Estella
May 30, 2008As a child, I used to accompany her as she hawked bread, pastries and other delicacies in schools, factories and offices that could only be reached after several hours of walk. She carried baskets and other plastic containers with her left and right hands, and what her hands could not carry she put on her head. The more she could carry, the more she could sell and the more commission she would get at the end of the day. The commission was a pittance, 10 cents out of every peso. One day, after walking for several kilometers, she stopped on the road and sat down to massage her legs. They were hurting, she told me. She was also crying, although she tried hard not to show it, a scene that I played out in my mind over and over again when I was older — only when I was older and could finally understand what it meant. And what it meant was that a single mom was doing all she could to raise nine kids and that one day, in the midst of her struggles, she got so tired of walking she had to sit down and massage her legs to ease the pain. And despite her weary legs she went on and hawked and earned some money and we survived. I survived.
Irena Sendler
May 24, 2008Facing adversity, betrayal, even instant death, some chose to follow their conscience, simply because they know it is right. To turn down an opportunity to help would have been to turn off one of the most basic human instincts — to sympathize with the sufferer. And that would have been a kind of death, slower, but surer, and far graver than instant death. So Irena Sendler followed her conscience. Rebelliousness was in her genes, too. During the Nazi occupation of
books
May 16, 2008A paragraph transports you to another world. A sentence brings you closer to the heart of the universe. A word gives you the truth. That is the power of books.
closer
I am closer to her more than I ever have been. I have separation anxiety. I don’t want to be far from her. I hate saying goodbye in the morning on my way to work. I hate seeing her wave goodbye as she goes to work in the afternoon.
weekends
You don’t work. You have time to read, to cook, to swim, to gaze at the sky without worry of deadlines, to lie down and be lazy, to take your time eating, to drive around town, to discover new places, to hunt books, to look for new bookstores, to go to the grocery, to spend time with her, to hold her hand, to touch her cheeks, to make love, to poke fun at the world, to poke fun at yourself, to clown around, to make faces, to be a child again.
