68th entry to the colonel`s Scrapbook
Birthdates November 05:
1849 Rui Benedetto Barbosa Brazil, statesman/jurist/essayist/civil liberties ,author of Pantanal,great novelist and environmentalist,said,”Man is the only creature on earth who eats when not hungry,drinks when not thirsty,that is why he is doomed”1885 Will Durant writer/historian (Story of Civilization) read his books,they are fun1887 Paul Wittgenstein Vienna Austria, left hand specialist pianist, he lost his right arm fighting in World War I,so Ravel wrote the Concerto for the Left Hand for him
1913 Vivien Leigh (Gone With Wind) unforgettable Scarlet OHara on the film Gone with the Wind,ended up cuckoo
1942 Art Garfunkel NYC, singer/actor (Sounds of Silence, Carnal Knowledge) better composer than actor1942 Elke Sommer Berlin Germany, actress (Oscar, 10 Little Indians),could never be as sexy as Brigitte Bardot
Deaths
1989 Vladimir Horowitz pianist, dies at 85,one of the greatest interpreters of Chopin`s music,a Jew,of course
Events
1872 Susan B Anthony fined $100 for trying to vote for Ulysses S Grant, she was one hell of a suffraggette 1875 Susan B Anthony arrested for attempting to vote, men could vote just because of their configuration,imagine
UNCHARTED TERRITORY
We all have a map of our chores, pains and duties we may neglect or comply with everyday. Things that hamper our liberty of movement. Obstacles,hindrances,the thorns of our own crown that we devise on our own or let our boss wield over our tired forehead. So there I was walking alone, in a flowered dress with which I look like a happy pregnant animal. In my bag,the placement tests for fifty soemthing cadets from a military academy, their immediate destiny in my iguana-fingered hands. I want under the shady road, my own road not taken but that somehow is entwined with your road, your path, parallel to mine,hoping we touch,right my reader. The sunshine has refused to follow the sun`s steps and it is 5 pm but the light still kisses my round cheek. I enter a pastry outlet at the end of the road that takes me usually to my job. My diabetic automatic pilot guides my hand so I unconsciously stay away from those tempting cream and fruit scones laden with powdered sugar, my eyes veer from that chocolate fudge cake that seems to yell at me in sensuous Edith Piaf voice,”Eat me.” So I end up sipping iced tea, with a cucumber sandwich on pumpernickel. My doctor would smile.
It`s funny,we women are almost never left alone to our own devices. Always, there will be a man to tell us what to do our to limit our civil liberties. Did youpunch your entry card dear? Did you report to husband that you will be late,give itinerary? Today I am alone, walking upon a shaded trail few people know.I choose what I will eat. How many times do I get my food chosen for? Starting by the house menu, do I really cook all those dips and vegetables I so love?
But I am not bitter.I eat slowly, and I make the shopping list for the supermarket. All the wants and whims of a household which by definition should be a home. Definitions are so messed up now. I walk, I stroll,I stride down the big boulevard that goes down to Plaza españa,where the supermarket is. Half a kilometre walk, no sweat. The late afternoon is evolving into a cool evening. Two of my friends pass by in their cars,stop,offer me a ride. Thanks but no thanks. I just want to walk. Only those of us who have been on a wheelchair know how delicious it is to walk again without walking aid or cane or braces. It is like nectar for the bones, soma for the feet. Diriangèn`s descendant walking without a care in her own fat and so many times broken body.
Hair blowing in the wind,satisfied only by the fact that she is alive. The feeling every beats must have at sunset, as if he or she has been just created, brand new.
Once in the supermarket,I am amazed at the gimmicks dirty capitalism will do to strip us of our money. Precooked potatoes in any capricious form, divorced from the nutritious value of that food Columbus took with him from our world. The vitamins are taken off,and perfumed garbage is given to us.No wonder that of 6 million Nicaraguans, 500 thousand of us are diabetics, some 750 thousands have high blood pressure and may I not believe the quantity that still are classified as dangerous cholesterolics. But if we look into their supermarket carts,we have the most logical of explanations.We dig iour own graves with our dentures or natural teeth, burrowing,gnawing into food insanity. We feel ashamed not to consume all those cold pies USA exports so that they will also give us all those diseases through our bad habits. If we don`t take something made in USA we feel poor,guilty,tacky. As if USA has ever had its own gastronomy.
But we think we have to buy the American lettuce,the arugula,because it is chic, when we produce better lettuce of that type in the mountains of our own Jinotega. How much forest has to be cleared for a lettuce patch?Are we killing our environment to stuff ourselves as pigs? Ruii B.barbosa`s words come to me again.
We prefer to pay for a lousy imported product even when ours is better. The curse of Malitzin,the Aztec beauty who preferred to be the mistress of Spaniard Hernàn Cortès and not the wife of an Aztec man. But my cart is brimming with national products.I will not buy Dos Pinos from Costa Rica, I refuse to feed those who want to snatch away MY San Juan River. When I go alone to the supermarket I can do this, but my daughter and husband have another way of seeing life. Each to his own folly. I am a very patriotic housewife, maybe that will be my downfall.
What a delight not to have someone along saying what to do next. I love being on my own,and I realize suddenly how seldom I am only with myself. Always watched, always at short length. Never too far from the camera. And now, as a common cilivian with no stars on my shoulders, I stroll through the aisles of this place wondering why we love to poison ourselves slowly through our treacherous taste buds. I feel like the cat who dreamt -while he was being spayed under anesthesia- that the moon is a ball of cheese where thousands of mice live, and he strolls taking a look around and wants to pick the best one to chase. Too bad the cat wakes up to find his nuts gone. I wake up just like the cat in the cheese moon full of mice, at the cashier when I realize all my money (my own nuts?)will be gone in a swish because now everything is so expensive. So when my daughter asks me how much something cost, I tell her not to be so mannerless as to curtail my appetite.
I walk out of the supermarket feeling fleeced but satisfied I had enough to cover the bill. Barely enough left for a luxury: taxi to go home. I climb in,knowing that a bus would have meant crushed eggs just ready to be fried into an omelette, spilled skim milk for my kid and broken spaghettis. Getting home 70 minutes afterwards, angry and all smashed up. I lean back on the soft seat of the brand new taxi. It smells clean. Sometimes you get into taxis and you get off smelling like anything, not all of it perfumed. Or the broken seat springs tear your clothes apart. The driver zooms silkily through the early evening traffic, barely missing a crowded bus, flying by a big Coca cola truck.
It is during rare moments like this outing I had today when I discover the true difference in meaning between solitude and loneliness.
No dictionary really can do that.
Solitude is voluntary,desire,wanted,chosen,longed for. You await it, you seek it. Like I did today after I talked to you,perhaps so I could be with you better. Solitude always has a voluntary shadow,one you carry,which you call. Loneliness is the lack of the desired person. It is bitter,gnawing like a furious rodent. It hurts and bleeds copiously ,like a hemophiliac patient after a fall. It strangles you.
Many an English teacher may say I have to be nuts to realize the difference between solitude and loneliness on a shopping spree. Definitions many times are uncharted territories, DMZs between both Koreas, twilight zones. No man`s land. Beyond delimited, clear borders Non demarcatory lines tend to confuse us, my dearest heart.
We feel out of step So our footfalls grow insecure.
But tonight the sun has been quite kind,as Elton John said in his hit Your Song, as I wrote this entry(not a song),and it is for people like you dearest reader and may Sir Elton John forgive me for using his lyrics, that keep this book turned on.
Birthdates November 05:
1849 Rui Benedetto Barbosa Brazil, statesman/jurist/essayist/civil liberties ,author of Pantanal,great novelist and environmentalist,said,”Man is the only creature on earth who eats when not hungry,drinks when not thirsty,that is why he is doomed”1885 Will Durant writer/historian (Story of Civilization) read his books,they are fun1887 Paul Wittgenstein Vienna Austria, left hand specialist pianist, he lost his right arm fighting in World War I,so Ravel wrote the Concerto for the Left Hand for him
1913 Vivien Leigh (Gone With Wind) unforgettable Scarlet OHara on the film Gone with the Wind,ended up cuckoo
1942 Art Garfunkel NYC, singer/actor (Sounds of Silence, Carnal Knowledge) better composer than actor1942 Elke Sommer Berlin Germany, actress (Oscar, 10 Little Indians),could never be as sexy as Brigitte Bardot
Deaths
1989 Vladimir Horowitz pianist, dies at 85,one of the greatest interpreters of Chopin`s music,a Jew,of course
Events
1872 Susan B Anthony fined $100 for trying to vote for Ulysses S Grant, she was one hell of a suffraggette 1875 Susan B Anthony arrested for attempting to vote, men could vote just because of their configuration,imagine
UNCHARTED TERRITORY
We all have a map of our chores, pains and duties we may neglect or comply with everyday. Things that hamper our liberty of movement. Obstacles,hindrances,the thorns of our own crown that we devise on our own or let our boss wield over our tired forehead. So there I was walking alone, in a flowered dress with which I look like a happy pregnant animal. In my bag,the placement tests for fifty soemthing cadets from a military academy, their immediate destiny in my iguana-fingered hands. I want under the shady road, my own road not taken but that somehow is entwined with your road, your path, parallel to mine,hoping we touch,right my reader. The sunshine has refused to follow the sun`s steps and it is 5 pm but the light still kisses my round cheek. I enter a pastry outlet at the end of the road that takes me usually to my job. My diabetic automatic pilot guides my hand so I unconsciously stay away from those tempting cream and fruit scones laden with powdered sugar, my eyes veer from that chocolate fudge cake that seems to yell at me in sensuous Edith Piaf voice,”Eat me.” So I end up sipping iced tea, with a cucumber sandwich on pumpernickel. My doctor would smile.
It`s funny,we women are almost never left alone to our own devices. Always, there will be a man to tell us what to do our to limit our civil liberties. Did youpunch your entry card dear? Did you report to husband that you will be late,give itinerary? Today I am alone, walking upon a shaded trail few people know.I choose what I will eat. How many times do I get my food chosen for? Starting by the house menu, do I really cook all those dips and vegetables I so love?
But I am not bitter.I eat slowly, and I make the shopping list for the supermarket. All the wants and whims of a household which by definition should be a home. Definitions are so messed up now. I walk, I stroll,I stride down the big boulevard that goes down to Plaza españa,where the supermarket is. Half a kilometre walk, no sweat. The late afternoon is evolving into a cool evening. Two of my friends pass by in their cars,stop,offer me a ride. Thanks but no thanks. I just want to walk. Only those of us who have been on a wheelchair know how delicious it is to walk again without walking aid or cane or braces. It is like nectar for the bones, soma for the feet. Diriangèn`s descendant walking without a care in her own fat and so many times broken body.
Hair blowing in the wind,satisfied only by the fact that she is alive. The feeling every beats must have at sunset, as if he or she has been just created, brand new.
Once in the supermarket,I am amazed at the gimmicks dirty capitalism will do to strip us of our money. Precooked potatoes in any capricious form, divorced from the nutritious value of that food Columbus took with him from our world. The vitamins are taken off,and perfumed garbage is given to us.No wonder that of 6 million Nicaraguans, 500 thousand of us are diabetics, some 750 thousands have high blood pressure and may I not believe the quantity that still are classified as dangerous cholesterolics. But if we look into their supermarket carts,we have the most logical of explanations.We dig iour own graves with our dentures or natural teeth, burrowing,gnawing into food insanity. We feel ashamed not to consume all those cold pies USA exports so that they will also give us all those diseases through our bad habits. If we don`t take something made in USA we feel poor,guilty,tacky. As if USA has ever had its own gastronomy.
But we think we have to buy the American lettuce,the arugula,because it is chic, when we produce better lettuce of that type in the mountains of our own Jinotega. How much forest has to be cleared for a lettuce patch?Are we killing our environment to stuff ourselves as pigs? Ruii B.barbosa`s words come to me again.
We prefer to pay for a lousy imported product even when ours is better. The curse of Malitzin,the Aztec beauty who preferred to be the mistress of Spaniard Hernàn Cortès and not the wife of an Aztec man. But my cart is brimming with national products.I will not buy Dos Pinos from Costa Rica, I refuse to feed those who want to snatch away MY San Juan River. When I go alone to the supermarket I can do this, but my daughter and husband have another way of seeing life. Each to his own folly. I am a very patriotic housewife, maybe that will be my downfall.
What a delight not to have someone along saying what to do next. I love being on my own,and I realize suddenly how seldom I am only with myself. Always watched, always at short length. Never too far from the camera. And now, as a common cilivian with no stars on my shoulders, I stroll through the aisles of this place wondering why we love to poison ourselves slowly through our treacherous taste buds. I feel like the cat who dreamt -while he was being spayed under anesthesia- that the moon is a ball of cheese where thousands of mice live, and he strolls taking a look around and wants to pick the best one to chase. Too bad the cat wakes up to find his nuts gone. I wake up just like the cat in the cheese moon full of mice, at the cashier when I realize all my money (my own nuts?)will be gone in a swish because now everything is so expensive. So when my daughter asks me how much something cost, I tell her not to be so mannerless as to curtail my appetite.
I walk out of the supermarket feeling fleeced but satisfied I had enough to cover the bill. Barely enough left for a luxury: taxi to go home. I climb in,knowing that a bus would have meant crushed eggs just ready to be fried into an omelette, spilled skim milk for my kid and broken spaghettis. Getting home 70 minutes afterwards, angry and all smashed up. I lean back on the soft seat of the brand new taxi. It smells clean. Sometimes you get into taxis and you get off smelling like anything, not all of it perfumed. Or the broken seat springs tear your clothes apart. The driver zooms silkily through the early evening traffic, barely missing a crowded bus, flying by a big Coca cola truck.
It is during rare moments like this outing I had today when I discover the true difference in meaning between solitude and loneliness.
No dictionary really can do that.
Solitude is voluntary,desire,wanted,chosen,longed for. You await it, you seek it. Like I did today after I talked to you,perhaps so I could be with you better. Solitude always has a voluntary shadow,one you carry,which you call. Loneliness is the lack of the desired person. It is bitter,gnawing like a furious rodent. It hurts and bleeds copiously ,like a hemophiliac patient after a fall. It strangles you.
Many an English teacher may say I have to be nuts to realize the difference between solitude and loneliness on a shopping spree. Definitions many times are uncharted territories, DMZs between both Koreas, twilight zones. No man`s land. Beyond delimited, clear borders Non demarcatory lines tend to confuse us, my dearest heart.
We feel out of step So our footfalls grow insecure.
But tonight the sun has been quite kind,as Elton John said in his hit Your Song, as I wrote this entry(not a song),and it is for people like you dearest reader and may Sir Elton John forgive me for using his lyrics, that keep this book turned on.
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