ALOHA

I just got back from a one week vacation in Hawaii. The first thing I noticed was that people in Hawaii drive much better and slower. Some of their freeways & highways are only 2 lanes but no one was in a great rush. Most people respected the speed limit which is still 55 mp and even 45 in some places. There were very few Hawaiians left, you only saw them if you went to a Luau, but they are not all Hawaiians they are Polynesians and Samoans. And then there is us, the tourists. Most were Japanese, Koreans and Chinese. Few Europeans and lots of Americans.The Polynesian women are sexy and the Samoan men burly. In my opinion the Hawaiian dances are boring and the food is bland. However they live in paradise and I envy them so much for that.

Yellow Straw Bag

Friday afternoon I'm driving home from work. I feel anger rising in me like a hot flash or maybe it is a hot flash I can't tell anymore. My boss had managed, yet again to insult my intelligence. When it happened I was so shocked and incredulous I couldn't say anything. But now in the car I had plenty to say. So while I'm driving in heavy traffic I pull out my company issue Blackberry turn it on put in my 8 digit pass code and dial his number. The dork answers. He has no life so he stays late Friday afternoons. I tell him I'm calling him because I'm very upset with him. He asks why. I said to him "actually I am livid". He asks "what's livid" English is not his mother tongue. I explain that it means furiously angry. Anyway what's important is that I'm going to lose my job. Not because my buss is stupid, not because I'm lazy, its the price of oil, it's the housing market, it's the interest rates, it's the recession. In a word "it's the economy stupid". I'm not making my sales goals, the corporate is not happy, I'm not thinking of the share holders, blah blah blah. I start dreaming about not working. How cool it would be? I will get up late, mope around the house in my robe and sleepers, drink coffee and smoke all I want, any time anywhere. I can watch day time soaps, catch up with Oprah and Dr. Phil. I see myself going to Santa Monica beach in the middle of the week, driving a convertible? I will carry a big yellow straw bag, I will be wearing a long white skirt and my long bleached hair will be blowing in the wind. Ooh, I'm in the heaven where women don't work, and have rich husbands who can afford health insurance. Finally I'm home, the dream is over. I will find another job, I have another 17 years to work so I'm looking forward to the $1700.00 a month I'll get from uncle Sam in 2025 so I can buy cat food. God bless America.                 

Can't Choose Your Death

An infant

Suddenly dead in his crib.

My grandpa 

dying in his sleep

At hundred and six.

Women, dying  giving birth

Solders dying in battlefields.

Car accidents, plains falling

Some die crossing streets.

By stray bullet 

drive by shooting.

By Jeffrey Dahmer

Decapitating.

A fanatics' poisoned cool aid.

Cancer and Aids.

In a dumpster, in an alley

By teen parents.

Drowning, 

In the bathtub

Your schizo mother.

A hunting knife

By your athlete husband.

A snake bite,

A dog mulling.

In an earthquake

Buildings falling,

In wildfires and mudslides.

The gas chamber,

Electric chair

Firing squad

The guillotine.

Death by hanging

Lynching, dragging

Horse back riding.

Hang-gliding, train crossing

Striking lightning.

On the slops

By avalanche

In SUBMARINES

and Space Ships.

Death by torture,

Death by hunger,

Stoned to death.

An overdoes at twenty eight.

By your surgeon,

Mercy killings

By Doctor Death.

Suffocation

Mutilation

Liposuction

Mad Cow disease

Tylenol tampered

The Bird Flue, SARS

And suicide.

And on    and on

The list   goes on.

Which one's better?

Which is faster?

Which is painless?

Which one is fair?

You know, I know

We must all go

But we can't choose

How to exit

This damn world

Just like when

We didn't chose to enter it.

 

First written on September 22, 2001

Edited on March 29, 2008

 

Motherless

The woman who gave birth to ten human beings died without even one of them by her side. Life is a bitch, too short for some and agonizingly long for others. Mom died one day short of her 90 Th birthday. My earliest memories of her are from when I was about 3 years old. I would watch her bathe my baby brother. I washed my babies just like her, washing their head first without immersing them in the tub. I would dry their head and then washed the rest of their body so they would not be cold too long. I remember going grocery shopping with her, to the butcher shop, the bakery, the fruit stand and my favorite, the European deli/candy/biscuit/powder milk shop. When we entered that place the rich aroma of freshly grounded coffee would great us. The dry salami and pastrami that mom would order would make my mouth water. Once when I was following her in the street I probably was daydreaming and I fell behind and when I realized it I started to scream and cry out for her. She was just a few steps ahead of me chatting with a friend. The first time ever I began to appreciate her was a month after I got married. Every single day I had to decide what to cook for my husband and me. I thought, boy she had to do this everyday and keep more than 10 people happy and have enough for unexpected guests that were a common occurrence in our family then. She was married at 17, had her first daughter at 19 but even at 40 when she had her last child, her golden son, she was an innocent. She loved my handsome father for as long as she was in her right mind but after getting Alzheimer's disease she could hardly remember his name. Slowly she lost most of her memory. People and objects lost their meanings for her. She started to forget to eat. It was sad to see her fading away. She was not the mom we used to know. We never loved her less it just was heart breaking to see her go even before she was gone. Mom, if my children love me today it's because of you. You taught me to be a good mom and a good wife. I have loved you as long as I can remember and will love you to the day I die. May you rest in peace to eternity. 

        

No Time To Be

To feel you exist, you must think. To think, you must have time. To have time, you must have money because if you don't you should be working & if you are working you don't have time. Everything I do revolves around my work schedule. From every 24 hours in a day I work about 9 hours & spend 1 hour commuting. That leaves me 14 hours. I sleep about 6 hours, spend about 1 hour on grooming. Every morning it takes me 2 hours to get my daughter ready for school & dropping her off. Now I have 5 hours left. I need to cook, clean, shop, do laundry, pay bills, entertain my daughter, feed the dog & find some time for myself or maybe watch some TV or read. (Oh I forgot I'm married I need to talk to him too sometimes.) Granted I don't do all these things every day but all of them need to be done sometime. I either do them & have no time for any thing else or don't do them at all & live in squalor. The reality is that I do some things some time & worry the rest of the time about not doing those things. So basically I feel unproductive, overwhelmed & at the same time overworked. I know I'm starving my mind & intellect while at the same time not winning in the great rat race either. All this brings me back to my first sentence, TO FEEL YOU EXIST, YOU MUST THINK. Therefor because I don't think, because I don't have time, I DON'T EXIST.        

Nothing

Nothing, but nothing quenches your thirst

You're consumed by a desire to love

To be loved, to have love

You're like a desert parched & cracked 

Waiting waiting for rain that never comes

That may never come may never come

You laugh, you cry and cry and cry

You're never happy but for a moment

Others may be happy & content with things

Things have no meaning for you

How can your desert bloom with a mere rain drop

You need a river you need a storm 

Love to you is air we breath

I see life being drained from you

How can you live without air    

Your heart is restless from yearning 

You go everywhere searching for love

In your eyes I see pain, envy and rage

And you don't know why, why you can't be loved.

Disapontment

I was coming home from a Christmas party I took my daughter to. While she was changing radio stations trying to find her favorite Hip-Hop music I couldn't help thinking about the party. It was a party organized by some good hearted community ladies for Armenian disabled children & adults. I had never been to one before.  She has always been going to main stream American organizations for the disabled. I didn't know there was such a large community of disabled Armenians. One of my sisters had found out about this from a TV program & gave me the information. I was very exited about this, I thought my daughter might find some friends & I could get to know some of the parents, we could exchange phone numbers & have fun get togethers for our kids.  My daughter was exited too, she had been asking every day when the party was. We made hair & eyebrow appointment so she could look her best. Lately her favorite color is black so she dressed head to toe in black & with her newly bleached blond hair she looked very cool. I took another one of my sisters (I have seven) for moral support, I did not want to be alone where I didn't know anyone else. As soon as we entered my daughter was given a gift bag & once we were at our table she couldn't wait to open it. There was a picture frame, an ugly brown scarf, some makeup & a CD. She wasn't impressed by any of it. There was already music playing & some people were dancing. Some in groups, some as couples & some with no one in particular. My daughter started complaining, that this was not fun, she didn't like the music, she didn't know anyone. I tried to keep her busy with food & a promise of a big surprise. I offered to dance with her but she didn't budge. I kept looking around wanting to get a sense of it all. There were a lot of down syndrome people some young & some very old. Not too many physically challenged but mental retardation & developmentally delayed persons. My husband didn't come with me he never does because he says it makes him sad. I was surprised to see so many other dads. Most parents were middle aged or older. They all seemed to have the same kinds of expressions. Just by looking at them I understood every feeling they were going through. Some looked relieved to be in the company of so many other parents with a disabled child. Some looked uncomfortable almost apologetic as if to say it wasn't their fault that they had a damaged child. It seemed some had the same types of hopes of finding companions for their kids, looking around  sizing everybody. Most seemed resigned to their & their kids faith, no more hope of anything good happening, no more waiting for improvement. That look of frozen pain & disappointment was the most haunting. My daughter was disappointed too. She probably was expecting a regular normal people's party with good looking girls & boys & rocking up-to-date dance music. Instead it was like so many other holiday parties she had been before, where it seems everyone is doing you a favor by giving you a party that seems a poor imitation of the real thing. I can never help but feel that the people organizing & volunteering for these functions with all their good intentions, do them out of pity, they go through the motions & can't wait for it to be over so they can go back to their normal kids with normal lives. Finally my daughter said she wanted to dance & I took  her to the dance floor. Normally she loves to dance but today her heart wasn't in it. Even when the big surprise came, it was a real singer performer with a real band & pounding blaring music she did not feel better. She said she did not feel good, that she didn't feel like herself & wanted to go home. I asked her several times if she was sure & she said yes. We left. As always I was sad for her, I know she was disappointed but there was nothing I could do. I knew exactly how she felt.