Spending Wednesdays: Keeping it fresh

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Keeping it fresh

Driving home from San Francisco yesterday, I realized something that made me sad, something I hope to change.

Because I travel so frequently to San Francisco, I often want to get there quickly. Air travel is not an option because I need my car once there. I've started taking highway 5 for it's speed and efficiency. It has little to offer in the way of beauty - therefore, no distractions, no compulsion to stop. All you really want to do on highway 5 is put the pedal to the metal - especially when you get to Coalinga.

Anyway, this last trip back home was fast - real fast. That's when it hit me. I'm taking for granted time spent on travel, ignoring the time in my desire to be home home - yesterday.

Lately, I've even started traveling at night so that I wouldn't see the markers, the signs and posts that make you say to yourself 'god, I'm only here?'

Highway 5 is not the easiest ride. It can be depressing. It can be dangerous. It can be boring - ugly even. It can definitely be stinky. But it can also be a time for reflection or learning. It can be anything I want it to be - and yet, all I've done so far is lament those hours traveling, wishing each mile that I were anywhere else but on highway 5.

That attitude must change. Nothing can be so ugly that I will myself to block out chunks of time that I will not get back - because I don't want to 'see the markers?' what's so wrong with being reminded of where I am in my journey.

I started writing because I want to remember. I've started defeating myself with this attitude; all my journeys should be observed and experienced - even the stinky ones. I have to remember that next time I'm on the road - I haven't so much as paid attention to details like I used to, details that help me work out lines in my head, rhythms, patterns. Now, I just drive. Fast.

I'm going to be on that road anyway - why not make something of the time.

That was a paradigm shift for me. Begin with the end in mind - the wonderful things that wait for me, just outside my windows - north and south - and enjoy the time in the middle.

I'll be on the road again next Wednesday - this time I'll pay close attention to how I'm spending my Wednesday on highway 5 - if I look, I'm sure I'll find a thing of beauty, or at least, of interest.

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Dichos of the Week, or Month or so...

December 2008:
Como eres, era. Como soy, seras

Literally: As you are, I was. As I am, you shall be.

This dicho calls in the wisdom, experience or age of the speaker of the dicho (similar in their universal truth to proverb), and is best illustrated by a story.

When I was young, stupid and cocky, I challenged or mocked something my mom did (since I was all of 14 and knew everything). She told me "Como eres, era. Como soy, seras." I was often frustrated with her use of dichos because I didn't always understand them, or how they applied to the situation at hand. I remember being puzzled by this one, and asked her to explain it. By way of explanation, she told me this story:

One day, in her her pueblo of La Barca, Jalisco, in the the mid 1930's, she and a childhood friend, a young boy, the school prankster and trouble maker, were running, anxious to get to the Plaza - they were late in getting out of church and they didn't want to miss a thing.

It was Sunday, and as in most pueblo's in Mexico, especially in her day, gathering at the Plaza was the big Sunday thing to do - everyone was there. On their way, cutting through the narrow sidewalks, they came upon an old man, walking slowly on his way somewhere, on the same side of the sidewalk. His pace forced them to slow down. Frustrated and impatient, the young boy began mocking the old man for not moving fast enough, for being old and frail "un obstaculo" with the audacity to keep them from getting to the Plaza.

Instead of getting angry, the old man stopped, calmly turned to the young boy, looked him firmly in the eyes and said "Como eres, era. Como soy seras." Nothing more.

This stopped the boy cold. The sting of the words he'd just flung at the old man had been turned against him. The shame for what he had just done was obvious. He recognized the warning the old man had just given him: careful, you'll be an old man one day - you will be me, behave accordingly. The young boy politely asked the old man's "Permiso" to get around him, which the old man gladly gave. The rest of the walk to the Plaza was quiet. My mom told me that her friend changed that day; he matured.

That experience stayed with my mom forever. She learned the power of words. She could never forget the immediate shift in attitude, both in the old man, and her friend. She told me it was one of the wisest things she ever heard, and it shaped how she went through life.

My mom's story stayed with me, shaped how I view, gave me a different way to understand the law of consequences, natural laws - and it gave me a love of dichos and their many uses.

This dicho is one of my favorites.

I have not been able to find English versions, similar in impact and applications, but here are some contemporary equivilants, or near equivilants - though much less poetic:

Been there, done that; Reap what you sow; I wasn't born yesterday; I've been around the block a few times; Stop and smell the roses; What youth is used to, age remembers.

November 2008:
De medico, musico, poeta, y loco, todos tenemos un poco

Literally: Of doctor, musician, poet and madman, we all have a little.

This dicho or Spanish saying, refers to the healer, poet, musician and madman that lives within each of us. We are all, whether we admit it or not, at any given moment, renaissance men and women.

Or, maybe we're just jacks of all trades, master of none?

Spending Wednesdays

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Keeping it fresh

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