by Analyn Revilla

I think a lot of stories reflect the subtext of the hero’s need to belong. It begins as a want for something outside of herself that she believes would make her be acceptable, loveable and eligible to belong to a group/family.  A simple idea of a shampoo commercial that depicts a pretty woman with gorgeous hair, and how suddenly this product makes her attractive to the world around her and now she belongs to the ideal of beautiful. 

I didn’t know until I read the analyses by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes of the fairytale “The Ugly Duckling” (written by Hans Christian Andersen) that this story holds deeply textured meanings in terms of Jungian psychoanalysis. The chapter “Finding One’s Pack:  Belonging as Blessing” in her book, “Women Who Run With the Wolves”, is devoted to describing the movement of characters through the different archetypes of:  the Innocent; the Orphan, the Martyr; the Wanderer, the Warrior and the Magician.  (She does not specifically use the terminology listed, but the concept is there.) 

 A common thread that runs through each stage of the journey as the Ugly Duckling shifts from one stage to the next stage is his desire to belong and his never-ending search for this sense of belonging (which is essentially home.)   Dr. Estes awakens the reader to the significance of the Ugly Duckling’s movement from the river’s nest to the marsh, the farm, and finally the lake.  In each locale he meets with groups with which he tries to fit in; or who tries to make him fit in; but inevitably he needs to continue his quest because the “shoes never quite fit in” for the hero.  This need to never give up is attributable to the call of the wild.

 “The duckling of the story is symbolic of the wild nature, which, when pressed into circumstances of little nurture, instinctively strives to continue no matter what.  The wild nature instinctively holds on and holds outs, sometimes with style, other times with little grace, but nevertheless.  And thank goodness for that.  For the wildish woman, duration is one of her greatest strengths.” – from “Women Who Run With the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I work in a corporate environment where, as any large body of people, change is slow to happen; and communication, though stressed to be of high importance, can be challenging because of the large mix of individuals needing to work together for a common purpose.  One method of communication within our group are forms.  There are specific templates for something that needs to communicate something specific.

 There is a new form called “Project Commitment Form” that needs to be filled out and reviewed to get it to a stage of getting approval for funding of projects.  This form begins with a statement that defines the “Business Problem”.  When I met with the first reviewer, she started with “you did a marvelous job, but…”  Then she continued to say, “I’ve never had to fill out one of these forms, but…”  At the end of the meeting I absorbed the suggestions and incorporated most of the changes, but hung on, at least, to my version of the “Business Problem”.

After the meeting and sending out polite emails I went home, but something didn’t sit right in my belly.  What am I hanging on to that does not belong to me anymore I asked myself.  To say the mantra “Let it go” repeatedly was pointless unless I meant it.  At the end of the day, I said to myself, I’m just trying to conform, and get the job done with some personal integrity left.  That was the kicker for me – I was attached to the final result.  I now see that the document shows responsibility and accountability for approving a project for funding in a language and format that is understood from their perspective and not mine.  I’m writing for the audience and not me.  The sense of belonging is defined in terms of what they need, and not my own.

 I began to unwind the tight ball of confusion by reading “The Ugly Duckling”, and the wisdom unbound by Dr. Estes analyses brought the light to eyes.  I had been trying to “fit in” so hard at work to the best that I can; and even then there’s always room for improvement as is often conveyed through the annual performance review.  Isn’t there just a point in time, during your employment years with a company where you just fit in? or does the criteria change with each change of leadership, or change in what’s new and trendy for “process” and “methodology”, including (even) vocabulary?

 “The other important aspect of the story is that when an individual’s particular kind of soulfulness, which is both an instinctual and spiritual identity, is surrounded by psychic acknowledgment and acceptance, that person feel life and power as never before.  Ascertaining one’s own psychic family brings a person vitality and belongingness.”  –  from “Women Who Run With the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

 After reading her analysis of the fairytale using Jungian psychoanalysis I felt enlightened and this gave me so much joy.

 The next day I IM’ed a friend at work, “I’m so happy this morning I don’t know why.”  The response was, “Do you need a why?”

 I did know the source of the joyful feeling.  It was that I truly let go of the result, and it came about by my internal inquiry combined with a serendipitous opening to a page in the book about The Ugly Duckling.  (I found the book in a thrift store at Lake Elsinore during the weekend.  The previous owner had written the word “= Grace” after “Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman.”)

I can define my belongingness in my own terms as acknowledging my boundaries.  There is a real and imaginary line between what I take home with me and what I leave at work.  The integrity asked of me and what I ask of myself has been fulfilled in that I created something that I share with a community; and it does not belong to me anymore.  At the end of the day I go home to my family, and when the family retires to bed, and turns out the light then the dog is sure to follow.  She imposes her weight against me like a falling sack of potatoes, telling me “I belong here with you.”  It is a wonder to behold the irony of the extraordinary in the most ordinary of our daily routine – to lie down and rest and accept one’s truth.

I can’t put it more eloquently than Estes:

“So that is the final work of the exile who finds her own:  to not only accepts one’s own individuality, one’s specific identity as a certain kind of person, but also to accept one’s beauty… the shape of one’s soul and the fact that living close to that wild creature transforms us and all that it touches.” – from “Women Who Run With the Wolves”.

by Analyn Revilla

I had driven around and stopped at four other pawn shops around New Orleans, before I found “the guitar”.  It had been sitting in a darkened room of the pawn shop next to a small food stand.  It was, in fact, the food stand that I used as my marker to locate the shop, based on directions from a local.

“the guitar”, covered in dust, was hidden behind other abandoned guitars, but at least it stood upright, and not on its back.  Any weight on it could’ve broken the neck or cracked its body.  The headstock was chipped, the back was falling off and it couldn’t hold the tuning, because the tuning pegs were not its original stock and the strings were gritty with dust and grease.

I looked down the neck of the guitar and did not see any serious bends.  Plus it was really too dark in the shop to study that kind of detail any closer.  I tried to tune the guitar and play a chord.  Imagine plucking a note from an electric guitar plugged to an amp in a large and empty stadium.  Hear the note.  It is true and just keeps on vibrating.  Its call brings your soul to its knees.  I was unnerved by the tone of this old soul.

“How much do you want for this?” I asked the owner.  I got the answer I expected.  Something along the lines that it’s a vintage guitar, and it’s a bargain for $125.  It comes with its own gig bag.  The guitar was worth something as it was an Alvarez and it was fabricated in Japan.  It was an old soul with a worn body.  Its back was falling out and I saw there was some damage to the heel too.  I liked the scorpion sticker on the front, and ghs guitar boomer sticker at the back.

“Ok, I’ll take it.”  My answer, without its haggling down words, made the man pause and probably wonder if he’s really given away a gem.  The gig bag was in better shape than the guitar.

After returning to LA, and having paid an extra $100 for the extra carriage of the guitar I was the owner of a vintage guitar that couldn’t be played.  You can tune it, but it begins to lose its tuning before you can finish a song.  I took it around to a few shops to get an idea of the cost of fixing it, but the answers I got weren’t too promising.  I took it on a trip to Vancouver.  I always need the companionship of a guitar when I’m away from home.  The guy at Bonerattle Music store offered to at least glue the back and change the strings.  I didn’t mind playing an out of tune guitar, as I just needed to hold it.  I could still play a melody on one string; and practice anything with simple creativity.  The guy was surprised by its sound.  “Its got great tone.”  “I know,” I told him, “that’s why I got it and I wanted to save it.”

Then the guitar sat on a gig stand around my apartment unfixed and played not often.  It was like grandpa sitting in his rocking chair, waiting for something, that I wish I knew what for.  Then one day, I found out there was a hobbyist luthier working in the office.  His day job is a technical engineer.  His office is adorned with 3 guitars and a bass he built.  All of these babies were beautiful.  His favorite is a retro-green Strat body with pink knobs.  I told him about my guitar, and he said he’d like to work on it.  Wide-eyed, I said, “Really?”

That was almost a year ago that we had that conversation.  Yesterday morning he handed me the fixed grande dame of the Mississippi.  I cradled it, and couldn’t resist strumming a few favorite chords.   In his words he said it’s the only guitar  he’s worked on that’s “live”.  Then he quickly changed his mind and said, “it is one of two… ”  He figured that “the guitar” has been played a lot by the look of the wear on the fingerboard.  The wear on the headstock looks like the guitar had been pulled out of gig bags often, the kind of guitar you just reach for.  “Imagine,” I said, “Can you imagine the hands that’s touched this guitar.”  “I know,” he enthused.  Our minds raced with stories of its own making.

Last night, while Bruno watched the news, I sat holding the guitar and warming up my fingers and noodling quietly.  At times I would stop and apologize for getting carried away.  He gently told me, it’s okay.  He liked hearing me play.  “I don’t play,” I said.  This morning, after he left for work, I picked up the guitar again.  I started gingerly as my fingers hadn’t played very much lately.  I put the metronome at a slow beat of 40.  The electronic tick tock focused my attention.  After a few minutes of that I moved to chords, then playing songs.  I was enamored with the sound.  This guitar likes to be played loud.  Its tone was so grand and deep – resonating tones and semitones like an aria.  By the time I became I aware of time it was 8:44.  I still hadn’t walked the dog, and I’m supposed to be at work soon.

I laughed at an old reminder a guitar teacher used to tell me.  “Play louder”.  This was the first and only guitar I’ve played which I could play loud.  I found my voice with this guitar.  I dressed for work, happily thinking about an idea – when one day, St. Peter, at the Gate, asks me to play a song to let me pass through into heaven I would have a song to play and I would play it loud enough.

by Analyn Revilla

I like dreaming – and I remember my dreams vividly, and enjoy analyzing and talking about them.  It could be a narcissist quirk, or I’m just hoping to unearth some answers to the eternal question, ‘what’s wrong with me?!’  So I’ve been reading up on dream interpretation.  I learned that C.G. Jung and Freud differed on the subject of dream interpretation and techniques.  Freud claims that dreams are rooted in sexual desires and repressions; while Jung sought to explain themes and characters in dreams as archetypes rooted in mythology.

“The Miss Julie Dream Project” straddles the real and surreal world of which is indeed like lucid dreaming.

On opening night, Mina, an actress who plays the classic heroine of Miss Julie, faces the heroine in the surreal world.  Miss Julie refuses to surrender to her written fate.  Her rebellion leads to a missing actress while her ensemble of actors and a director fumble through a performance without the lead character.  The dream weaves in and out of  the dream world and the non-dream world.   The actors playing as actors travel through a worm hole subjected to immense gravitational forces that collapses and expands bodies and minds as its pulled and pushed between two parallel worlds.

It’s a fresh theme that the Fell Swoop Playwrights developed based on August Strindberg’s plays “Miss Julie” and “The Dream Project”.  How daunting it must be for 9 playwrights to collaborate on writing one piece about two different plays.  I’m not a numbers person, and so 9-1-2 is already a lot of numbers in one sentence.  But it really worked with “The Miss Julie Dream Project”.

I watched the play at the Three Clubs theatre.  We were a tad late (sorry…), so I missed the first 2 minutes.  Miss Julie and Mina were already arguing.  Walking into the show late then trying to figure out what I had missed was doubly challenging.  The extra challenge after “I got it” was realizing that I’ve walked into Mina’s dream.  Miss Julie does not want to die again like she does every night of the performance.

In the midst of their conversation, the troupe enters with the director shouting “directions” of course.  The action moves quickly from “Where’s Mina?” to “Oh, they’re here” – the audience… “What do we do?”  It’s a quick but very subtle movement from dream to reality and then back to dream when Mina tries to tell them “I’m here”, but she’s trapped with Miss Julie who won’t allow her to return to the stage of reality.

The interplay of the characters moving from real to surreal is like seagulls beating their wings to catch the air current that allows them to soar and float effortlessly.

What does Miss Julie want, if she’s refusing to fulfill her playwright’s designed demise?  She wants to feel alive, and what could be more alive than having an affair?  Like any willful heroine she gets what she wants, but at what cost?  Who’s going to have the baby and in which life will the baby be born?  You know all these questions aren’t going to be answered in the dream.  The answers only come to blossom after the images and words have stewed in your subconscious for several days.  And this is what has happened to me.  It’s Wednesday, the fifth day, after seeing the play.  Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what’s happened until after its taken effect – kind of like the absorption time needed to learn a new skill.

“The Miss Julie Dream Project” is a fun brain teaser.  There are 3 shows left:  Thursday, June 20^th; Saturday, June 22^nd; Wednesday June 26^th at Three Clubs.

by Analyn Revilla

“The Katrina Comedy Fest” is based on the true experiences of 5 separate lives who survived the hurricane of 2005.  I was given a nod to write about “The Katrina Comedy Fest” because it’s still a relevant story.  Natural disasters and catastrophes, like waves lapping on the beach, erase the tracks of lives imprinted on the sand.

I’ve visited New Orleans twice.  The first time was in in 1991 when I got married in a small town called Buras.  It’s about an hour south of the Big Easy.  On August 29, 2005, the eye of Hurricane Katrina made its first landfall in the Buras-Triumph district, and the area is still in the process of rebuilding.  On my second visit in 2010, I wanted to see the effects of the BP disaster upon the environment and the people.  It’s unbelievable to see the ant work it took to watch people and helicopters putting up barriers to keep the oil slick at bay.

I sought out the old fire hall station where I was married by the JP with his deputy as witness.  Like my marriage, the white-washed concrete building didn’t withstand the forces of wind and rain.  I sought out Camp’s, the restaurant that served big bowls heaped with rice and oyster gumbo.  That one had closed too, or the owners decided not to rebuild it after the storm.  My memories of Louisiana linger, like the waft of good soul food that beckons.  It was at Camp’s where I learned how to eat a crawfish properly as demonstrated by the happy waitress.  She took one mini-lobster from the heap on the newspaper and used her thumb and index to flick the head off, and she sucked out the ‘best part’, followed by forcing the meat from the body with the same fingers.  This technique ensures “less mess” and allows for continues eating, because there are plenty of hands going into that heap.

The story telling captures the sensitivity, nostalgia and steely guts of survivors in the face of a natural disaster and caught in the web of bureaucratic foibles.  The stories of five characters, from different walks of life, belie a spirit of humor and a soul of surrender.  New Orleans, historically, has always been at the mercy of nature because of its geography – it sits on the soft silt of the Mississippi River delta, and it opens up to the Gulf of Mexico.  This relationship has grown more tenuous with the industrial revolution.  The coast of Louisiana and Texas has been identified as dead zone, and is the largest hypoxic zone in the United States (source: Wikipedia.)  Last week two explosions erupted in two chemical plants on Thursday and Friday.  If the investigation comes up with any likeness to negligence that led to the BP disaster, then this reinforces some themes common woven into the lives of the people.

“The Katrina Comedy Fest”, refreshingly, does not focus on the politics.  The play brings the event to a tangible level that can be digested as a languorous 5 course meal, beginning with the rising waters and ending with sobering shot of reality.  It becomes a speculation game as to the strength of “this one” compared to the “last one” when the levees didn’t breach.

The stories are narrated through the voice of …

Raymond, a homeless, begins his story in the stadium.  He discovers his “air freshener” ineffective against the heavy stench of bodies locked down.  He’s prepared for anything being a homeless.

Antoinette is a savvy and bold owner of “Mother-in-Law Lounge”, and widow of R&B singer Ernie K-Doe.  She keeps both her 15 year old granddaughter and a shrine of her late husband afloat during the storm.  The statue donned with a sawed-off shotgun keeps away would-be intruders.

Rodney is a sweet southern gentleman shoulders the responsibility of keeping his aging parents plus new comers entertained and alive during the siege of rising waters.  He keeps well inebriated with whisky and at the close of the storm realizes he had spent more with his parents than he’s ever done in a long long time.

Judy is a sweet and naïve older woman who meets up with 5 young people.  She wanders out in the street of her neighborhood which had already been evacuated.  She receives texts from her son, “Get out now!”  She meets the pot-smoking youths who takes her with them to San Antonio in her son’s unreliable car.  It is a miraculous trip that opens the life of Judy to young attitudes and wider latitudes.

Sonny, a tourist guide, stays a while and ends up in Oklahoma with high-pitched voiced black woman who likes to scream.  His cool logic and street-wise experience keeps the situation moving until he is investigated by the FBI, because he’s carrying a big wad of cash in a plastic bag.  How else does a person whose business is cash-based supposed to flee the floods of New Orleans?

“The Katrina Comedy Fest” was written by playwright is Rob Florence and directed by Misty Carlisle.  It’s showing at The Lounge from Wednesday thru Sunday.

by Analyn Revilla

The Fringe Festival is in full swing.  I’ve seen three shows of different genres and flavors, all of which proved to be fresh, fitting and funny.  The Fringe is about all these and more, which are reasons for attending a performance and more to tickle your senses and blow your imagination.  A stage and players with powerful stories to share is a lever to enlighten our minds, elevate our spirits and encircle the range of humanity in our hearts.

In writing about the the Fringe plays I’ve seen.  The question in my mind is, “How is today unlike any other day?”

In Alyson Mead’s play, “The Other F Word”, today is unlike any other day for four women invited to a focus group about a pen designed for women, and it is PINK!  The women are racially, socially and economically different.  Carol is Asian and is married with children.  She is shy and demure.  Roxanne is black, a lawyer and single.  She exudes power in her Armani suit and accoutrements.  Daniella is of East Indies descent (it seemed to me), and she’s a man in transition to be a woman.  She’s thoughtful and sharp, but hides showing off these gifts. Lastly, there’s Evie, Caucasian, beautiful, educated and single.  She’s opinionated and outgoing.  The women attend the focus group with different motives – whether it is for the $100 compensation, curiosity, opportunity or to fit in, they are forever changed by the dialogue initiated by a pink pen.

Sitting in the Lounge Theater at 4pm last Saturday, I listened to the monologues expressing their inner thoughts and true feelings.  It wasn’t just verbally expressing to the moderator “Tammy” about the pen.  Firstly, what kind of a name is Tammy?  Is that even a real name? or is it a psychological setup for the bearer of the name to be a stripper.  The women bark their opinions about the others which is a microcosm of their day-to-day life.  It’s really not about the pen.  It’s about their own perception, opinion, belief and attitudes about themselves, other people and situations.  This is cleverly played out in the story by using the pen as the instrument – a great metaphor.  The power of the word birth from thought and emotion as carried out with the pen.

They receive their checks in the mail, and again a tool is used to reveal a meaning – what is money? Roxanne deposits the check immediately, because she was taught by her parents that time and opportunity is wasted by an un-deposited check, and she’s saving up for fertility treatment.  Daniella saves the money for her operation, a dream to realize her inner nature.

The journey that the women had embarked upon at the focus group, has conscious shifts and unconscious impacts on their views.  Some can accept the event as a blessing that moved them to another direction on their path.  For example, the shy and demure Carol grows.  She breaks out of her self-imposed beliefs of only being a mother and wife, and becomes a successful leader and organizer of a group in her community.  To another participant, Evie, she recognizes her pattern of dating losers, and breaks out by learning to spend time alone, by herself, to discover her inner beauty and to love herself.

In case you’re curious to know… the story of play evolved from a real-life event in 2012 when a company began to market the Bic Cristal “For Her” pen.  People posted cutting and sarcastic reviews on Amazon that lamb-basted the marketing features of the pen as … “elegant design – just for her!” and “a thin barrel to fit a woman’s hand”.

 “Finally! For years I’ve had to rely on pencils, or at worst, a twig and some drops of my feminine blood to write down recipes (the only thing a lady should be writing ever),” one reviewer wrote. “I had despaired of ever being able to write down said recipes in a permanent manner, though my men-folk assured me that I ‘shouldn’t worry yer pretty little head.’ But, AT LAST! Bic, the great liberator, has released a womanly pen that my gentle baby hands can use without fear of unlady-like callouses and bruises. Thank you, Bic!”

“Oh. My. God. I’ve been doing it all wrong. There was me thinking I didn’t need to worry about whether my writing implement sufficiently reflected my gender. Thank you so much Bic for showing me the error of my ways. Perhaps Bic will also bring out a new range of pink (or purple) feminine spanners, screwdrivers, electric drills and angle grinders so that I can carry out my job as a bicycle mechanic without further embarrassing myself? Luckily my male colleagues have managed to keep their disapproval of my use of their masculine tools to themselves. I’m so ashamed. And re-educated as to my place in society. Thanks again Bic!”

Dan Kaufman, a reviewer is quoted, “Men, don’t stand for this. Aren’t there enough products specific to women already? First it was tampons, now these pens? What other products will I have to suffer the indignity of being unable to purchase just because I’m a male person?”

The BIC spokeswoman, Linda Kwong, responded to a request for comment: “We appreciate hearing honest feedback from all of our consumers, whether it is regarding a promotion, advertising campaign, or product.  As a global consumer products company, BIC wants to hear these important comments.”

The pink pen has given the opportunity for women to speak out about being branded, and perhaps that is the other F word.

1. Aaron Swartz.  He was a social justice activist who lead in the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  Had SOPA not been defeated, then the operation of the internet would have granted giant corporations boundless censorship powers.  He was the creator of RSS (Really Simple Syndication”) which changed how people get online content and allowed for accessing different sources of information.  As an example, RSS enables how millions of people get their podcasts.  He committed suicide in January  11th at the age of 26, under the extreme pressures of the prosecution of the government – charging him with 13 felony charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
2. Jacob Appelbaum – A computer security researcher who is a developer and advocate for the TOR project, a system that enables users to communicate anonymously on the internet.  He and two other individuals, has been the target of government in its investigation by secret efforts to gather private information for the purpose of its investigation into Wikileaks.  The federal appeals court had granted the government a warrant to subpoena and acquire the Twitter records of the subjects of their investigation.
3. Julian Assange (the recent recipient of  the Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts in absentia)

Yoko Ono: “This 2013 Courage Award for the Arts is presented to Julian Assange.  With your courage, the truth was revealed to us – thank you – and gave wisdom and power to heal the world.  On behalf of the suffering world, I thank you.  Yoko Ono Lennon.  Thank you.

“As people we have to realize that we’re all people, somebody is somebody’s son, somebody is somebody’s daugher.  And I try to picture it that way.  Would you want somebody doing that to your son?  Would you want somebody doing that to your daughter?  If not, why do it?  Through this whole experience I’ve learned that.”

Iris (not verbadim, but from what I remember from the play):  “I’ve been thinking about God.  Not God in the person sense, but God in how we are to each other.”

The view from my office window looks down on a house with a flag on the front lawn.  It’s a consulate’s house, and today there are two painters working on the French patio door.  They are brushing the cross bars in grey, carefully lining the paint on the wood.  Their heads tilt to the sway of the brush.  Watching them is a good break from the pop-up letters and numbers on my computer screen.  I can imagine their faces, like children, focused on the lines and texture of their brushes on the medium.  It must be rewarding work, I think, from the relaxed poses of their bodies.   The painters are beautifying and preserving something of value.  Their tools and material of paper sand, brushes, buckets, scrapers, spackling paste, tapes, rollers, drop cloths – are for the intent of construction and not destruction.

 I usually start my day with reading the news.  Yesterday marked the anniversary of the war on Iraq over their presumed Weapons of Mass Destruction.  I digest the short paragraph which is general.  It stirs an inexplicable emotion, except for a wish.  I wish I had the guts to express how I truly feel about war, and specifically about that war.  I feel inadequate and invalidated to be specific about my opinions and feelings about any big issue, because I know it is not as black and white as reported to me, who lives thousands of miles from the source of the news.  The big issues are those that affect everyone.  But we don’t all want to be affected.  For me I don’t want to be affected, because that war seems unreal and hard to accept.  Maybe that’s why I can’t be specific, and bold to express my feelings and thoughts about war.   I can only describe my feelings as grief over a loss.  I don’t know yet what that loss is.  Perhaps it is one of these or all:  loss of innocence, loss of humanity, loss of sanity. 

 One of the topics about the Iraq war recently is the mass displacement and epidemic birth defects and cancer found among the population, and the cause is suspected to be the “US military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus”.  That is specific.  What is more specific is to see a picture of a newly born baby with more than 2 sets of arms and 2 sets of legs, and its internal organs formed outside of its internal cavity.

I remember during one of the lessons in a writing class.  The teacher talked about specificity and he presented it like looking at the multitude of faces of a cut crystal.  One face is described as “Metaphor is a tool to bring an experience of universality to the specifics of our story.”  I sat quietly, working.  Then my mind wandered away from the intensity.  The eyes shifted from the page to the view.  I spotted the painters, and I’m reminded of the headlines I read.  My subconscious has been quietly knitting at the images and words to make sense of the juxtaposition of construction to destruction.

 The brush paints up and down and side to side of the wooden frames.  Straight, neat lines contrasts the spider baby with its medusa appendages sprawling out of its torso.

 “Working with metaphor allows us to say a lot with few words.  It is a way of helping the reader to understand the underlying themes.  It can also be a way of making challenging issues accessible.”                 –  Al Watt (LA Writer’s Tribe)

I’ve recently picked up my physical activities by going back to the YMCA.  I’ve been taking spinning classes alternating that with swimming and some workouts on my own.  I had a bad case of the flu in February, and I’d forgotten the feeling of good health during my sick time.  After a lengthy and tenuous recuperation period, I began to appreciate what it feels like to be healthy.

It’s so humbling to do the simple things that keep life going smoothly.  With me, I found that I have a strong resistance to doing the simple things.  To do the simple things means:

1. “showing up”
2. “having the intention to work”
3. “having the intention to push beyond my boundaries”
4. “having gratitude to be able to do it”

 My good friend puts it this way (regarding working out), he said, “It’s a privilege to be able to work out”.  It is what he reminds himself when he does not feel the motivation to exercise.  Health is a privilege.  Creativity is a privilege.  Life is a privilege.

 Privilege defined:

  “a right or immunity granted as an advantage or favor esp. to some and not others.”    The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people”      Oxford Dictionary

 Without getting into a political debate or philosophical debate, I just want to explore the depth of having the privilege to health, creativity and life.  I think it is becoming more of a privilege to have these things than a right.  Most people in our affluent society are born with good health, creativity, and naturally being born is life itself.  There are circumstances that occur that deprive some of us of these basic things.  The immediate circumstance that comes to mind is having the  financial ability to afford education, nutritious food, clean and safe habitation.  When I consider the hazards of living in Afghanistan or Syria, or anywhere else where to make a living is a hard struggle, then it is indeed, a privilege to be healthful, to be creative and to live as I am only able to imagine and will myself to be. 

Last week I was driving to work from my “annual” physical and it was busy in Beverly Hills, and people were driving like lunatics.  But I was relaxed.  Being over 40, I am now belong tothe group of women that needs to have a mammogram as part of my physical.  I put “annual” in quotes because this is my conversation with my doctor:

 Doctor:  “Hi Miss Revilla.” (He shook my hand while his other hand held my chart.) “It’s been a long time.”

Me:  “Not really.  2 years?”

Doctor looks down on the chart.

Doctor:  “Your last physical was in 2006. You came in 2009 for a cough, but you haven’t been back.”

Me (feeling sheepish):  “Wow, how time flies.”

 I have insurance coverage from work, but I have not gone for my annual physical, because I am of two minds on this:  One is, I wonder if there’s an insurance scam about the process, two, I really don’t like getting bad news. 

 Doctor:  “You didn’t go for your follow up mammogram in 2007.”

Me:  “I think I was out of the country.”

Doctor:  “Promise to go this time.  Otherwise my office gets these yellow cards that remind us it’s my responsibility to ensure my patients go for their checkups.”

Okay.  I promised to do so.  

A few days later, I showed up for my appointment at the Beverly Tower Women’s Center.  After the examination with its tricky maneuvers, holding poses and breaths, and squeezing my mammary glands between two cold plates of plastic, I told the technician, “Now I know why I didn’t go for my follow up.”  She laughed.  She told me to wait in a private lounge while the radiologist reviews the x-ray images.

 The last time I sat in that room was in 2006.  I had to to come back for follow up tests after the initial screening.  They explained after their intense diagnostics that the density of the tissues in my breast made it hard for them to see if something is abnormal.  This time around I thought, I’m sure everything is okay like the last time.  The technician returned.  “Analyn, the doctor wants to do an ultrasound.  Can you wait here please?”

 Of course I smiled, and nodded yes, but I thought, “Do I have a choice?”  Then I began to worry.  It’s been 7 years since my last examination, and I wonder if that little thing they found has turned into something not so little anymore.  The next minutes turned into agonizing moments.  “What if it’s bad news?”  Now, I reflect back on my thought process then, and how my mind prioritized what’s important to me.  I confess, I asked for the chance to spend time with my fiancé so I can make him happy. 

 After the appointment, as I drove back to the office I felt a sense of freedom, hence my relaxed state when there were people driving with little courtesy for others.  But I didn’t mind if someone changes lanes without using their turn signals, or if someone blocks the intersection during a change of lights.  The ease (lack of “dis”-ease, came from the freedom of knowing what truly matters in life to me.

Another female mentor spoke it well, when I described to her my experience at the doctor’s office.  My mentor is a survivor of cancer.  She said to me, “You definitely learn to pick your battles.”

The battle for me is working on the simple things:

1. “showing up”
2. “having the intention to work”
3. “having the intention to push beyond my boundaries”
4. “having gratitude to be able to do it”

 My simple things are to maintain health, to write, to play guitar, ride the motorcycle and to serve with love.

 I recently finished the book, “Tuesdays With Morrie”, by Mitch Albom.  I want to share some good quotes from it:

 “The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” – Morrie Schwartz

 “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” – Morrie Schwartz

Between 2006 and now I’ve changed in my attitude about the annual physical.  Even if I belived that the physical examination could be an insurance scam (and I don’t know the machinery behind all that), I choose not to mind being a tool for it, for the reason that my eyes were opened during those minutes in that waiting room to the gift of health, creativity and life.