...AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

After surviving these holidays, when people expect us to become instantly “happy”, just because, “you know”; a Hispanic phrase that entails the whole meaning of the assimilation process, I am left with the same old feelings of emptiness and frustration, never being satisfied with our past years accomplishments.

You are entitled to think that this is a very neurotic state of mind, for the least, and I agree completely, or maybe that it’s just the “after the Holidays Blues”, like they say in New York City, “you have the Sunday Blues”, a phrase that gave us ammunition to survive the big city “collective neurosis”.

Sometimes in life, it’s healthy to accept that being neurotic keeps us in touch with the realities we need to face on a daily basis. It’s just a “survival skill kit”, at least for the “baby boomers”, which as a generation, share the need to believe that there are lots more challenges and accomplishments out there; that what we already have done, it’s not enough, never enough.

The only inheritance we have had and will receive from our progenitors is to accomplish the mission; we have to survive and outlive their high expectations that were programmed in our young minds even before our birth day.

As if this life predicament wasn’t enough, we keep fighting the never-ending cold war trying to redeem the world, being the intellectual’s saviors of the cultural group in need, save the people, save the children, save the whales! And I ask myself, Where is all this none sense taking us?

I have to confess that one of my problems results from the fact that consumerism doesn’t attract me at all. Buying, acquiring, possessing, lets call it “shopping” has never been my “high”, not even “window shopping” has given me a thrill, so there you are, I confess, I belong to a generation that has tricked me badly. I didn’t know that you had to have some specific traits to survive this “lets buy and through away society”.

Accumulating “goods” was never imprinted in my gene pool. I really thought that helping and taking care of others was really the thing to do, that people deserved to be treated with unconditional love; love, love, love “All you need is love”, our generational anthem, but, Who can blame John Lennon for living and sharing his belief? We all know where he is now.Maybe this is only an excuse for my lifestyle; my gratifications were never instantaneous; “give, give and you shall be content!”

Well, it turns out that if you give too much, you tend to lose yourself in the process. I wonder if that has to do with the fact that what you give, it’s not valuable in “the market”, that when you give, without being asked to, you become the obnoxious person which people feel they owe something to, the person who makes them feel uncomfortable with their own little miserable lives.

Who knows? This is not a cry for self-pity, or trying to get you more depressed than what you already might be.

I am just exercising the act of writing, losing the fear to face the blank page in front of me, and daring to share my inner thoughts and feelings with you; out there in the virtual world.

Maybe next time, I will feel livelier, less “Blue”, but for now, let us deal with what we’ve got and keeps our hopes up, because if there is something I have learned, and learned well, is that hope and patience are the most precious gifts we can keep alive. Those are the real gifts we can share with others.

What would you say to me, Do you agree

A SIMPLE WAY OF LIFE

It was another Friday afternoon, meeting friends at the usual cafe, after a hectic week, spending time talking, laughing, and letting go of our worries and little personal wars, relaxing, living as Galicians do, drinking good wine, excellent “tapas” and sharing our dreams, our fears, making future plans; in other words, enjoying life, the simple way of life.

On that summer afternoon, with no preconceived plans or schemes, we enjoyed our company, knowing that each of us was secretly making mental plans to enjoy the nightlife that Santiago can offer. If you have experienced it, you would understand exactly what I mean. It is not like the NYC nightlife, or the craziness that people live in Miami’s South Beach , nor the Caribbean party night, “non o”. It’s less complicated, “come as you are” fun, safe bar hopping, allowing yourself to be immersed in the culture, the history, sharing unknown feelings that somehow you can recognize as your own.

Walking together through “Rua del Villar”, heading to our favorite pub, “The Golden Rooster”, (O Galo d'Ouro) an English-galician pub, owned by a Galician couple, Jorge and Maria who emigrated to England and returned to their homeland. They opened the best spot in town. It has the best music you can find, an old Jukebox, that plays the Oldies but goodies, Its just great fun! Nothing fancy, just the simple way of life.

That summer night, my whole life changed, in a minute, a second, an instant. It is the typical “being at the right moment, in the right place”, or is it the other way around?

It will continue…..

My first weblog

Galicia, my enchanted paradise!



I send a big HELLO into the virtual world! I am initiating a new life, a new adventure, not only by writing in this log, but also in my day to day new life in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia. It all started four years ago,,,when I took the big risk of letting go of everything that I had known as “comfortable” and began trusting in myself while taking the road of the unknown, letting go of everything and anything, the first step to living, “daring to live”, instead of enduring a “being dead life”.

And by starting this new way of communicating, I will assume the same attitude that brought me here, daring to share my thoughts, my dreams, my worries, my new ventures with all of you, wherever you are.

Take care of you, always!