Such Is Life: Mountains, Hills and Valleys

I haven't written in a long time. I've been so occupied with school and work. A progressive busy though, not “avoidance” busy. The sort of busy that leaves me quite contented. My Spanish is coming along marvelously. I intend to go to Guatemala and Peru the entire month of August. I truly hope that after a month's immersion into Latin culture, I will emerge somewhat fluent in Spanish. One of my dream board items is to be fluent in Spanish. Most times as I glide along life's curved, narrow or wide, straight or crooked roads, I can't help but to think of how far I've come. I've allowed myself to change. Furthermore, I can't help but to think about how much I've learned over these past two years. Sobriety has had a whole lot to do with it.

I feel now as if I have a handle on life. Which really means: giving up my imagined "control" to the universe. Having a handle on life, to me, means learning how to take life one day at a time. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. When it comes to what life dishes out, I've learned it's prudent to treat life's circumstances as if I had planned them out myself. Be a friend to life. No one is trying to screw you over. There are a myriad lessons life offers every day. We miss out because we are too stuck in regret, blaming and playing victim. And what happens next? Because we’re too absorbed in “Me World”, we don’t learn a thing. Thus we end up committing the same errors and perpetuating our suffering.

My life is peaceful. That's not to say I don't have challenges but I welcome those challenges now with open arms and an open mind. What kind of a world would this be if we didn’t have mountains, hills and valleys? The same goes for life. The sooner you accept this truth, the more peaceful your life will be.

Consider This While Looking For Love

 I was reading an article on Oprah's O magazine. A very interesting article written to single people who are looking to partner up. The author Leigh Newman, advised singles this:

Do I have a love success pattern?
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/What-to-Ask-If-Youre-Still-Single/2#ixzz2JTM0pYLv
The greatest thing about love, I believe, is that it’s the most democratic of human experiences. Anybody can do it, and just about everybody does it (with the exception of sociopaths). What some of us forget to value or recognize is that even if we aren’t doing it in a romantic way, we’re doing it in other ways—and doing it well.

Look at the people you love and who love you back. Now take out the family members, because you didn’t choose them. This leaves your friends. Narrow these down to the three you have the strongest relationship with, the ones who you trust in any situation. At first glance they may seem dissimilar. For example, one may be a quiet stay-at-home mom, another an outspoken interior designer, still another a wisecracking novelist. But your relationships with these three will have a few things in common, even if at first glance these qualities aren’t obvious. Going back to the pals above—which, okay, are my pals—I have to point out that all three are wildly independent people who are also pee- your-pants funny. And...not the best dressers.

This is where I do love well, and luckily after years and years of badly managed romance interactions, I met my husband, who shares all these same traits. Understanding that not only are you—like everybody else—absolutely, positively capable of love, but also that you are awesome at it with certain, very specific people gives you confidence, yes. But it also really narrows down the field.
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/What-to-Ask-If-Youre-Still-Single/2#ixzz2JTM0pYLv

 

 Pondering this, I thought of my two close buddies (Sunshine and Reflecto) and drummed out a list of their attributes. They:

• Are in touch with Spirit, deeply and intuitively.
• Are Wise beyond their years.
• Are Smart and attractive.
• Eat healthily and take care of their bodies.
• Can both cook well and enjoy good food.
• Adore me and I them. 
• Love me as I am packaged.
• Really get me and I them in the spoken and unspoken.
• Are non judgmental.
• Have gone through a life altering experience.
• Are very private.
• Despise drama.
• Laugh easily and often.
• Do not drink or smoke.
• Love family fiercely
• Are very loyal. 
• Are confident and regal, as if they were Queens in  a previous life. 

I could go on and on about them. The point though is, this would be the same thing I would be looking for in a partner.  
Thanks Leigh Newman!

To you I owe

My BFF and I

It is a blessing to meet and share a part of my life with one of the most wonderful human beings I know. I am better to have met her and I thank God every day for finding me such a loving, tender and patient friend. To Sunshine, I owe my sobriety, the peace in my heart and the tranquility in my life. 
God placed Sunshine in my life when I needed her strength the most. She propped me up when I was doubled over by a recklessly led life. I was weak spiritually and physically from years of substance abuse. I cannot explain in words what it means for someone to love you unconditionally and totally believe in your recovery and wellness, even when you don't believe the same of yourself. 
Sunshine, I will forever be indebted to you and grateful with all of my heart. I am everything I am because you loved me, as I was- broken, dejected and in need of healing. And you still love me now as I am, whole, healed and determined to live my best life ever.
Thank you for being my friend. I love you with every beat of my heart.
This one's for you:

Pass The Test

Life will give you only the experiences necessary for your evolution. Is suffering necessary? Yes and No. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you, no humility, no compassion. Eckhart Tolle
My friend and I were discussing the necessary evil of life suffering. Why do we go through all the negative experiences that we do? Why must we experience life's pain?  That's when I remembered Tolle's quote. 
She's going through a very hard time. Family issues that are threatening their family life. Having been to hell and back due to my alcohol addiction, I am very sympathetic to people undergoing personal strife. 
At the moment I was in it, I couldn't see the lessons in it. I was blind to the proverbial silver lining. I have been sober now approaching one year. I relapsed twice prior to this. I have no animosity toward the time that I spent in the grip of my addiction and it's ill fated consequences. 

“Right in the difficult we must have our joys,

 our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth

 of this background, they stand out, 

there for the first time we see 

how beautiful they are.”Rainer Maria Rilke

I now look back and see the lessons in all my life events - positive or negative. With this in mind I welcome life AS IS with an open heart and a ready to learn attitude. I want to grow from my life experiences not advance into regression. I crave humility, depth, compassion. Hard times teach us patience, love, fortitude, courage, resilience, grit, flexibility, toughness, buoyancy. Hard times teach us who we really are. Hard times, if we allow, curve an angel out of a block of stone.
It is during the good times that we must gather light because the dark times are inevitable. Into the darkness we must carry this light to illuminate our way, until life resumes a positive note.Difficult times just might be necessary, inasmuch as they don't have to leave us broken. They can leave us renewed, promoted, increased, remodeled, restored, better than we were going in. Pass the test!

 “I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”
― Anne Lamott

Commuting Between Languages

No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist

whom he or she doesn't understand,

or at someone who speaks a foreign language,

but rather at someone who tampers

with your own language. Jacques Derrida

Elif Shafak is a Turkish writer whom I was watching on Ted Talks. She summarized so well the conundrum of the multi linguist. Like me she's not an immigrant, refugee or exile. She talks about a commute between languages when she's writing and how that gap gets her  frustrated. However, this frustration gets her creativity going when she's writing. English is an acquired language for me and millions of others. She says, "When you are a latecomer to a language, what happens is you live there with a continuous and perpetual frustration. As latecomers we always want to say more, to say better things, crack better jokes, but we end up saying less. Because there is a gap between the mind and the tongue, and that gap is very intimidating. But if you manage not to be frightened by it, it's also stimulating."

 I wholeheartedly agree with her. I love everything about my third language English. I love how it sounds, how difficult it is, how varied, how so many words can represent the same thing. I love that I understand it so well and other foreigners have such a hard time with it. I enjoy very much the edge that I have over even native speakers or people who speak English as their only language. I am not frightened by the gap Elif talks of. Thanks to English being most Kenyan's third language.


Even with that grand statement that I just made, I have to confess that I think very carefully about what it is am saying. In the back of my mind English will always be an acquired language. I am careful to phrase sentences right, be grammatically correct. I do not want to offend the English language or the native English speaker at all. I feel like I've been trusted to know and speak this language well and I will not abuse my privilege. I take it so personal when native speakers speak English with absolutely no regard to the rules. I mean, how much effort does it take? I have to think in one or two different languages then translate, then string the words correctly before offering them to the listener. I do not like my words being out of place. I feel as if I've failed somehow, if I do. 

“Those who know nothing of

foreign languages know

nothing of their own.”       

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

That gap, that lag time, Elif talks about, that is where my creativity lays. That's where I sort out words and pick what I think are the best ones before I speak them. That gap is my play area and the best part is that it's all mine and cannot be dictated by anyone. So if you listen to a foreigner with a good command of English speaking and you wonder, "Why are they being so deliberate, not rushed when they speak?" It's because they are taking great care to offer the choicest words, to present the best so to speak. Not because they're bragging but there is a certain reverence for a foreign language once you've almost mastered it.
I am currently trying to learn Spanish as my fourth language. Boy, Oh Boy, is it kicking my butt! When I read it, am fluent. When asked a question however, I stammer and hesitate and get tongue tied. I so desperately want to be grammatically correct, I also want to sound as if Spanish and I are friends. I want to sound comfortable, not scared of it. So I do understand that gap she's talking about. When you are a late comer to a language or to anything really, you have to pay your dues. I have to keep reminding myself to be humble and patient and wait. 
Soon enough I will have a great command of Spanish as I do English.... but soon is no where around the corner.... and that's frustrating!
You know another thing speaking different languages does? You are able to move in and out of identities. As many identities as the languages you speak. So in one moment I can be an African, speaking Kikuyu and Swahili, then I commute on over to English where I can bring on my British identity or American...whichever I choose. Now that am speaking Spanish, I feel (not I am) very Latina. It's a thrilling ride and am sure my brain will thank me later, God willing, when am 90 years old and still have all my faculties. 

Seize the diem!!!