Friends

Running along the creek by my house, I spotted a small blackness jutting out of the water, stiff and stinking in the sun. I turned my head away from it, moving quickly through the greeness of sun-drenched leaves, my breath expelled through young lungs, alive.

Days passed. One afternoon, a neighborhood boy dragged a garbage bag across our front yard as I sang and looked out the bedroom window. Today could be the day that I caught a butterfly or made my parents another mud turtle sculpture. But that bag...what was in that bag? It made me feel bad. Soon I had to take my medicine. It had never really bothered me, though I bruised easily. I hated the boy dragging that bag. I tiptoed down the hall and stood at the top of the stairs as Dad peered into it. He signed. I twirled back to my room to finish my song, complete with high kicks. I had a butterfly to catch and a mud turtle to sculpt, so I needed to finish that song.

A few years earlier, I had been playing in the back yard when Mama started her car and I heard the screech of a cat. She pushed me inside, trying to calm me down by rubbing my face and explaining that when fans spin, they become sharp enough to cut. So I tested that theory by raking my fingers across different fans covers throughout the house. Nothing happened. And my needles didn't hurt me, they kept me alive. But the fan killed my cat. I understood very little about how the world worked. I still don't.

This morning I was checking email and attempting to blog with the choppy wifi access I have here at the hotel. Instead of banging my head on the wall, I decided to get up up for a minute for a drink of water. When I come back to the computer I see a gorgeous familiar face I've not seen in 16 years. Debra Matos, my former roommate (and one of the few who lived to tell the tale), was standing right before me. Let's say I was way beyond ferklempt.

Of all the places I could bump into her, the Rincon Beach Resort was the last one I thought I'd find her. Debra has been living in France for all this time now and, my blog, I mean, it's just freaky that she was there hugging me after all these years. She has two lovely girls and just like with my two boys, this is also their first time in the island as 'sapient beings'.

Synchronicity. Coincidences. Karma works in mysterious ways.

What's even weirder is that a couple of days ago another former NYU friend of mine, Frances, had asked me about Debra. We were all together working on our MAs and PhDs in the 90's. Her life partner Jorge Morales is an avid blog reader and coincidentally had stumbled upon culturekitchen and thus me via The Agonist. Shout out to Sean Kelley --the network works!

So here I am in Puerto Rico and reconnecting with my peeps without really trying. I have not seen him but I did read Pedro Reina, who was a former BA classmate at NYU. The first day I got here I opened El Nuevo Día and out of it's editorial section came out his face.

I've been able to reconnect to two of the women whom I share with some intense memories pre-Mark, pre-kids, pre-blogging. I've been thinking about them constantly now for about a year; wondering how they were doing. Believe me people, if you're on my mind there is no running away. You will end up in my path and in my life.

My karma works in mysterious ways.

My imagination was captivated when I came across someone's account of a quite civil "luncheon" strategy, the notion of inviting famously opposed partisans to sit together for a few hours across a social (not bargaining) table with their charming hostess, and make not only eye contact but real conversation.

The point wasn't to resolve major controversy or hit any other measurable outcome target per se, just to create a context conducive to a civil (if not cordial) relationship, from which future conversations and constructive ideas might spring.

I don't even remember now who the opponents were in the column I happened to see, or its author, but it inspired me last summer as the Fourth of July approached and public education tempers were once again hotter than blazes.

Oh, and "MisEducation" was an author's alter ego I created from desperation years ago and patterned on Judith Martin's Miss Manners persona, when I couldn't find anyone to HAVE a civil and creative conversation with me about education cultures, much less actually go to lunch!

MisEducation's Mind Field of the Moment:
Fourth of July Lessons of Freedom

A Song I Wrote i don't know if i'm gonna finish it, it's a song/ rap
by Mariah Occhi

After all my pain my gain my aches my ways my days. After all my stress I’m still blessed still striving to impress struggling in my happiness. My power to exist is to be someone else living life through others and not myself. To the sky through lies i swear i deny it wasn’t me is that why i’m still alive? X2

When I was born I lost my mom don’t really know about my dad alls i know is the mom i have now is the best one i’ve ever had and you know it’s really sad for someone to keep givin and givin but they ain’t getting nothin back five kids under one roof with one parental unit honestly she’s exhausted i have no clue how she does it. I wrote a letter to Oprah but it just got passed up just like any other sad story or homeless guy askin for money to tell the truth i am upset it really meant a lot and plus that shit was just way to important to be forgotten I’ve been worryin for so many years feels like I lost it but that’s not the end of my story i’m just getting started. My ****** hasn’t she suffered enough blood work needles and followups every month? This shouldn’t be somethin she has to handle sometimes wish it was my stomach she came outta. Even though she has it her brother didn’t seem to catch it, now tell me, would you pop pills, take drugs, or drink booze if you knew that you was pregnant, nope i didn’t think so but now because of those wrong decisions she in special ed and she thank that everything is hilarious. Laughin it up it’s all a joke but what happens when she runs into the wrong person and they don’t know now i gotta have this up on my brain i just cant stop thinkin even though it’s driving me insane to know one day she could get hurt and i swear i’d just kill myself if one more person i loved got buried under the dirt