"Life doesn't come with a manual - it comes with a Mother."

Mother and son from the bilingual school.

Birthday and Mother's Day celebrations are just around the corner for my mom, but those are only a couple of reasons she's in my thoughts lately. She's the best mom in the world!

I think about her often and smile at the past or dream about the future.

Nothing could change the pivotal, towering figure she has been in my life, and it's amazing to imagine she'll have the chance to impact the members of the family I will start someday.

Thank God For Wake Up Calls

"Arrrggghhh. I just want..."

"Why can't things be like..."

That's how my thoughts sounded for a few days there. I had kinda lost my mind but then snapped out of it when I remembered that my life is about something other than just me.

When did you stop loving me?

"When did you stop loving me..." These were words being sung in my ear buds today when I arrived in the town's central park. The singer: Marvin Gaye. Marvin is in my opinion the best there ever was. 

When I sat down on a set of steps in the park, everything on my mind shifted to the background and the music playing in my ears took center stage.

"When did you stop living me? When did I stop loving you?" was the question I heard from Marvin. The clarity of his performance and the fortunately not overdone production made his vocal seem very intimate, like I was in the room with him. 

Somehow, this moment made me think of Marvin Gaye's kids and grandkids and the fact that they can have a degree of connection with him at the touch of a button, even though his untimely death occurred over 30 years ago. I marveled at the thought that Marvin's descendants - those who knew him and those born too late to know him - can access a gorgeous, emotional and heartfelt, moving and even entertaining piece of him through his audio recordings...and all of this is made possible by the arts. 

The moment also made me envy the kind of art that can be left behind for progeny, and it gave me the millionth reason to be grateful for my own literary and musical inclinations.

New motivation and goals were just born.

"Where do you see yourself in ten years?"

It started back in college and continues to this day:

I sit down to be interviewed for a job in one of those team interviews where it's me answering questions for a group of people.

Then someone in the group proceeds to spend the entire session looking at me like I have three heads...or else there's a person in the group who never stops looking like he couldn't be more bored!

Strange that this phenomenon actually amuses me rather than bothering me each time. I guess it's a fact I should be glad about. And I am.

New Kid At School

What was the new girl thinking yesterday after her classmates monkeyed around and went bananas every class period, but then suddenly they behaved like perfect ladies and gentlemen when the time came for Literature with Mr. Joshua?

Songwriters Say It All

"It took a man with a backbone

To follow a dream and to leave home

But who says a man can't feel alone?"

-Andy Davis