Friday, April 19, 2013

Strength, Power, Perseverance

Strength is... 

  • embarking on a difficult path
  • letting someone/something go
  • continuing on with your life when your are emotionally drained
  • taking a moment to breath when everything around you is speeding ahead
  • making a huge/difficult decision
  • making yourself vulnerable
  • exchanging hostility for kindness
These are all things that I've had to deal with in the past week. That is life. Its part of my life. I acknowledge it, accept it and become stronger from it.

We are all capable of achieving whatever we want and sculpting our lives into what we want it to be, but its close to impossible to do it alone, and some people have more of an advantage than others (societal/power structures influence this). We need community, support and understanding. We are social creatures...

philosophical talk. very general, i know. just thinking "out-loud" here. 



Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Rats and NYC Living

When I lived on the Lower East Side, LES, of NYC, I used to see rats all the time. The LES is infested. Then when I read the book, Rats by Robert Sullivan many years ago, I understood why. They came to the USA on the ships with the Irish and English from England and Ireland to the ports of NYC and Boston. The rats made their home in NYC and multiplied quickly. Now, they say for every one New Yorker there are as many as 15 rats.

I tell this story to try to make sense of WHY THE HECK THERE WAS A RAT IN MY 17TH FLOOR APARTMENT ON THE UPPER WEST SIDE OF MANHATTAN!

Last night was one huge, SCARY and HILARIOUS ordeal!

We had a rat the same size as a big banana in our apartment. Its tail was thick and ratched and its body as black as the ace of spades!

As we all grabbed a "weapon" to get it out, it started JUMPING and squealing! Who knew that rats could jump!?

It jumped as high as my waist and the only natural reaction that four adults had was to scream at the top of our lungs and run for our lives! And so we did for the next four hours until 2am when we finally got it by throwing a hand weight at it (sorry animal rights activists), crippling it. It ran into the hallway and into the locked janitors closet! (I have to mention, that we got it out into the hallway a few times and it kept on running back inside!)

But that was the end. We had won. TRIUMPH!

Boy-oh-boy was it a crazy night and one that will go down in my life's history book!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Emotional Strength

Today, to celebrate the birth of my late aunt who passed away from breast cancer, my mother, recovering from her third fight against cancer and the shock of losing her hair, went out in public (and to work) for the first time without her wig on today. She has been very worried of what people would think of her with a bald head since losing her hair, so it was big for her.

I just wanted to share that story of EMOTIONAL STRENGTH in a very personal and brave way! 


Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Season Runners

I've been running all winter in Central Park and normally this path is empty, the first day that its warm, it seems like everyone becomes a runner. Where were these people during the winter? Do they run on a treadmill, or not at all?

Just a thought.