Love : The other Amino-Acid

As humans, we are so incredibly fragile. We literally depend on love.
Any human being deprived of love, even if only in an infinitesimal amount, can't function or lead any kind of fulfilling life.
We are instinctively prone to search for love. Any kind of love will do, no matter where it is coming from, or even if it is not from another human being.
We have the ability to understand love even if is not directed as such. We read love on attention, on abuse, on dependency, or any form that may quench our need for love.
It is considered a mental disorder if you don't have the ability to receive or to perceive love.
It is as essential as air and water.
Self-love is also a type of love necessary for our well-being. From that, we can "metabolize" much of the love we need.
But don't forget that we also need "Essential Love". Just like we need to consume some forms of amino-acids because our body can not derive it from other amino-acids, some Love must come from an outer source. It is ESSENTIAL to life.
The happy twist of faith is that we can receive this "essential" love by giving it away. By being a source of Essential love to others, it reverberates right back at you.
Love: give it freely. Your life depends on it.

We are the world

Just step outside, look at the sky, the trees, take a deep breath.
Where is our thirst for knowledge? If you have an ounce of appreciation for the humanity as a whole, you must appreciate all the nuances from which it comes. We are the world. we are one. Why can't we be friends?

Come closer

If you can handle:
Dark humor
Off topic comments
Staring at animals 
Noticing bugs along the way
Getting wet from the rain
Listening to crazy family tales
Appreciate pebbles as much as diamonds
Coloring kids' menus with broken crayons
Choosing always the bendy straw
Taking pictures of clouds
Reading kids cheesy poetry
Eating dessert first
Receiving random nonsensical texts
Gazing at bonfires
Then come closer, pull out a chair 
Pull it way out of the way
And sit here in the grass next to me
I've got a feeling 
We are gonna be friends!

Full of it!

Thinking about the question of your cup being half full, or being half empty, I remember my younger self sitting in a science class where the professor argued that the cup is always full, either with air or any other content you put in it. 

This came back to me as I watched a video for a class I'm taking where we were discussing Happiness. 

The glass is indeed always full. In a sense of good energy vs. bad energy, the contents of the cup will be exactly what you put in. 

When you saturate your cup with good energy, happiness, anything positive, less space will be left to accommodate the undesirable stuff. 

Your cup will be always full. Now, it is up to you to take control of what goes in it. 

What do you allow in your cup?

Pearls

One of the great perks of being in a relationship is that we can have deep conversations at 8 am, on the way to work. 

Better yet it's when you've been together for 25+ years and still learning together. 

This morning Alex presented me with a great analogy and explanation about pearls. Then I added my 2 cents and this is what we came up with in the end. 

A pearl is the product of love and sacrifice of an oyster. 

Every pearl starts as a grain of sand. By entering the shell, it causes friction and pain to the oyster.  

I don't know about you, but I still have the tendency to push away anything that hurts or rubs me in the wrong way. Now here comes a simple mollusk to show me a different way to deal with adversities. 

For the oyster, it would probably be very easy to just stay there, hold the shells open for a bit and let the water circulates, washing away the grain of sand. Or it could even push the intrusion away.

However, we see acceptance. Despite its own pain, the oyster encapsulates it with its own essence and keep adding layer after layer of love, until the grain of sand becomes something beautiful, a shiny and unique pearl that can be presented as its own labor of love. 

Yup, some mornings are very productive! Another "One in a Roll" for Alex.   

Obituary

Today I watched a fascinating Ted Talk with Lux Narayan describing his findings after studying obituaries for 20 months. He compared the most used words in obituaries of famous and non-famous people. 

I was happily surprised by the fact that one of the most used words is HELP. 

We will be remembered by what we do, more than by who we are, or what we have. 

Amazingly enough, we crawl thru our lives giving such a great importance to what we gather and what we conquer, while knowing that our main goal is the things we do, especially for others, and how we make our surroundings, be our house or our planet, a better place. 

We mostly forget that we are writing our own obituary, one day at a time. Each action deposits your journey in a line. Your obituary is not something done after you pass to the next plan. It's something done now, done by you, each and every day. 

What are you writing in our obituary today?

Pipocando

Uma das tantas e tantas esquisitices que eu tenho e' ver uma mensagem ou licao nas coisas mais triviais, em situacoes mais inesperadas. 

Quando era adolescente usava-se  muito a expressao "viajando na maionese" quando eu dava voz ao turbilhao de idieas que chegavam sem pedir licenca, e devo admitir que ouvia isso com certa frequencia.  As vezes uma simples palavra era o bastante para criar uma avalanche de ideias, ate se atropelando umas as outras. Adolescente nao sou mais, porem as "esquisitices" sao bem mais constantes no meu dia-a-dia. 

Hoje, a  palavra que me puxou pela tangente foi PIPOCANDO, e isso me trouxe a comparar a nossa vida com pipocas. 

Na vida vamos juntando ingredientes e misturando-os. Depois  comeca a ser aplicado as provacoes, os fogos, os burilamentos. E assim comecamos a pipocar ideias e metas. 

Poucas no comeco, e graditivamente vao se intensificando. Os graos que nao receberem um calor suficiente ou que deixamos de lado acabam nao estourando, e nao satisfazem seu potencial maximo. 

Mas a maioria, depois de muito trabalho e muito calor, passam por uma modificacao onde seu interior se expande e seu potencial aflora. 

Assim, teremos um dia uma tijela cheia pra ser apresentada e degustada na hora derradeira que a vida passa pelos nossos olhos, como num filme de producao divina. 

Sejamos Marias Sororocas nessa vida. 

Kiss me, but I'm not Irish!

UPDATE: Turns out I am Irish afterall.  

I'm not celebrating Saint Patrick's Day anymore. 

Not that I ever had the cultural bond to really celebrate this day, to begin with. Not being Irish, my celebrations tended to be centered on the green color, the occasional booze and, of course, pinching anyone not wearing green on March 17th. 

So, few days before the "holiday", I looked into what it really means. To the Irish, to the Celtic culture and the freedom/repression of religion. 

Now, it doesn't sit well with me to celebrate Saint Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland, especially when it really means driving the snakes (pagans - in their eyes) out of Ireland as a Catholic way to keep control over the Irish people, who still, up to this day, fighting Civil battles in name of religion rights. 

I wonder if Saint Patrick regret his actions. 

Plant Away

We are living in very interesting days. Slowly, many of us are awakening to the need of preserving and saving our planet. 

I see so many people embracing new ideas; yet, not many are taking action. 

The most memorable moment of the 2016 Olympics for a girl that doesn't follow sports at all was the initiative of planting a tree in the name of each athlete. 

What a great opportunity to bring all races together and do something to better the planet. That action made me proud of my country.

Also, it reminded of a person very dear to me. My cousin Jose Humberto Sanches. 

A few years ago he had a brilliant idea of challenge people to go out and plant trees. I remember talking to him about it and loving his passion for the cause. 

Unfortunately, it was carried thru a social media group that has become extinct since then.

Many fauna and flora species have also become extinct and we cannot afford to wait on the sidelines, action-less. 

So here I am to challenge you and myself.

Let's act. 

After you read this, I challenge you to go out there and plant a tree. No excuses. 

I know that many will have issues with time, space, resources, etc., but we can all make an effort and act. 

Plant away. Plant in your back yard, plant in the fields, plant in a park, plant in a pot if you have to, but DO IT. 

Spread the word and challenge your friends. Make it a contest. Make it a family project.  A Bucket List item.

Then come back and tell us what you have planted and where. 

Clouds

In this age of information 

and new century technology

We constantly hear about the cloud

Over our heads, holding our knowledge

But the way I still think of clouds

As fluffy puppies dancing in a morning's sky

As hippos that just are about to plow 

Into a juicy yummy cherry pie

As Elephants playing with a ball

Or sometimes nothing at all. 

Cows - Secrets To A Happy Marriage

Yep, there are secrets to a happy marriage. 

Understand that I'm not talking about keeping a spouse. 

Maintaining a relationship status is not the same thing. 

A marriage or any long term relationship, label it whatever you want, that you can claim to be worth your while, is one that makes you a better person on a daily basis. It is one that by the end of the day you can state that "I'm glad you are by my side today." 

It's not always an idyllic paradise, but if you can at least say that you are willing to venture for another day tomorrow, you have something special to hold on.

Now, back to the secrets, one of them is having a special language. 

My husband's grandparents literally made up a language. I guess they had to find a way to communicate secretly with all 13 kids they birthed, but regardless,  they were a great example of happy marriage.

We have not been that ambitious on our marriage, however, we do have a language that it only makes sense to the 2 of us, or the 3 of us in most cases, counting in our son. 

Another secret is laughter, and this is where the cows come into place. 

We once took an impromptus field trip and were on the road for over 2 hours. 

During this time, we had the most amazing brain-storming session about cow jokes. 

Utterly whimsical, non-nonsensical, 2 straight hours of silliness like:

Q: What are cows' favorite vegetable?

A: Cowliflower  

A: No, It's cowrrots...

Q: What do cows say at a funeral?

A: My cowdolences!

By the time we got home, we were exhausted and with our faces hurting from so much laughter. 

Even though it has been few years since this road trip, we still break out the cow jokes whenever one gift itself to us. 

And this, my friends, is a little slice of happiness.  

  

This Is An Otter Issue

I've been listening to Noel Gallagher's songs a lot lately. 
Some how, they all have new a meaning for me, a new-found appreciation for the poetry in his songs. 
However, one of them became quite comical. 
I was listening to "Don't look back in anger", for the millionth time, and suddenly, I heard parts of the lyrics to be...
""Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain't ever gonna BIRTH MY OTTER""
From that moment on, this is all I can hear on that song. 
Maybe I did get infected when a had an incidental encounter with an otter (this is a story for another time.)
Go on, listen up. I bet you will never hear the original lyrics again. 

                           

Poisonous Nail

Recently I recollected an episode from childhood.

When I was little, maybe 4 or 5, I was chewing my nails and my mom and aunt Lu told me that I had to be very careful with his habit since we all have a poisonous nail. We all have one, and it varies from person to person, so it's better not to chew any in case you want to keep on living. 

That was the end on my habit. I simply stopped and forgot about the whole thing.

Then another day, something triggered the memory and I was baffled by it. 

I went my whole life not thinking about, but somewhere in the depths of my subconscious mind, I had the belief that we all have a poisonous nail. It took me about 35 years to bring that back and re-evaluate the facts. 

What else am I carrying around as "true fact", weighing me down along the process?

How many white little lies we just take it in?

Question the world kids. Question yourself, most of all. 

Thanks mom. I'll send you the therapy bill.  

Waves

Some days she rose up billowing like Neptune's fury, 

Some days she lay flaccid like Silentia's sleeping breasts,

She wasn't fueled by the phases of the moon, 

Her reasoning a mortal couldn't grasp.

She stopped explaining, she gave up on apologies.

She danced with the waves,

Crash, retreat, rise again.  

Cohabiting

One day she realized it was silly to be afraid of having a monster under her bed.

Along the years, they've moved up, one by one, into her head. 

Now they cohabit in a symbiotic harmony, 

Delivering new dreams, one by one, into her head.