Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 10: Culito de Rana

Later that same week the professor returned to her office to give the last set of exams for the semester. Again she collected her exams and again she readied the lucky rocks.  But it was too early to go to class on this particular day so she stood still for a minute and looked out the window.

There he was, arriving in his special limousine.

The professor decided to down just for once and meet him as the elevator lowed him to the ground.  Hey Alex, ready for your exam?

He nodded as best as he could but actually last week his old chair broke and now he was in this sportscar of a chair that he was still figuring out and that was taking ALL of his concentration so she didn’t ask him any more questions until he hit the green button once, then once again then pushed the circle forward and his chair moved him away from his limousine and through the glass doors into the building.

I like this one better she babbles at him. Before you were leaned back more, now you’re right up and down like you’re in a tight sports car.  He pushed the red button twice, stopped his car and smiled his agreement.

The professor meant to walk Alex to their classroom to make sure that he was there to take pictures but he shrugged her off.

 I have to wait here, he said slowly, carefully chosen word forming itself in him and then bursting out of his otherwise rigid silence. She asked if he was warm enough, if he needed anything. He turned his eyebrows down and said no.

 I want you to be part of this, she told him and then left him in the warm hallway surrounded by hushed packs of whispering students quizzing each other and cursing under their breath.

She went back upstairs to her office and fetched exams, the rocks and the frog.

Again the professor paraded with frog down the hall past exhausted looking exam-worn students strewn here and there like remnants of  party that died hours ago.  A waif like girl with a cuddly animal face knit hat looked up and smiled from her spot surrounded by piles of notecards pink green blue white.   Other students looked down and away staring at graphs and highlighted passages and printed out power point slides.

At five minutes before the time the Final Exam was supposed to begin the professor walked into the room. Several students were sitting on top of their desks in an informal circle quizzing each other.   The professor hid her pleasure at their intensity and walked silently to the front where she dropped the box of empty final exams and the laughing yoga frog on a small table. 

At exactly the time the final exam was supposed to begin the professor held up the frog statue and launched into an impromptu graduation speech.  Congratulations you’ve made it to the end! Look at the empty chairs. That guy stopped coming. That girl, the one who never had a pen, she disappeared, but you guys made it to the end in one piece, and that’s something to celebrate.

The class broke up into cheers as though someone were tossing candy and free tshirts at them.

I’m giving you a speech, I’m not cancelling your final, I need to talk to you about my frog, the professor announced and several fallen faces dropped their gazes back down into notebooks and notecards.   A few faces looked interested. . One girl with particularly tight headband winced a little.

I like frogs because they start out completely different from what they are intended to become.

They have tails, right? Then they lose them and grow up. That must be traumatic.

When my mom tells me “Sana, sana, culita de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana”(heal heal little frog’s tail, if you don’t heal today you’ll heal tomorrow) I imagine this poor baby froggy looking for its tail, what it’s lost, and not at all noticing that it has arms and legs and now it can leap.  

But once the frog realized it’s a new creature, strong and whole, it can do so much more and leap into a bigger world. And that’s what I wish your education will help you do.

I fell in love with this particular praying laughing yoga frog the moment I saw it.

 Just look at it, doesn’t it look like something I would love? 

Well I left it. But then the next week I went back to Cracker Barrel and it visited it and I had the money and I had no reason to not buy it but I just ran away from it.

And a week later I went back to Cracker Barrel again and I can’t believe I’m publicly admitting I went to Cracker Barrel three times in two weeks and I thought the frog was gone but it was THERE and it was 80% off. 

I love it and it was meant for me and I bought it and what I want to tell you all is that the universe is always growing and ever expanding and it is full of joyful things – big and small -  like this frog and I’m sure that what is meant to bring joy to you will find you.

After  you each finish exam I’m going to give a lucky rock and you’re going to take a picture with me and the frog. I’d give you your lucky rocks now but some of them are so strong that they bring an unfair advantage so you’ll have to wait.

Ready for your exam?

The professor hands out empty exams full of spaces for students to explain things like The Treaty of Versailles,  The Manhattan Project and The Powell Doctrine.  After finishing her walk up and down and between the rows she turns her attention to Alex who will leave her and take his test in a lab.

Ready for your lucky rock?

He nods.

She holds up the rock-laden tray that obscured the word “Believe” etched across it right under Alex’s hand. His rock picks him quickly but he can’t hold it in his hand. She asks if she can put it in his slipper and he laughs.

The professor turned her laptop and held her frog up to take a picture with the three of them. It came out well.  They took another, then another and because Alex was just hanging out in the room until his aid met him, the professor kept taking pictures with Alex and the frog.

Put me on your head the frog whispered to the professor.

She put the frog on her head so that its lilypad looked like a 1920s hat.

Alex threw his head back and laughed the happiest laugh anyone had ever heard. 

Before the moment could pass, the professor took a picture of the three of them, Alex laughing, the frog praying, her just peeking in from the side of frame.

 A minute later Alex’s aid entered the room apologizing for being late.  That’s fine Reggie, the professor said, eliciting giggles from testtakers who remembered the day she stopped lecture and asked him his name.

He told her. It was something like Eric. She shook her head and told him she was going to call him Reggie and after that she just did and everytime she did everyone giggled.  

Hold the my frog and take a picture Reggie, don’t ask any questions, act like this is normal the professor commanded as she thrust the frog at Reggie.

 Reggie did exactly what she asked, which only made Alex laugh harder. 

After that the two of them left for the lab, leaving the professor and her frog to finish the exam and take pictures with the rest of that class.

One by one students went off into their worlds, relieved of an exam, hopefully a little bit wiser and happier.

In the after-exam quiet the professor took her time stacking exams up and clearing off odds and ends from her desk before retreating to a long weekend of grading.

She wiped down her desk, watered her plants and placed the Laughing Yoga Frog on the windowsill right under the crystal that spun rainbows of joy across the office walls and floor for a few minute at just the right time each day.

Looking around one last time the professor went back to reposition the frog. Something had changed, just a little.

Your silent prayer was answered today, wasn’t it, the professor asked the praying laughing yoga frog.

So that’s what you’ve been waiting for, she asked again into the silence, answered only by a tiny rainbow that shot through the prism and onto the floor. 

And so, while the professor was indeed intended to be grading answers regarding the Potsdam Declaration and the Platt Amendment, instead she thought about what a wonderful universe this was that she could play even a little part in answering the prayers of the laughing yoga frog.

The world is a perfect place, created by a perfect creator whose imagination is still unfolding. 

Each bit of creation from the perfect creator is also perfect, both a piece in itself and also part of a whole.

Laughing Yoga Frog; Chapter 9: Pulitzer Frog

And then at the end of one particular semester just as the professor was packing up her lucky rocks and her laptop to take pictures and a box of empty final exams full of spaces for students to explain "Marshall Plan" and "Buck vs Bell" she noticed the frog and wondered "Would you like to come?"

Yes? The frog didn't protest so the professor tucked the frog under one arm, slung the box of exams and such under the other arm, and marched down the halls full of college students huddled in study groups surrounded by puddles of notes.

She acted as if it were totally normal to be walking down the hall with a statue of a laughing yoga frog, like this is just how things are supposed to be today.

Upon entering her large class the professor put her frog down, set up for the exam and when it was time to start the exam - but not a minute before - she asked the students for their attention to tell them one last  story for the semester.

She holds the frog up.

I brought the Laughing Yoga Frog for you today to help during exams. Sometimes I hold it and pretend its the Pulitzer Prize for comedy and practice my acceptance speech.  

The class laughed the professor continued with a short tale of falling in love with the frog, leaving it, visiting it, leaving it, again, then finally retrieving it.

 The class stares at her for a moment, the word "so?" hanging over their heads collectively, silently, heavily.

This was their final exam; they were not expecting to hear about the Cracker Barrel gift shop.

The professor puts the frog down and tells her students that the frog has taught her a great deal.  What the universe intends for you, you will receive.  This frog waited for me, she tells them, and adds, this frog is to remind you that what is intended for you will be something joyful, something that you will find and will find you.

Smiles of relief cross the room.

The professor picks up a heavy stack of exams and asks who's ready to take an exam and even though no one said yes please she decided to give them their final exams anyway.

One by one as the students finished their exams the professor let them pick their stone -- or rather, let their stone find them -- and took a picture with each student, their stone and the laughing yoga frog.

When the last student finishes her exam she begs for mercy and the professor promises to read the exam carefully.  They take a picture together and the student carries her lucky rock -- amber -- out of history class and off into the rest of her life.

The professor packed the exams neatly and again tucked the frog under her arm and walked through the hallway stepping over the twisted tangled study groups of students that lined the wall.

When she got back to her office the professor put the frog back in her spot below the crystal and next to the windchimes. She stacked the exams up neatly, turned her office light off and went home to thing about things big and small.

The next day the professor gave another exam.

Again she brought the frog.

Again she told them  the story of Cracker Barrel and pointed out that what was meant for them they will most definitely get.

Again she told them it was her pretend Pulitzer.

Again she told them to marvel at the tree pose,  that  finding balance and strength and joy takes practice and intention.

This time she added that the universe was always growing and expanding and many of the wonderful things intending for them are still only being imagined.

 Have patience,  and expect wonderful things she tells them and then tells them to put everything away and take their history exam.

One by one students pose with the frog, with their rocks.  When the last student leaves the room the professor stacks the exams neatly and carries the papers and the laughing yoga frog back to her office.

That night the laughing yoga frog looked up into the moonbeams and broke her silence with small  words crammed in one joyful prayerful thought bubble proclaiming "I'm almost there."

Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 8: Silent. Strong, Balanced

Semester after semester the professor and her students and the rocks and the laughing yoga frog continued their dance.

Students went through her class and off into their lives to become mothers and warriors and dentists and engineers and artists and philanthropists and musicians and whatever else seed that was planted in their soul and watered by experience and nurtured by hope.

The professor came and went day and day into her office life and back into her mother life.

 Every day she was thankful to the universe and her creator that she had an office, this office with crystals and rainbows and frogs and stones and students.

And through it all, day after day, semester after semester, year into year, the laughing yoga frog stayed planted in tree pose, silent, strong, balanced.

Chapter 8

Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 7: Faithful Expectation

The professor often met students who were in college but not really.

They would come to class once and sit off from the rest of the class, take a week off, then wander in lost and confused and then take another week off to recover.

 If and when the professor could get such students to her office she would remind them of a Buddhist proverb: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears" and offer to them that they really weren't meant to be learning this from her, here and now.  Sometimes she would continue in her explanation, saying perhaps they weren't coming to class thirsty for knowledge but surely they were learning alot somewhere else in their life, that something was really compelling them with passion and growth.

 Students often looked down and sad to hear the truth and graciously be allowed to admit that they didn't really want to be in college not now, not here.

 The professor would remind them they were free, and then wished them well on their path, arming them with a lucky stone.

As the 21st century college world would have it, most students didn't ever come to the professor's office.

They came to class, asked questions in class or on email, and went on with their life without ever meeting the laughing yoga frog.

Because the professor spent so many hours in her offices she had plenty of time to grade exams, write lectures, answer email, compile learning outcomes, waterher plants, rearrange her stones and stare out the window at the planes going by.

Sometimes the professor got up from her chair and stood in the tree pose with her frog, falling out of the pose, laughing.  Sometimes she forgot to laugh and instead sat hunched in her chair staring at Dr. Suess WW2 cartoons, trying to pick exactly the right four that together could tell a good story.

On an especially quiet day when the professor had no one to meet with, nothing to grade and nothing to write she stared and stared at the laughing yoga frog and then finally asked of it what she always wanted know.

What are you laughing at?

What are you praying for?

Are you praying  thank you for something delightful that you received?

Or are you praying thank you for something delightful you know you'll get?

Something told her it was the last thing, that the frog was smiling, waiting silently and tree-like, immobile in its faithful expectation of joy.

The Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 6: Statue of Liberty

When the professor brought the Laughing Yoga Frog home she thought she would put it outside by the rose bushes, jasmine and fish pond.  Right there it would be a glorious center to a meditation area.

She put it down, surrounded it with rocks and stepped back.

The otherwise jubilant frog disappeared into the foliage small and lost, a point of joy dimmed into nothing.

  No, no this is all wrong the professor muttered then put the frog on her mantle.

 There, you will inspire me every day to be quiet, to be prayerful, to be happy and balanced like you. Perfect.

The frog looked a little bit better there next to the flatscreen TV, but because it was up so high no one could really see it's prayer and appreciate its balance.

One day as the professor was packing her laptop into her shiny red faux-leather sack on the way to work she looked up at the frog and thought to the frog Hey! Are you happy there are do you want to come with me?

The laughing yoga frog didn't protest so the professor carefully picked her up and brought her to the car where -- just in case, you can't be to sure, you know -- she placed it in the passenger seat and strapped the seatbelt carefully around it's delicately strong pose.

Once she arrived in her office the professor put the yoga frog down on the corner of her desk, unpacked her computer and turned it on.

She sat back in her chair and looked around for a suitable place for the frog to pose.

Over there was a line of frogs the professor had rescued from her mother's house, frogs who were being evicted in a purgative house cleaning. The yoga frog was larger than the other frogs -  the Puerto Rican surfer frog, the bank frog, the frog with the safire eyes, the two frogs melted together in a tango - like the Statue of Liberty placed among kindergarten playdough creations (no offense to the other frogs she thought quickly then laughed at herself).

The laughing yoga frog wanted to stay on the professor's desk, right there by the pile of lucky rocks that sprung from the center of the earth and although they couldn't walk, couldn't talk, had no free will, here they were offering themselves up to the endless line of students who came to talk to the professor -- and now her frog -- about Andrew Jackson, the Cuban Missile Crisis and other such professor stuff.

Over the next semesters the  ever changing pile of rocks that visited the professor's desk and watched the frog do her yoga before leaping into the hands of students included blue lace agate for healing, crazy lace agate for balance and laughing; rose quartz for harmony and love; Amber for luck and success and to remember that sap was once running and then slowed down, so slow it transformed into art.

One day the professor received an email that a student died. She wanted to turn her computer off and walk away from her office, her rocks and the laughing yoga frog but instead she brought her laptop to exams and took pictures with each and every student as they handed in their exams and received their lucky rocks. This one is for freedom, this one is for insight, this one helps you let go of beliefs that no longer serve you and don't help you become who you are intended to be.

No matter how carefully the professor counted rocks when she went to buy them the professor always ended the semester with twenty or thirty rocks that refused to let themselves be picked, and instead insisted on being returned to her office where they could stay with the laughing yoga frog.

Legend of the Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 5: A Mile in My Flip Flops

When the professor approached the counter to pay, the extra friendly brown aproned cashier asked if everything was OK. 

 Yes, yes, fine, she muttered in response then despite herself blurted out, I was just wondering about this Yoga Frog you had and maybe you have some more in the back?

The cashier looked at her for a second  with a blank face then pointed to the back of the store.  There's still one sitting there. It's out of its box, I think. I'm pretty sure its the last one. 

The professor spun on her heels and quickly weaved through a crowd of slow moving people with large purses and bags,  marched past the dice games and around the pile of gifts celebrating each branch of the Military and looked exactly where the cashier had pointe,  right there facing the bathroom, doomed to smell cinnamon apple candles read cute signs like “Don’t Judge me Until You Walk a Mile in My FlipFlops."

There, planted like a tree was the Laughing Yoga Frog, now 80% off on clearance.

She carefully picked the frog up, cradled in her arms and said silently to her heart to the universe to whoever was listening,  I hear you.  I don't know why, I don't know what for, but it's clear we belong together. 

Chapter 4: Gone

Legend of the Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 4: Flat and Weak

The next week again the professor had an overwhelming undeniable craving for eggs.

 She tried an Egg McMuffin but it felt empty. 

She tried Village Inn but it felt heavy. 

She tried to cook at home but it felt rushed and cold.   

Finally she made time and a date with a friend to go to Cracker Barrel. proclaiming to the world Oh my GOSH I come here to often! 

She marched right to where the frog was and it was gone.

She marched right to where the frog was and it was gone.

She waited in front of the moon pies and orange soda somberly and waited for her name to be called.

The professor ate her two over-medium eggs eggs quietly and bitterly. 

They seemed rubbery and wet and tasteless at the same time. 

The bacon was fat and limp.

The biscuit was hard and flat and doughy; none of the jellies even sounded good. 

Her diet coke tasted flat and weak.  

After a few minutes the professor gave up and just put her fork on the plate, realizing she didn't even know what she wanted at all anymore. 

Chapter 3: Falling Over, Laughing

The next week the professor again couldn't stop thinking about the frog. She googled it (nothing) she tried to draw it (no, too flat, too cartoonish) and then finally stopped and sat herself outside to be extra extra extra quiet.

What is it I'm supposed to be learning from this frog the professor asked the universe and the answer was silence, silence and more silence.

Am I supposed to jump like a frog, she wondered, but that didn't sound right.

Maybe I'm supposed to work on this pose she thought and of course that was the answer so she got right into Tree Pose.

 She stood straight up on one leg, tucked the other foot above her knee making a right triangle.

It was hard to hold, she fell out of it, laughing.

Again she tried to hold the tree pose, to be like a tree, strong, silent, balanced.  Again she fell down, laughing.

Over the next week she worked on her tree pose over and over and over, telling people they should try it, they should try it and try to learn to be like a a tree - solid, quiet, flexible, strong.   People nodded and  changed the subject.

Morning after morning, night after night the professor tried to stand like a tree, to stand like the frog and keep her balance while looking up to the sky, to the universe and each time she tried she fell over, laughing. 

Legend of the Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 2: Obsessed

The next week the professor tried to put the Laughing Yoga Frog out of her mind.

Well, she kinda tried, but mostly she talked about the frog to her mother to her daughter to her students to her friends and imitated the pose the best she could much to their entertainment.

The professor was so enchanted by the memory of the Laughing Yoga Frog that she she googled it to see if she could sneak a peek at it online. She tried "Yoga Frog" and "Laughing Frog" and "Cracker Barrel Frog" and "Most Amazing Happy Frog Ever" but nothing she tried brought an image of anything that came close to the amazing Laughing Yoga Frog.

As life would have it, the next week she was hungry for eggs again and found herself at Cracker Barrel again.

 The professor went straight to the section where the frog had been and there it was, still standing still and quiet in tree pose, still laughing, still balanced, still patiently waiting to picked up and brought home.

Its price had been slashed 30%.

The professor stood possessively in front of the discounted-frog for as long as she could, but when her name was called she raced right up to the front, hungry and thirsty and ready for eggs.

When she finished her meal the professor paid quickly and left the store racing past racks of books on tape and recipe books on things like how to use Coca-Cola in amazingly American dishes.

She didn't take a single last look at the frog, not a peek.

 It's easier this way, she told herself, explaining to no one that she did NOT want to become someone who had frog statues in her front yard.

 In her heart she wished the frog a great life and then kept going,  as quickly as her cute Jessica Simpson nude colored patent leather pumps with peek-a-boo toes allowed her to move, past the row of old fashioned rocking chairs, past the oversized table with the oversized checkerboard, into her car and onto the highway.

Lege

Legend of the Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 1: Delightful!

The professor stood frozen in her orange sherbet long dress in front of a small statue of dark green frog standing in perfectly balanced Tree Pose with her hands folded in front of her heart in prayer while her entire head was thrown up to the sky in a broad laughing smile.

DELIGHTFUL! the professor proclaimed out loud,  startling a chubby woman who was holding up a package of off-label gummy worms in a patriotic Halloween package.

I love it, she said again, under her breath, pet the statue twice, rubbed its stomach and walked away when her name was called over the loud speaker.

After eating her eggs and such and rounding up children and other normal lunch things she went back to the gift shop and stared at the frog again.

It was like meeting an old friend, a new friend, a friend she had been waiting for.  Seeing it made her smile, laugh, shake her head. 

Again she said,  Delightful!, this time only in her heart, in the place where you know if something or someone fits like a key or not. 

 This was love -- frog love -- immediate and perfect. 

And because she loved the frog so much, and because the professor was so damn wise, she turned right on her heels and walked right out of Cracker Barrel, past the windchimes and rocking chairs and awkwardly parked 4 door Buicks. 

The professor didn't stop until she got safely in her car, strapped herself in and drove away as fast as she could. 

The world is a perfect place, created by a perfect creator whose imagination is still unfolding. 

Each bit of creation from the perfect creator is also perfect, both a piece in itself and also part of a whole.

Into that cascading fountain of awesomeness appeared things like corn and Cuba and artists like Brito and Billiards players like my father, each worthy of a story of their own.

This particular story is about a professor and her magical Laughing Yoga Frog.

When God imagined this particular professor she decided to place her with happy people who would let her learn how to fall in love with reading and stories and breakfast foods and generosity and the beach and Cuba. 

 Much much further down the list in things that God created this professor to take delight in was “cooking” and other “kitchen” things.    

One day while waiting in the giftshop of Cracker Barrel the professor passed a long line of garden decoration frogs.  

The first frog was fat and lumpy and awkward.

The next frog was sneaky looking.

The third frog was love at first site.

The Legend of the Laughing Yoga Frog: Prelude

The world is a perfect place, created by a perfect creator whose imagination is still unfolding. 

Each bit of creation from the perfect creator is also perfect, both a piece in itself and also part of a whole.

Into that cascading fountain of awesomeness appeared things like corn and Cuba and artists like Brito and Billiards players like my father, each worthy of a story of their own.

This particular story is about a professor and her magical Laughing Yoga Frog.

When God imagined this particular professor she decided to place her with happy people who would let her learn how to fall in love with reading and stories and breakfast foods and generosity and the beach and Cuba. 

 Much much further down the list in things that God created this professor to take delight in was “cooking” and other “kitchen” things.    

One day while waiting in the giftshop of Cracker Barrel the professor passed a long line of garden decoration frogs.  

The first frog was fat and lumpy and awkward.

The next frog was sneaky looking.

The third frog was love at first sight.

Confessions of a Birthday-zilla.(Adventures in Yoga Pants)

You didn't hear from me last year on my birthday.  I was a Birthday-zilla who refused to answer the phone or to return a text.  My facebook was deactivated, my blog turned off.

 If I'd had a Harry Potter invisibility robe I would have thrown it over myseslf.

Zoe was home for a week with an awful flu and maybe I caught it or maybe I caught something else - a virus of the spirit? - that left me languishing in my tub for hours staring at the ceiling waiting impatiently for an answer to a question I still couldn't quite formulate yet.

The first print copy for my approval of my book, Marvin's Book, arrived in the mail while I was in the bathtub.

I can't remember which of my kids opened it and brought it to me in the bathtub thinking it would snap me into a happy birthday spirit.

In a movie I'd like to think that any author presented with her first copy of her first book would spring out of the bathtub and dance in a towel. Not me. Not today.

I fussed at the poor messenger (now I remember it was Zoe because she was home and feeling much better and asking please could I get her something for lunch and hence I ended up in the bathtub, two hours ago) about opening my mail and it was my BIRTHDAY leave me ALONE PLEASE and ugh if the camera crew from Birthday-zilla was there they would have had a good scene.

Because I was hungry - not because I was a responsible mother - I got myself out of that bathtub, blowdried my hair and threw on some yoga pants.

 For a minute I thought to get myself new yoga pants for my birthday, remembering I had bought these the year before Zack was born.

Zoe hears me getting dressed and asks where we can go. I don't want to go in anywhere that involves makeup, a dress, being charming.

 I want to get back home and sit on my swing in silence and keep figuring something out. so I offer a few drive thru's.

 Zoe tilts her head and asks sweetly for Subway, offering to go in and get the order by herself.

This snaps me out of myself. I clarify with her that she would and can go into a store all by herself. Yes, she nods brightly, she'd done it before. 

Her energy brightens me up for this yoga pants  adventure.   I hand her $20 and she repeats the order.  We discuss back-up chips in case they don't have the jalepeno chips.

We arrive to a Subway crowded with the high school lunch rush.

 Zoe's wearing ugg boots, pajama pants and a sweatshirt.  Her hair is in a sloppy bun. She could fit seamlessly into in any of my college classes. She could slip right into any high school class. She knows this and takes a deep breath before steeling herself up leave the car and join the crowded store.

I have my copy of Marvin's Book in the car.

I can't open it. I don't know what to do with it.  I should be happier, I want to be happier, yay yay I wrote my first book and yay it arrived on my birthday but I don't feel that at all.

 It's the story of trying to fulfill a promise I made to Marvin Scott -- one of my most beloved students who passed away too suddenly -- and looking for a happy funny ending for the book.

The book, tangible and bound in my hand now  doesn't fix one bit the grief that I feel in losing him; if anything it magnifies it like a sore that just had its scab ripped out.

Tears well up.  Birthday-zilla girl is in her car, crying.

 I know enough to shake this off; I'm someone's Mom and I don't want to be the crazy woman crying in her car so I turn on happy music and  toss the book in the backseat and wait for Zoe to bring me my Birthday lunch.

A minute later she emerges from the store looking bright and proud.

 She slips into the car and as I drive us home she tells me every detail about  who she saw in there and who was working and I interrupt her to ask for my drink and her story stops dead.

Drink? Oh. Oh mom. I. I forgot.

You forgot my drink?

I forgot your lunch, oh my gosh Mom I'm so sorry.  It was so crowded in there and I felt shy and Mom I'm so sorry we can just go right back if you'll just turn around.

We are at a light at a major intersection. I could pull over a lane and get back to Subway. I don't.

Instead the tears I'd been holding back from Marvin's Book, from losing two more people while writing that book, from having it all finally be over,  come flooding out.

You forgot my BIRTHDAY lunch?  This has to be the worst birthday ever!

Birthday-zilla-osity overwhelms me, joining hunger and grief into a whirlpool of self-centered muck. Zoe sits sullen and sad, she wants to give me her sandwich but I don't eat it with all those veggies and really she doesn't want to give it to me, I know this so I refuse.

After the intersection we pass Wendy's and Chik-fila.

 I drive thru one of them and get myself a chocolate shake and sharing Zoe's jalepeno chips, deciding to  write a happy ending to the whole ordeal.  I didn't try to have a good birthday and overall I had a very below average one  but despite myself I did have a great year.

This year I went to Cuba and wrote most of my next book. Marvin's Book hit #1 in humor. Every book signing sold out.  I met awesome people and wore cute shoes. I buy new yoga pants, snappy black ones that look "much better."

This year I'm having a better birthday. I decided to, I planned to.

Last year I announced that no one needed to buy or do anything with or for me (please) and to not even try.

This year I decided to be happy, and I decided that in order to be happy I needed a present from Abuela, I know she'd want me to be happy and to celebrate a great year ending and a better year beginning.

Before heading to the mall I ask myself what Abuela would have bought me.

 Jewelry? Shoes? No.

Three seconds of rewinding in my head and I remember what she gave me every year in college and after that - makeup gifts from the mall, artists palettes of violets pinks corals and golds, entire rainbows of possibility

I find a gorgeous box of color at Sephora and shamelessly buy it, reveling in the hope of having another year of adventures worthy of lipgloss, cute shoes and stories to write for you.

Santeria

It is Memorial Day morning, and the kids aren’t up yet. I sneak to the bathtub and settle down with my favorite purple pen, ready to draft a story for my favorite veteran, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, I keep drifting back to that Emily Bronte poem that I found yesterday.

I have dreamed dreams in my life, dreams
that have stayed with me ever after
and have changed my ideas;
they’ve gone through and through me,
like wine through water,
and altered the color of my mind.

I’ve lived a lot of the past fifteen years in my dreams, in the clouds, changing with the weather and seasons. I used to believe I was irresponsible and unfocused; now I know I was just born free -- one part body, one part fire, one part waterfall, one part vapor constantly floating away.Fifteen years ago this week, face-down sad and exhausted from a year of intensely silent suffering, I tossed down a handful of prescription sleeping pills. Actually, I took a few, then wasn’t sure if I’d taken any, so I took some more, and then, again, I couldn’t remember if I’d taken any, and I wanted to be sure to find some real rest, finally, so I took the rest.I tried to jump into the sky on that quiet warm late Spring night.Maybe I made it there for a few hours, I don’t know.I woke up from a dreamless black hole, sweaty, covered in sticky partly dried vomit, gripped with the worst headache I hope to ever know.The next events aren’t clearly spelled out in my journal, but what is clear is that within a day I was on a plane, headed back to Fort Lauderdale. There I would spend the rest of the summer holed up in my childhood and teenage room, reading thick romance novels, crying, and sleeping.At least that is what I remember.What I did not remember until finding that journal yesterday, what I could not have remembered because I popped pink and white and blue pills to calm my nerves and fix my sadness, was that I prayed boldly and loudly for help that summer.

Also, I tried my hand at magic that summer, sending up perfectly honorable prayer requests written in English and blessed in Spanish with oil from a botanica that sold platanos and pastelitos and along with powerful candles, waters, oils and herbs.
------------------------------
June 23, 1994
My life is mud. I would’ve gulped the entire bottle of (Rx) by now, but mom and dad are hiding them and just doling them out. That’s judicious because I’m so damn fed up with where I am, who I am and what I have begun. I’m so disappointed in myself, I hate myself. I starve myself, bounce checks, and push away good friends.

I was in the hospital on Sunday, hyperventilating. My chest gets tight, I can’t fill my lungs, my eyes bug out, it’s terrifying.

Mom talks about me being here this Fall. No. Hospital first. Then morgue. I will not stay here, like this.I have lit candles to St Jude (please HELP), St Theresa (inner peace, love), and St Anthony (companionship and marriage).After praying to St. Anthony last night and crossing myself with the “oil” that Abuela and Pepe Cortina and I bought at Santa Barbara farmacia, I dreamt vividly about marriage.I was on a familiar mountainous terrain, and saw a white stone peak mountain head. A hot salty wind blew from the West; I thought for a second we were in Cuba, but no, it was somewhere else.

The city was a 16th century Spanish village, and my betrothed and I were having to prove our faith in order to have the union blessed.

It was more of a memory or a flashback than a dream.

I hope that dream was a gift from St. Anthony, a sign that I have tasted love, that I will be loved and happy at the right time.

So...

------------------------------------Every day for the rest of that summer, I sprinkled myself with the oil and the water, kneeled in front of the candles and said three, four, five rosaries to the silent angry God I did not yet know well enough to laugh with.I didn’t even think to ask God -- directly or magically -- to free me from the Anaconda of sadness and self-destruction I voluntarily wrapped around myself.

I did not ask to be freed from the addictions that were filling my mind, my hours and my days, whispering lies that I loved to believe.By the end of July, I was back in the hospital, throwing up blood, starving myself, paying a masochistic penance for sins and transgressions only I could see.

Despite my best efforts, I didn’t jump into the sky in the summer of 1994. I stayed shackled down here, pacing, restless, believing the illusion I was powerless and alone. All my attention turned to my body, scapegoating it for every single transgression and trespass by and against my soul.

In the darkness of the late summer days, as I gathered myself together to return to Tallahassee and finish my PhD, I slipped repeatedly back into the warm familiarity of that dream with a faceless groom whose hands held mine.

There, I would linger in limbo, letting his warmth flow into my fingers, through my arms, back into my heart.

I kept writing.

For Whom the Stars Shine*

Many years ago – 15? 18? – right before the long drive back to Tallahassee, I snuck into my parents’ room and stuck a constellation of glow in the dark stars above their bed to ease our bittersweet parting.

Mom called that night – or was it the next? – giggling. She’d loved the stars because they reminded her of when I was 4 and reached up and grabbed a star for her  in a moment of unleashed gushing mother worshipping love.

My Mom then snuck some glow in dark stars onto the ceiling of Abuela’s room.

Don't ask me for a more specific story than this, because I’m not sure how it went over way back then. Really. I had a dissertation to write, I was busy being in my 20s and and also that was the “old days” when communication was clunkier.

I bet that at first pobre Abuelita must have thought her eyesight was going wild, or that she was becoming like Cuca who went blind and then would see and talk to a handsome man who was invisible to us all but drove her absolutely wild.   


 I got the impression he courted Cuca and loved  Cuca, and entertained her endlessly. As far as I could tell, she was the happiest vieja in the “home” and if I go even a little bit crazy please oh please let me go like Cuca went! Anyway.....

Whether Abuela loved those crazy stars or not, they stayed on her ceiling shining over her for the years she suffered a little, then a little more, then so much she jumped past the stars and left us all here. 

Last week in the silence of a hot summer night, those stars I had forgotten all about shined down on me for awhile, and I laughed (again) (alone) with my Abuela, and in my heart I told them goodbye and let them be free*

Abuela, 4 Years Later

Dear Abuelita,


I called Abuelo last night. He asked me what you think of him, and how he's doing and I told him the truth, that you are laughing that you are free and you're everywhere now*

Another Statue of Liberty in Cuba. I Can't Make this Up.

I brazenly and maybe after a few too many thimble sized glasses of Cuban red wine told my cousins we would come back to Cuba in October.

My mom and I  meant to be there this week, right now. We  tried to make it work but a few things weren't quite right and we postponed   We decided to go in November, but there were no seats left on the flights we needed. So now I know I won't see Cuba again this year, and I have to let that be enough.

After hearing so many times from my Abuela (when she could tell me) and my Abuelo (still, from his chair in between episodes of Hardcore Pawn and Cops)  I needed to see Cuba to understand, I finally saw it. I'm starting to understand.  It should be enough to say that I went to Cuba, and then move on to the next thing on my bucket list.

But its not like that.

 I fell in love with Cuba; it told me stories and made me want to write. It filled my imagination and my heart and changed how I saw everything.

After the honeymoon ended and the chapters started to trail off and I sat here quiet alone (and unestranged) (for months) thinking if I could just see Cuba again I would be able to finish the book, I'd have something to really say.

But then yesterday I was going through my iPhone yesterday looking for a new screen for Facebook and I slowed down in my Cuba pictures.

There, there is the Parthenon.  In Cuba. Amazing.

There, me and my Mom at this cemetery, and then the other, placing flowers.

There, me and Jose Marti. Amazing.

And then come the pictures I took while Machete was driving us.

And there right after the picture of the big tree and the other picture of an old guy leering at a woman walking by was a clear shot of a statue I hadn't noticed before.

 I pinch and zoom and squint my eyes.

It can't be. I already found Lady Liberty poised at ground level holding the laws of the Cuban Republic (1902).   It was enough to have found the Statue of Liberty in Cuba. Really.

Now I'm sure it's her, I'm sure its her regal neck her thrown back shoulders I see in this photo shot down the Prado.

She has one arm raised. She is wearing a toga.  It doesn't have to be her.

 It could be Our Lady of Sorority Parties.

 It could be a forgotten then remembered goddess poised with one arm raised commanding sugar to grow and money to flow.

That's craziness.

 It's Lady Liberty planted in stone in Cuba.  You'd agree if you saw her.

I send the image to my Mom to identify.

She isn't sure who it is and sends it to cousins to friends.

They come back with "Patria." Lovely.

Finding that statue gives me hope not only to see Cuba again, but to see Cuba free.

My Cuba Adventure* (Finding the Statue of Liberty, etc)

A three day treasure hunt through the Cold War, the Miami Airport and Cienfuegos, Cuba. 


Prologue - Walking on the Shady Side of the Street 

Chapter #1: Welcome to Cienfuegos, Cuba. Now LEAVE 

Chapter 2: Miss Cienfuegos 

Chapter 3: Machete and No Spaghetti. 

Chapter 4: Trumpeting Hardship 

Chapter 5 - Day #2: 3 Doctors and a Crazy American 

Chapter 6: Go Team Cuba 

Chapter 7: The Rest is Icing 

Chapter 8: A Young Bride and a Magic Mirror 

Chapter 9: Down the Hill

Chapter 10: A Deadly, Dangerous, Huge Desert

Chapter 11: The Porcelain Iron Curtain and the Big Screen Idea

Chapter 12: The Queen: There You Are

Chapter 13: Hail Mary: From Zero to Obsessed

Chapter 14: Monumental Discoveries 

Chapter 15: Two Small Circles over a Big Circle 

Chapter 16: Right Before the Conversation Turns to Jose Marti

Chapter 17: Rapido Corren Los Carros Cargados de Azucar

Chapter 18: Are they White? or Light?

Chapter 19: Me, Marti and the Rosetta Stone in My Bra.

Chapter 20: Here a Che, There a Che, Everywhere a Che Che

Chapter 21: The Rumors Were Wrong

Chapter 22: A Bittersweet Catch.

Chapter 23: A Tale of Two Cousins

Chapter 24: Served on a Gold Tablet.

Chapter 25: The Stories We Tell* Pirates of the Caribbean

 Chapter 26: A Capitalist Dance (A Little One)

Chapter 27: Roots

Chapter 28: The Part Where I am Compared to Hugo Chavez

Chapter 29: Mission Accomplished

Chapter 30: My Hole

Thank You for the Generosity of Your Toes

She wakes me up around midnight on Sunday, not that late into the night but late enough that I had finally found peace dreamless sleep. 

 She’s burning up. 

This is out of nowhere, she was fine, just fine and now she’s sick and I have to wake up and figure something out.

Ice, water, Tylenol. 

I try to use the thermometer, the expensive one that scans across skin and makes this crazy beeping pattern that only my children understand. 

Its too dark, I can’t read it, I don’t need to see it. 

She’s burning up.

I settle her on the sofa, tucking her with pillows and blankets.  I wet a cloth with cold water and lay it on her forehead.

She isn’t talking much, and I have nothing to say.  I hope that she'll fall asleep, that I'll fall asleep, everything will be better quickly. 

As I try to move away moans and puts her arms up. Please, pleeeeease,  I need my Mom. 

Ok, Ok, I say and get myself a glass of water before settling down next to her.

She leans against me; maybe actually she pushes herself against me. I once had a dog that would walk up and push his itchy butt on people begging to be scratched in a gesture of needy frustration. 

That’s how her head feels pushed up against me.

I’m nice to her. For as long as I can take it, I’m nice to her.

I have such a long day coming, so long I needed to start it at 4:45am to have any shot of getting everything done.  I try to fall asleep, to get just a little sleep but then she moans and thrashes.

 Her throat hurts. She’s freezing. She needs Kleenex.

She moans my name and asks why is this happening to her.  

I try to be nice. Soon enough it’s 1:30am, it’s 2am, its 2:30, its 3am and the pauses between her bouts of neediness are too short for even cat naps.  

She asks for more ice, more water, more ice water and I bring it to her, bleary, cranky, already wondering how I’m going to cover the Potsdam Conference in class and make any sense at all.

Don’t be mad at me, she sniffles and crescendos to a wailing proclamation of I need my Mom, and then her cries grow into heaving sobs.

Another day, another time I might have held her. 

But I feel parched inside,  burnt and empty like the desert.

I tell her unsympathetically that I”ll lay down on the other side of the sectional sofa, I’ll be right here but no niceness, that’s too much, the niceness is gone.

I don’t even like what I hear as it comes out of my mouth, but I’m that tired, that empty, that edgy these days.

 I tuck my head on a pillow and shut up, hoping to find a back door or a shortcut to a quick sleep.

She moans again and I get up to fix her. She’s burning up.  

I sit up and fix her blanket then move my blanket to cover her legs. 

She exhales peacefully and I lay back down on my side of the sofa. 

I find her foot with mine under the blankets and move it against her in an anemic demonstration of affection.

She lifts her head up in her fever and half whispers Thank you for the generosity of your toes.  I giggle forget to be cranky for a few minutes, just long enough to find my back to the my dreamless peaceful sleep.