No girls allowed

Photo by Miryam León on Unsplash

Several years ago, I had dinner with a man who became one of the most powerful executives during the 80s and 90s. He started as a lowly radio repairman in the UK and rose to the very top of tech companies then—huge names like Panavision and Atari. 

As he shared some of his experiences, there was no boasting or pretentiousness. He seemed to walk the talk. 

I imagined he’d earned his way to the upper echelons of Corporate America by working smart and working hard. But I had to know his secret: How did you do it?

I repeated the question several times—the answers simply didn't suffice. Finally, he said something to the tune of, “When you love what you do and do what you love, people will recognize what you bring to the table,” implying effort, innovation and results will be rewarded with recognition and the next level up.

Maybe that works for men, but not for women. Much of Corporate America is still very much a boy’s club. Sadly, many women have joined too.

Devil's in the details, as they say. It’s time to take the devil out.

To the broken and brokenhearted

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

For various, mostly mistaken reasons, I shut a lot of people I love out of my life. I thought that while I was away, they wouldn't think about me. Out of sight, out of mind—you know how that goes.

Thing is, they never left my mind.

It wasn't until after I got back in touch with them that I realized I never left theirs. They were worried, watching from afar, trying to help, but not knowing how.

Sarah, Keni, Pao, Royer, Liliana, Zaydunga, Nora, Manolo: gracias por ayudarme a recobrar partes de mi corazon que hasta poco pensé estaban perdidas.

Is there no journalistic integrity anymore?

No, not that much, kinda proportionately not ever, but especially less now with the younger crowd.

Like many women, I've been following stories in the media exposing abuses against women. The most harrowing accounts are about women abusing other women—sometimes girls—such as Jeffery Epstein's "madam" Ghislaine Maxwell procuring their victims, many of them, tragically, underage.

Today I came across a female journalist who had a choice while publishing a story: she could protect the victim and her privacy, or she could out her against her will, exposing the victim to further trauma in a societal context.

The reporter subjugated the victim's privacy in the name of "serving the truth and her readers."

Just when you hope a female journalist will protect a victim—a fellow woman—it all implodes.

I'm beyond disappointed, but hardly surprised. This happens every day.

A journalist's job is to sell a story. I get it. It is their way of life, and I respect that.

I have no respect for journalists who are willing to throw their sources under the bus just to sell a story—especially the sources and victims they seemingly attempt to protect.

No journalistic integrity there.

None whatsoever.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Of hotdogs and quarantine

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash

As parts of society have devolved further into conspiracy theories and such, perhaps the greatest gift of quarantine, for me, has been reconnecting with the people closest to my heart. My best friend from college is front and center, but more on that angel later.

Another best friend has been a beacon through some of my darkest moments—ever patient, kind, thoughtful, never expecting anything in return, always buffering my pain with his tremendous artistry and sense of humor.

Tonight, I stopped by a gas station that was closed due to COVID-19 guidelines. The lights were still on, but when I pulled on the door, I figured I just missed the mark. I peered inside, finding no movement, except something small out of the corner of my eye. I texted him once I was back in the car.

– There is nothing sadder than a lonely, old, forgotten hotdog going round and round on that Ferris-wheel of a grill after the gas station has closed. (Pause) OK, there are sadder things. But still.

– You are as that hot dog. (Pause) As are we all.

Here’s to my friend and all of us lonely hotdogs out there.

Fret not, we will soon be warmly swaddled between two buns.

Stay safe. Wear a mask.

P.S. Love to Noam Chomsky, my hotdog in dog heaven.

Victim vs. Survivor

I’ve been reading up on and watching documentaries about a slice of systemic abuses in the United States, among them USA Gymnastics, Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and cults. I wholeheartedly respect that these brave women have opted for the label of "survivor" instead of "victim." Both are fundamentally valid and sound. I just can't adopt either of them. Abuse has shaped my life, but it doesn't define who I am. Whatever the case, term or label: I stand with you.

El Paso

I called El Paso, Texas my home for nearly 12 years. I visited Cielo Vista Mall as a child with my family. The pet store was my favorite attraction. I got lost for the first time there. I was also punched in the stomach for the first time there—it was my brother, overcome with excitement or what have you, as we made our way to the pet store.

When I read the news of the shooting, my heart sank yet again. My family personally knew one of the lives the killer claimed—a woman who stopped at WalMart on her way to pick up her daughter form the airport.

A quote from one of my favorite thinkers comes to mind:

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

— J. Krishnamurti

There is sickness in our society—in all of us. Indeed, no human is without fault. And when it comes to acts of violence, such as El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, we can refuse to become adjusted to them—refuse them with all our might and choose not to respond in kind.

Photo by Abraham Osorio on Unsplash

Il n'a pas

I am grateful for the beautiful individuals who have recently come into my life and the gifts that brings. For the friends who have redefined what true friendship means. And for my family, who continue to demonstrate true love.

There are no words.

Photo: Ivy Nevares

The only things that matter

Recently I've caught a few episodes of a show in which the main character—who was alive during the American Revolutionary War—is brought back to life in present day. Various movies and books play with the same theme, but I found this show to have decent writing and a clever way of juxtaposing past and present so it reminds us just how fortunate we are to be alive—how much we have, yet take for granted.

Photo by Damian Markutt on Unsplash

Make it gold

Photo by Johnny McClung on Unsplash

It's a few minutes before New Year's.

I remember one year I celebrated with my father and my cousin Charlie, who was several years older than I was (thirteen at the time). Minutes after the clock struck 12, I asked my cousin, "What does it feel like to live in the 90's?" He paused for a second and said, "Exactly the same as it did in the 80's."

As little as it was, my bubble burst. I was clinging to some illusion that time could change something. But time doesn't change anything. We do.

Here's to a new year. Here's to making it golden.

Time to choose

Photo by Lucca Lazzarini on Unsplash

I have a soft spot for duality, for opposites, contrast. Invariably, regardless of the art or mode of expression, I'm drawn in.

There's a part in Neale Donald Walsch's book, Conversations with God, that talks about every choice coming down to love or fear—nothing in between. It's not the first time I've heard this, but the manner in which it was delivered stirred up experiences past.

Language can be boiled down to its most essential building blocks. Take the most basic computer language: nothing but zeros and ones. If there were a language behind the universe—creating, morphing, dissolving it—it would be this. At least as humans are concerned, may be that's all there is: love or fear. 

We choose all the time. It's time to choose differently.

The mirror

A number of years ago, I had one of the most profound experiences driving down the interstate. It was well into the fall in upstate New York, the leaves ablaze with crimsons and oranges against a pale, grey sky. Through the clouds off in the distance broke the most beautiful sunset I’d ever beheld—it completely robbed me of breath. Every part of me was consumed by this delicate explosion of color—I couldn’t understand, I couldn’t even imagine how something so exquisite could ever exist.

But it did, and I was there bearing witness to it. Then, in the quiet, intruded the subtlest recognition: It wasn’t the “sunset” I was seeing.

Faster than awareness itself, I shut down: batten down the hatches! It pained me, terrified me to acknowledge the source of this indescribable experience.

I’ve spoken about this time and time again, as if attempting to keep the experience alive but always at a safe distance. Today, that safety was broken.

I was out for a walk in the early evening, and found myself staring off into another sunset. It was, again, beautiful. Moments before losing myself in the experience, the same memory rushed in. A tender vulnerability marked a palpable threshold I realized I could choose to cross.

I can’t recall the exact decisions I made, but I finally surrendered: There, the sunset serving as a backdrop, a gracious mirror against which I could briefly glimpse the vastness of the universe within. There, with the gift of the physical world and this physical existence, I found my place in earnest gratitude. There, magnificent.

Photo by Steven Feldman on Unsplash

Set the heart aflame

Two years ago a friend of mine gave me her copy of Irina Tweedie’s The Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience with the Teachings of a Sufi Master. The title is self-explanatory, and it’s a great read—it’s actually a portion of her larger work, Daughter of Fire, which I haven’t read. There are a couple lines in the first chapter that moved me; they were the first of many. 

It is the task of the Teacher to set the heart aflame with an unquenchable fire of longing; it is his duty to keep it burning until it is reduced to ashes. For only a heart which has burned itself empty is capable of love.

Photo by JERRY on Unsplash