not have tons of money or be the best looking person on earth but you have value and your time is it.  YOU have zero time to waste.  You must focus your depleted energy wisely in order to make it from one day to the next.  Cancer is a serious condition and minimizing it, is a strategy I employ.  Yet, I’ve never backed down or stepped away from treatment.  I’ve embraced life, thus finding strength that isn’t mine, borrowing it from my husband, my friends, and the world… remembering that my drama is but a drop in the galactic sea of mystery.  Enjoying the ups and down, of the eternal “red-wine sea…”

“The Nice Librarian,” another selfie of Frau Kolb on the GO (notice the blur) during chemo in 2010

37.) Visit churches, landmarks, and museums.  Enjoy the public spaces of your cities.  The grand architecture or natural wonders of the world deserve your attention even if they are only around the corner.  Take a bus to another part of town.  Shake it UP!  You don’t have to be the version of yourself you have been thus far.  Part of you will be forever changed by treatment and the new you is yours to chisel into the you, you are now.

38.) Allow the cancer to be a reason why you step into being your true self in public.  It empowered Frau Kolb by forcing her to make time for creativity, art, and other sources of profound delight.  (Prior to diagnosis, my role as California beach mom was all consuming and I was writing (on the edges of days), yet not painting (because I felt guilty over using materials  without a financial return and making art requires lots of un-interrupted work time, which I did not have) When I got the diagnosis my world changed.  Cancer can be a license to finally focus attention on loving yourself in order to make ease-rich (the opposite of dis-ease)choices.

39.) In other words, make the cancer work for you.  Yes, there are resources assigned and available to people undergoing cancer treatment.  Just telling someone, that you have cancer, can make them cut you some slack.  This is not a card I advise using frequently but when you must, whip it out with flourish and revel in the fact that there are many CANCER BENEFITS for you to enjoy.  (Yet, be aware that some people, the really mean ones, will not care that you have cancer and may try to use your illness and vulnerability, against you… so… be careful and mindful when revealing your private medical conditions.)

40.) This is time… is a time for elemental being to flourish.  When your looks are gone, erased, you must learn to paint on a happy face or… be a blank slate.  Pick.  Do.  Make-up is said to boast the immune system.  Don’t neglect your basic hygiene.  Taking time to brush your teeth and put on a pretty scarf or a big macho cow-boy hat which will make others laugh and question your identity… GOOD MOVE!

41.) Ever wanted to meet someone famous… well, if you are terminal… you might consider addressing a request to their press/public relations representatives and respectfully request a visit from… you are very likely to get what YOU want, now… Brad Pitt… David Bowie… or… Adele.  Watch out!  Because, you really have the power to pull powerful people IN by being beautiful despite the medical drama.  Use it.

(This is another selfie taken while undergoing chemotherapy in 2010)

42.) If you believe in heaven: make a list of all the people you look forward to feasting with in the afterlife.  In heaven, I’m convinced that, you can have dinner with Augustus, the ancient Roman Emperor, Ben Franklin, and Anna Nicole Smith, all together, at their prime, forever available, because in heaven YOU can be two places at once, I’m certain of it… IF you like!  If you don’t believe, well make a list of who you would like to see if heaven were real and you will tickle (I swear) your grandmother’s spirit when you list her.  Go for it and feel the good vibes of every human you list, no matter how “long-gone,” kissing you and loving you no matter how vicious the pain or ugly the bruising… you have the long line of human fortitude to tap into.  Revel in the fact that you come from tough people and that tough people bite the dust, too.

43.)  Threshold states are FUN!  What could be more exciting than being near death?  You don’t know when its coming but rest assured it will.  If you can learn to enjoy this state you might just live forever.  Hah!

44.)  Give some money, a dollar or two counts, to cancer research.   Hardworking scientists give up their youths, studying, and learning so that they can create effective cancer medications for us.  Don’t believe that cancer medications are anything less than miracles and every time you drink a pill down, bless the water.

45.)  Be aware that you are now capable of seeing through the “veil of illusion,” which covers day-to-day life.  Be proud.  You know that the wizard is wears no underwear behind the curtain six-miles-wide.  We all suffer.  Yet, how we wear our suffering distinguishes and ennobles the gracious ones.

46.)  Did you do something BAD, hurtful to someone, long ago… maybe?  Write the victim of your misdeed, a letter, ask for forgiveness, mail it to yourself, and IF and only IF after reading it yourself and feeling it would make the person receiving it feel GOOD, then mail it to the injured party.  Rest assured that accepting responsibility for the fact that we all hurt others, either on purpose or by “accident,” is a good thing for it allows us to shed the weight of unpaid energetic debts, of love and caring that was absent, when it is the mandate of life that we love, in order to be loved.

Ok… Now you have 46 guidelines for feeling blessed rather than powerless… I write with the intention of providing you with a chuckle or, at least, 69 good reasons to laugh in the face of death, a useful fresh perspectives, and empowerment in these times of turmoil.

Please take care and know that I am thinking of all the people out there; losing their haïr, having breasts amputated, or otherwise facing profound changes; in order to continue to embrace the bliss of breathing.

Best Love,

Frau Kolb

Cancer Blessings?

How dare Frau Kolb suggest that the cancer might mean an end to your precious life is a blessing?

Well, Frau Kolb is an expert on getting a kick out of whatever life throws up in the way of enjoying life.  I am NOT, however a doctor, what you read here is my personal proposal, an invitation, if you will, to join me in celebrating the good and bad news, as good and bad news will bloom in your life like flowers in the spring time.

Recently, a friend contacted me, asking for advice on how to handle a tricky situation.  She might have cancer.  She will be undergoing tests soon.  May goodness be with her.  She might find that her cancer is… well… she won’t know until she knows and I tell you waiting to find out is hard work.  Yet…

She’s lucky because she invested her life in creating a worthy circle, at the center of her circle is her husband.  He is her best friend and may serve as her “personal advocate,” in making decisions relating to cancer treatment.  She is “lucky,” because he picked a steadfast and loving partner.  He is a caring person.  She has nurtured relationships with people that really love her.   Thus, she will not be facing uncertainty alone.

For others, they find themselves alone and without means to cope with the huge costs of cancer.  The people whose lives were out-of-control before cancer must now tap into a source, a reserve, of strength and clarity within themselves.  That still point, deep within the garden of being, which holds keys to enjoying your life no matter what strikes you, yet does not, kill you—whatever-allows space for life to continue becomes precious when you face, life-threatening cancer treatment.  In order to be effective the treatment is rough.  It can kill you.  So… you better get ready.  This is a time to re-new your contract and decide IF living suits you well enough to cling to all lively, joyous, and creative pursuits.  For those who have lost their path, or never had a clear route toward fulfillment, cancer maybe a chance to save their own lives by using the opportunity to connect with others and thereby forming a “Cancer Circle,” of which they are the center.  It could be that this is the chance to meet new people with whom to relate, commune, and move forward.

This list of 23 Cancer Blessings is based on my experience dancing with rather than fighting against cancer.  I have a genetic mutation that makes my body fertile ground for growing cancer cells.  There was nothing I could have done to avoid having cancer bloom in my body.  Yet, there is much I’ve done to enjoy life while undergoing treatment.  All in all, my life has expanded and become more fulfilling during my dancing time.

I’ve had a grand time a BALL, if you will, in the years after my initial cancer diagnosis.  I’ve traveled more.  I made time and space in my life for creativity in a way that keeps me connected and vital. Talkinggrid is one of the out comes of my stretching wingspan into areas that were my dream territories: publishing and professional writing, being every reading girl’s ultimate dream.  I invite you to join me on this worthy voyage, The Vacation Approach to Life is the art making peace with yourself and enjoying every second of your life as it is.  Yes, you are going to get treatment.  This advice is NOT about praying cancer away. Thank goodness.

1.) Cancer means you must stop, take a deep, and then deeper breath and LOOK at yourself.  This is the ultimate opportunity to take stock and LOOK at your life.  Exhale.

2.) IF you are fortunate enough to have anyone that cares enough to be your advocate when visiting doctors and getting tests done YOU are blessed.

3.) Make sure you record your sessions with doctors.  Take notes, tape recorder, get ready for meetings with lists of questions.

4.) When you have CANCER your time is officially YOURS!  Now: you must focus and use your energy like a laser to create GOOD in your world.  This is a time to pray, IF that works for YOU, to sing, to turn inward, and rejoice because YOU are ALIVE and as long as YOU are among us: ENJOY IT! Enjoy the marvelous spectacle of IT!  Delight in your cancer because it means you must make time for yourself.  You are done No more giving everything for others. Cheers!  Bottoms UP!  Hurrah for SPORTIN’ OL’ YOU!

5.) Do: become very friendly with your doctors.  Share the jokes you read, hear, and love with them and they will LOVE seeing YOU and YOU will get better care.  Bring them a copy of a great book you just read.  LOVE, them and they will care about YOU, more. Moreover: being the favorite patient of a great doctor has many social benefits.

6.) Have a daily belly laugh.  Yes, this is time for comedy.  This is time for laughing until others in the chemo-center give you funny looks.  Make a practice of laughing.  Call your funniest friends.  Watch humorous movies.  Read seven joke books at the doctors office.  Bring your most glamorous friend to chemotherapy with you, IF you are lucky she will be Italian, a tall and svelte beauty, a spiked-heeled riot of laughs of witty comments, like mine is.

7.) Address the issues: this is time to educate yourself, apply the SEVEN BOOK RULE, which is Frau Kolb’s favorite success tool: read seven books about your type of cancer.  Why seven?  Because then you will have an informed perspective and know what to ask your doctors.  IF you manage to gather together seven books about the culture and lingo of Cancer-Land, a weird valley, near the Abyss… which has no set maps or rules, yet plenty of gravity, mud pits, and other obstacles worthy of a pause.  YOU better learn the basics of what others have endured or in order to find the treasure buried in the middle of this surreal landscape.

8.) Be super NICE to medical staff, after all, they have your life in their hands.  Don’t forget your “please and thank you, for the bed pan,”  Because if you are given treatment that is fair and even on-its-way-to kind you are blessed.  Be grateful.

9) Ask friends or buy yourself a stunning collection of bedroom suits and gowns worthy of a Mad Men Episode.  Yes!  It is time to wear a turban.  You know, you always wanted to.   You will need fresh entertaining pajamas when friends come visit.  It is very glam to remain presentable while very ill.  DO IT!

10.) This is your chance to meet handsome doctors and nurses!  Don’t forget that flirting with your medical staff is one healthy why of keeping everyone’s spirits UP!

11.) Be invited to The Grand Cancer Ball and give a rambling talk on how fabulous your new collection of wigs are!  Enjoy playing dress up, when your hair falls out whip out the wigs (note: plural, IF you dare have fun with it.  A blue bob, in my book is d’riguer.)

12.) This is your chance to cash in all favors and make all the outrageous requests you desire.  Go for it!  No one will fault you.  Finally!  Freedom to be a cancer DIVA is a blessing.

© Magnus Petterson PHOTO Frau Kolb in the Studio, 19 February 2010

13.) This is the part of the movie of YOU where you find out what really matters and who really cares.  Do not be surprised if some of the people you thought would be present for you are not.  Let them go.  Be OPEN to the new LOVE that can and will support you IF you allow yourself a buoyant, relaxed, and grateful simply with or without a life-threatening condition.

14.) Friends, family members, medical staff, social workers, and others that are invested in caring for you (because, of course, you care for them) will rally around you and you will have golden moments in the strangest places.

15.) Every time you make a decision that prolongs your life and helps you enjoy being here you are blessed.  So enjoy making choices with your team of friends and family headed by an advocate, which ideally is someone educated and good at record keeping, someone bold and deeply invested in your success.

16.) Thank goodness that you have this chance to say the important things to the important people.  BE REAL.  Stop being so nice IF it hurts you.  BE GENEROUS with the praise and gratitude for every little courtesy or good vibe others will show you.  Listen to each person that comes to you as though they were an angle delivering messages from god.  Listen.

17.) Decide to be public or private, the choice is yours, but now is a time to make sure your needs are met and that you connect to the source of all LOVE which is within you.  Every moment you breath and can cognate you are blessed.  Enjoy this truth.

18.) Take time to watch leaves fall in slow motion from autumn trees or the snow melt and freeze.  Become a camera that quietly takes in the view and delight in being able to see the dust moats dancing in the sunlight through the stained glass windows of your synagogue/chapel.

19.) This is a time when tradition comes in handy.  Tap into who you are and what your people do at times of crisis, then select what works, discard the fist fighting and drunken orgies, do adopt the customs of other cultures that might fit your mood and help you enjoy life more.

20.) It is time for reading novels in bed!

21.) Long sunset walks!

22.) More time with your pets, IF you don’t have one or two get a new one, a source of consistent LOVE is useful during chemo. Moreover, walking a dog is just what you need to be doing.  WALK!  Better yet, RUN!  Fitness can really help you feel better about ANY situation.

23.) EAT BETTER.  More fresh—organic is best—Food! The leaner, fitter, stronger you are the more likely to recover from your sometimes grueling cancer treatment and the long periods of testing/uncertainty. Cook more or rather invite friends over, they can help you cook/clean because now that you are the dancing with the cancer blessing you are now in the position to graciously accept help, love, and support.  Let the goodness rain down on you and soak you to the bone, let it wash away pain and feel good about being here for as long as you can enjoy the bumpy ride… come in/go out… and enjoy the flowers, meals, and other perks family, friends, new care givers, and your extended circles will provide.

© Magnus Petterson PHOTO Frau Kolb in the Studio, 19  February 2010

The motto: when we get bad news: we celebrate/when we get good news: we celebrate is at the heart of this system.

My husband, Dr. Hartmuth C. Kolb came up with the above motto and the original  “Cancer Blessing,” was discovered by my talented medical oncologist, Dr. Lawrence Piro upon the discovery that my chemo-therapy treatment had to be interrupted to perform an open-heart-surgery… but that is another story.

Love,

Frau Kolb

Dearest Readers of The Talkinggrid,

The best part about having one’s own blog is that one is FREE to write about touchy subjects; like family and Feelings.

We all have families and we all have feeling about our childhoods, when we were powerless. Some of us NEVER Grow UP and are thus, forever powerless.

I am the daughter of an adult child. She has never done a single harmful thing to any other person on purpose. She does it all by “accident.” She is never responsible. She is always and forever the the victim in any interaction. She will not relent in her defiance until one is at one’s wits end, screaming; desperate.

She is always in control. Spoiled and lovely old lady, pretty and cute, everybody likes her… people lean in to love her. She still gets marriage proposals. Hah!

Yet, she is exclusively attracted to Spanish, I mean European men, like her X husband, a man at least twenty years her junior, the one she married after she divorced my father for the second time, younger than her oldest son… ouch. My father was no thing like the little boys she digs. He was big, strong, craving power, looking for status, marrying her in hopes of entering into a very closed circle of elites in the island nation of Dominican Republic, where he was born, a parvenu with parents from the British Virgin Isle of St. Croix.

Feeling relieved.  My mother has gone back to her home, far away.  Having her stay with me for three weeks was intense.

First, I have to deal with the fact that she really needs a lot of care.  I knew this was coming since childhood.  I could tell she did not know… really, what was going on around her.  I mean, she spoke no English… She was a Jehovah’s Witness.  She saw through the abuse of animals in the meat industry.  She trained me to reject fast food, frozen meals, and canned nightmares.  There was no Chef B… in our home.  She cooked everyday and taught me the importance of eating fresh food.  She kept an immaculately clean home.  She cleans, in fact, compulsively.  Which, has its pluses.  Hah!

My father’s English, on the other hand, was very good.  Sure, he had an accent, but his vocabulary was quite vast and he wielded language with real panache.  Spanish, he was extremely precise, he was after all an attorney in Dominican Republic, when they met, in their hometown of Santo Domingo.  When he was a young lawyer, at his first job and the Ricart girl was secretary to him and twelve other lawyers.  Hah!

She got a cold.  He paid a visit to the home.  She could not see him so she returned the visit to his mother.  He was not home.  She met his mother and father.  They loved her.  She was so pretty.  It did not matter to them that she had children.  She was young, 26, or so… and a RICART!  Wow, in their home and she wasn’t snobby.  She didn’t seem to notice they were not… well like her.

What year was it?  I have the papers, in a suitcase, in my closet, but I will not go look.  No.. I will guess.  I was born… yes, so it had to before that… and well they met, she got sick, he paid a visit at her family home where she was living with her FOUR CHILDREN.

Yes.  She had FOUR.  I am number FIVE!

She started young.  She was determined, she wanted to get married, out of her house, away from her father.  She was convinced.  It was love.  He, a young tailor from down the block, was no-where-near ready for marriage so… of course, beat her and drank.  But she was raised on cruelty.  Her father beat her and her mother every chance he got, because he had told Maria Dolores Perez, the pretty fashion designer, that he wanted NO CHILDREN, she defied him in having my mother, with his mother’s blessing.  He never forgave her.  My mother was born into a home where a sense of scarcity underlined every luxury, every piece of finery, where people DIE of Hunger, and the poor live in conditions, unthinkable to most… yet, after ONE week of my mother’s voracious appetite for LOVE, attention, and service, all the while, proclaiming her LOVE for Jehovah, after ONE week with her I was tempted to punch her in the face.

Because, yes, she let me die…literally I flat lined in a hospital in New Jersey… as a child.  I saw the white light.

Today, I’m a mother of two and I live in California.  I eat organic food.  I am a New Yorker.  I have a Latin temper, yet I do not experience the desire to harm others.  Typically, I’m a buoyant, if moody artist, creative type.   Ha!  What a human!  She is absolutely shocking.  I must be exactly like her.  I know my daughter is like her.  My daughter, by the way, has decided to start listening to me since she met herself, times ten.

My mother was, on the one hand, a very spoiled child and other the other, an neglected and abused, unwanted daughter to a M O N S T E R.  This is my legacy.  I am the child of colonialism.  I am the granddaughter of the playboy Spaniard.  I am the daughter of the attorney, who became a furniture salesman in New York City.  My mother got what she wanted out of my father: a plane ticket out of Santo Doming.  She got her kids out too.  For them, my father and I were, strangers:  I am in effect an only child.

Her mother decided to have the child and leave her in the care of all-loving, Alta Gracia Ricart, the wife of Eduardo George Ricart, mother of the three sisters… and ONE son, he was supposed to be responsible for his sisters.  He was supposed to care.  Yet, caring was not his forte.  He learned to gamble at an early age.  Going to the sporting matches with his Spanish born father… during the reign of the Caribbean’s most enduring dictatorial regime.  His cousin, married to the son of El Jefe… life was grand for them… almost all the Ricart were a northern blond/brown haired hearty stock of Spanish, olive oil, international merchants and importers, of a product the island nation they loved, to vacation, so much FUN!  Dominican Republic was for them an addiction.  It had everything they wanted: pretty women, mixed girls everywhere, hungry lovely happy musical dancing entertaining people to serve and cock fights, are even more FUN than bull fights and YOU know that crazy SPANISH look Picasso had in his eye… Grandfather Ricart was a world class gambler, he worked for the state in its casinos.  He loved to bet.  Winning had No Thing to do with what he did. He was a broken prop for the state.  It was his public duty to show how RICH and extravagant… My family, his sister, my aunt told me in November 2013, when I went to visit my father’s grave that, he was one of the political speech writers to… no one less than… the dictator.   Not too surprising considering that his uncle was no less than Mejilla Ricart, the historian of the early Dominica People, who has an large avenue named after him, today, in Santo Domingo, the capital of our, the first nation in the New World, with the first church, first university: of which my father is a doctoral graduate.

Yes, grandfather Ricart was dashing.  His entire family held sway that to this day, in Dominican Republic, I am home, like nowhere else… I speak and people hear in my voice that payment is forthcoming, that I KNOW what I am speaking of, and that I am comfortable in my own knowing… thus, I love Puerto Rico… I’ve never been to Cuba… I intend to visit St. Croix, where my father’s people are from,  but… my grandfather’s cruelty lives on in my mother’s ability to laugh at me or my father’s best efforts to please her.  She has the uncanny ability to drain me, wound me, leave me lacerated and not even notice that she inflicted any injury.  Hah!

When I was young in New York, growing up… I left home early, and I always favored the taller blue-eyed more refined yet country boys.  My boyfriend was all of the above and more, he got me a job cooking, which fortunately, I learned from my mother the importance of nutrition and domesticity… thus, I knew how important it was to learn to cook and I worked hard in low-level yet professional cooking situations, such as health clubs and other venues.  At one point I made a turkey a day...

My father was by everyone’s, except his own, understanding a “BLACK MAN!”  He never told me he was a black man.  He told me he had to be careful, always wear suits, be extra polite, keep his hands in sight, be attentive, listen, pay attention, read more, work more, stay longer, be on-point: precise.  He taught me how to fight.  How to punch.  Hit.  How to be first.  “Carry a book with you at all times!”  Was a maxim in my home.  He kept a library.  He taught me to read.  I went to school speaking fluent Spanish and pretty good English, too.  I could read by age three.  I was designated “gifted.”  I was his girl.

My father worshiped my grandfather.  He had grown up during the dictatorship.  He had read the news papers about the leading families and how beautiful they were and how splendid it was that El Jefe was allowing the Jews asylum, from Nazi Germany, and how our highway and telephone system where the best in the Caribbean.  My father was a quick boy, his dad a Marine Mechanic and his mom a domestic in a grand home, but she had learned British style service, which gave her a certain panache unlike the typical Dominica, housekeeper.  My father was a boy with a talent, pitching stones with rat kill accuracy and listening to the signs on the wall.  He was a shoe-shine boy.  He was the one they could trust with a more important errand.  He was fast, reliable. He got into law school and decided that baseball, was NOT a worthy profession for someone like him, much like I reached a certain point with cooking and realized I need a more intellectual profession.  Besides, I’d always called myself an, “artist.”

Grandfather Ricart was very blond and blue eyed and a darling of the state, cousins with Octavia Ricart.  You don’t need to look to far into the history of Dominican Republic, “discovered,” by Columbus; when he smacked into the island of Hispañola in 1492, to learn about the dictatorship… just look it up.  The lists with the families that “owned,” Dominican Republic and decided who could and who could not… the name Ricart, figures prominently, for generations… in Dominican society and politics… today, my family, are administrators, educated people, servants of the state: forever.

You don’t have to look into the history of evil because, evil is common.  It springs up from deep within a lizard’s heart, as it squirms from the sea floor out to the dry land, legs spring from deep within its boney self and running it goes to hide in a tree… the rest is my song.