Inspiration
Articles to inspire authentic living on the topics of resilience, spirituality, and self-growth with touches of storytelling, depth, and humor.
You can browse themes below
Do you want to explore other resources? Check my favorite books and podcasts
The Ephemeral Line with Eternal Repercussion
Maybe because I have always liked stories, or because I always enjoyed reading or maybe just because I was raised watching soap operas, but I always see life in chapters. There are plots, and subplots, beginnings and ends, and a hundred chapters that accumulate stories of one single theme. As if life was a collection of short essays. Lately, among the several topics that have been amalgamating in my brain, there has been one that keeps circling back. Today while I was listening to the radio, the host was talking about smiles. Bingo!!!! That was my call to go deep in the subject since so many conversations and thoughts kept going back to it.
On the radio, they were discussing if showing teeth in a big grin is actually a sign of aggressiveness. My first instinct is that is the most ridiculous idea ever. But the fact is that the first time that I had to face that idea was almost 15 years ago and since then I had revisited the discussion in an infinitive number of brain deliberations. At that time, I was working as a documentary photographer and I had the wonderful opportunity to take a workshop with my all-time, absolutely favorite role model in the arena and undoubtedly one of the best legendary photographers alive at the time.
The silence that spoke volumes
I took my car and drove in the middle of traffic to be near my daughter. The hospital was as most New York hospitals I have seen: overcrowded, noisy, modest, filled with a very diverse population. When I finally made it to the Emergency Room and after the security screening a nurse walked me through aisles full of patients and expecting relatives. She told me she was in bed #1272B. I was reading the numbered signs above each closed curtain but I could not see hers. The girl perceived my confusion and walked me to a printed sign next to the nurse station. “Here she is, ” she said without a trace of any apologetic tone.
Her bed was leaning over the side of the nurse station, a chair stuck on its foot and an IV placed behind her to avoid any of the patients or medical staff from tripping with it while they walk the narrow hall. I sat down on the chair and proceeded to ask the expected questions and to offer my love and compassion. Bed #1272B offered no privacy, however, it did gave me a frontal view of the gigantic screen where a spreadsheet showed the name and status of each of the thirty patients who were admitted at the time. More than half of those had Hispanic names.
The medical staff was as diverse as the population it served. An Indian doctor was speaking Spanish to the Dominican family that were accompanying the toddler they had brought. Behind the curtains in front of us was a tween girl screaming because she did not want to be tested for the flu and in between screams she started throwing up.
Building memories, one song and one fire at a time
It might have been the melancholic tone of a snowy day by the fireplace with my three kids, quite a rarity these days that the older ones have tons of commitments, but while I was at the piano a thought hit me. I was thinking of songs to play and I remembered one that I really like but have not heard in years. I still remembered when I first was introduced to it by my dad. From all the memories I have of him, all the things we shared and all the things we didn’t, music was never at the top of my list. However today when I thought of that song so many of the songs and genres I learned about from him started cascading. From classical records, new age music, flamenco, ballads, opera and instrumental songs, his style was so varied and he loved his extensive music collection that everyone borrowed from. He challenged me to hear whatever was out of my comfort zone and learned from new musicians. I felt immense gratitude for the love for music he inspired in me and for all the memories we got to share even when it seems that we did not have that much time together between his demanding career, me leaving Venezuela young and he passing ten years after. But those sweet memories prevail in my heart.
The fearless rider
I am not completely sure where do I get the courage to tell the world a complete shocking fact about myself, but I guess when it became a wonderful learning opportunity for me it felt almost selfish to not share the recently acquired knowledge with others even when in the process I make a total fool of myself.
But here I go, world, as unbelievable as it is…I never learned to ride a bike.
I know, it seems like a joke that now at my recently adopted age of 43 I don’t know to do the thing that most kids learn by the time they turn…5? 8?. I never went through that rite of passage, I guess, and it is shameful and it is high up in my bucket list priorities to address.
Now that the fact is out in the open I am going to share why this became relevant during a recent short vacation. While we were spending some time in Madrid, our avid bikers friends suggested we rented electric scooters to move throughout the city. It was a beautiful crisp Autumn day, the kind that surprises you with bright sun rays and a timid cold breeze that only catches us in the shade. It seemed like a perfect plan. The only problem was that learning to ride a bike not only provides us with wonderful visions of leisure strolls through the countryside with a wicker basket hanging from the handle bars full of fresh flowers or a more modern vision of bike rentals in busy cities. Riding a back actually provides us with a very important skill that I am guessing five year-old kids might take for granted: balance.