I wrote this to be read at my grandma's funeral. As it says, I've accepted it and feel ready to move on and mourn when I need to. She was a good lady.
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Although it's been hard for me to remember, since I've been away from home for so long, I spent most of my life close to Grandma Castro. When I was little, I'd play at her house, in the backyard with her cats and the neighbor kid, eat snacks she made, watch cartoons, see Papa Castro when he was still around. We'd see the family for the holidays and eat her traditional Christmas cookies. My favorite was the mantecados.
Every weekend, for a long time, we went to garage sales early Saturday mornings with my mom, and maybe got McDonald's after. Or we'd have yard sales of our own at her house or ours.
During the week, we'd go to thrift stores so often that they knew us all by name. I'd play by the toys and books shyly while they looked for collectibles. As I got older, I'd look at the clothes, records, and old electronics. I got more and more irritated going because I'd be bored and shy when they wanted me to talk with their antique-hunting friends and the staff. I skipped the yard sale morning trips more often. Then, after a while, Mom and I would go on our own more often than with her.
I saw Grandma's mind fade, though her body stayed damn healthy through it all. Mom and I came over more frequently. I got used to her forgetting things and mixing up names and telling us the same things. And to be honest, it never bothered me. What was the use in correcting her? It would only frustrate her trying to remember things that she couldn't. So when we spoke, I generally went along with what she'd say while we watched TV and I sat next to her while she crocheted, trying to do the same or drawing.
Every time she came to our house, she would try to clean the kitchen – even though Mom told her not to. She would make tortilla española and thought it was the first time she'd made it for me. She'd tell the same old stories and sing the same old songs and use the same old phrases - “bebe que no llora no mama”. But I never got sick of it. I loved it. And now I can sing the songs and cook the tortilla.
When she got worse, we found her a live-in caregiver, and mom and I still visited regularly. I'd buy her groceries, tidy up, get her medicine, do yard-work, talk with her, walk with her when she used the wheelchair. Different caretakers came in, especially Belen Ramos, who quickly became part of our family because of how much care she took with Grandma, how much love she truly had for her. Joyce came to take care of her for a while, too. Mom and I would help with medical things sometimes. It put a lot of stress on Mom, and I got frustrated from time to time as well, but we kept going. We knew how important it was to her to stay in her home.
When it was time for her to leave, I was already in college across the country. Mom and I and I think everyone were reluctant; it was hard to accept, but we did. And after how much the Little Sisters had done for our loved ones, and helped them pass on, there was no other option. And they did make the last years and days of her life as calm as loving as they could be.
Having been present for the duration of Grandma's decline, I didn't find it as hard or shocking to know it was time for her to go. I had been expecting it and preparing emotionally for years, and then months, and then days. I saw her a few times at the home and knew she'd be alright. Even now, I feel okay knowing she's gone, and okay being here instead of there. It's more important for me to move on in my own life, the life she helped make possible, because I'm ready and because I know that my mother and the family I love are all in good hands.
Mary Castro will of course live on. She has scores of family, close and distant, who bear her impression and memory. That's the truest kind of immortality I can imagine. For some of us, including myself, that impression goes deep, and for that I will always be grateful. Her life, the part I witnessed and the part I learned about, was one full of love, compassion, strength, endurance, and hope. I've tried to live up to that example – her example and that of the children she helped foster into the beautiful adults they've become.
I think my mom is correct in saying that we'll never see one quite like her again.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The importance and usefulness of journaling
Yep, another srs post. Refer to the below King Henry meme. Same applies: feel free to read if you're interested in what I think about mental health, emotions, self-awareness and shit, and if you have time. It's about two pages long. Fun and/or personal stuff will come down the tube later, but I just wrote these so I figure I'd share them.
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The importance and usefulness of journaling
Journaling exceeds psychiatric and psychological resources in dealing with emotions, thoughts, actions, and self-awareness in general. The reason for this, I think, is that journaling is 100% confidential, if done properly. I personally type mine and encrypt it in a zip folder with a password only I can know. If there are entries I feel comfortable sharing either on my blog, with my docs, or with a trusted, intimate friend, I simply amend them and save them in a less-encrypted manner. I don't think this is excessive, because it assures me that what I write is as confidential as I choose it to be, for my own good and to maintain my sense of security in being very, very honest in my entries.
The key service journaling offers is free expression. It probably takes a while to cultivate this, especially for people who struggle with expressing their feelings and thoughts. Personally, I've become pretty good at this, even when it comes to sharing with others and knowing my boundaries when doing so (granted, I fuck up with this from time to time, erring on the side of over-sharing my thoughts and emotions). As such, I don't think it'll take me too long to do so with this journal. However, I think it could take me a while to comfortably write about any recent events, even as remote as months or years ago. This is INCREDIBLY difficult, even if it's ideal. As I always say, as humans, we are imperfect and can't expect to be able to do this stuff when we want or need to. There's nothing wrong with that and we need to accept it, along with other basic, key things about us as humans, radical acceptance-style.
However, it is also VERY important, if you can force yourself through the immense discomfort of it, to write about your FRESH feelings about the big stuff, not feeling the need to censor yourself or judge or overcompensate to sound more wise and reflective. This is perfectly alright to do, and also important, so I don't want to say that it's ideal to not do this at ALL. It can definitely serve to help you mentally and emotionally purge and get by without having these thoughts plague you non-stop. This is ALSO pretty hard to do. Journaling might not work for some people – it could even end up hurting more than helping – but it's worth trying, even for the small stuff. Personally, I'm really bad at committing to and maintaining a journal. But I hope, with all I've learned, that I can follow through this time for at least a while, and remember to go back to it from time to time. I know I certainly won't delete any of my entries even if I don't read them for years. I'd do myself a major disservice to do so.
So all that I've described in the last few paragraphs explains why I chose to make my very first journal entry in this particular journal so generic, not about what I'm feeling or experiencing. It's what I'm most comfortable with right now: trying to be objective, in the sense of explaining my own philosophy about self-awareness without judging myself in an over-compensating manner. I think this will be a good reminder for me, from time to time, and I'd love to share it on my blog but even more so, with the people I love when they need it, or even just to start a philosophical discourse using this as a starting-point for what I believe – at this moment, at least. Journaling is especially good at tracking what you believe or feel or are experiencing and what you think about it at any given time in your life.
I suppose this is a good point to explore THAT aspect of journaling. If you use it to frequently track your thoughts and emotions, in-depth and honestly or even just venting, then you can use your journal to track how you grow and how your mind develops over time. What I mean is how you approach emotions, how your ways of dealing with them change, what you believe to be true about yourself. This works for tracking your view of the world, your actions, and the way you think as well.
Psychiatrists and psychologists also do this, from an outsider's perspective, but their ability to do so is limited by their position AS outsiders: they can't really know what's going on in your head because no matter how honest and comprehensive you are in the way you express your self-awareness and thoughts, I think it's impossible to do so as comprehensively as you can in a personal, secure-feeling journal. As doctors, THEIR purpose is to be the CLINICAL outsider who can use the information you give them to track your thoughts and self-awareness as they apply to your mental health, and can try to advise you and inform you of how they see your progress. Sharing with intimate loved ones, in a different manner of course, also serves this function. They are also good at simply being emotionally supportive people who can advise you, or, much more importantly, simply LISTEN and comfort and commend, when appropriate. This is yet another resource which I personally think is very, VERY important in staying grounded and functional as people.
To sum up: journaling is a resource for tracking how you feel or think, how it changes, and how it affected what you did at a given time. It tracks how your mind and life changes, because they DO, a lot, over time – even over short amounts of time. There are many ways to write in your journal, and sometimes you can't do ALL of them; in the best of circumstances, you can. But being able to do ANY of them, whenever you can, is a great thing to do for your own good. It also affords the chance to share either your very personal and raw entries, or your philosophical entries, or any entires you choose, with your doctors or loved ones when you choose to.
If you can bear to, it's absolutely worth it to NEVER delete your entries, as every single one can be worth re-reading at various points of your life, even if just to amuse yourself. In addition, it's important to allow yourself to keep them secure in whatever way makes you feel safest so that you continue to feel comfortable writing in as raw a manner as you want to or can throughout your life, or as long as you value the journal. Keep in mind that this can and WILL change, so even if you feel like something or even the whole journal is obsolete, it really, really isn't. If nothing else, the entirety of it or some of it would be a wonderful thing to leave as a testament to who you were throughout your life for those who survive you, loved ones and strangers as well, in case you end up being famous or someone happens upon some or all of them.
The reason I think the part about strangers is true is because of my work in the classics, oddly enough, because the most accurate and beautiful way Greeks saw immortality (through Homer's philosophy) is not through transcendental or spiritual means, but through word itself. It is ultimately the only form of immortality I believe in. Written word is one of the most spectacular things we're capable of as human beings, for society, for history (if written records are able to survive for a while), for a lasting impression on the world through loved ones AND strangers. And, as I argued above, it can be crucially important to knowing ourselves at a given moment and throughout our lives.
----------------------------------------------------------
The importance and usefulness of journaling
Journaling exceeds psychiatric and psychological resources in dealing with emotions, thoughts, actions, and self-awareness in general. The reason for this, I think, is that journaling is 100% confidential, if done properly. I personally type mine and encrypt it in a zip folder with a password only I can know. If there are entries I feel comfortable sharing either on my blog, with my docs, or with a trusted, intimate friend, I simply amend them and save them in a less-encrypted manner. I don't think this is excessive, because it assures me that what I write is as confidential as I choose it to be, for my own good and to maintain my sense of security in being very, very honest in my entries.
The key service journaling offers is free expression. It probably takes a while to cultivate this, especially for people who struggle with expressing their feelings and thoughts. Personally, I've become pretty good at this, even when it comes to sharing with others and knowing my boundaries when doing so (granted, I fuck up with this from time to time, erring on the side of over-sharing my thoughts and emotions). As such, I don't think it'll take me too long to do so with this journal. However, I think it could take me a while to comfortably write about any recent events, even as remote as months or years ago. This is INCREDIBLY difficult, even if it's ideal. As I always say, as humans, we are imperfect and can't expect to be able to do this stuff when we want or need to. There's nothing wrong with that and we need to accept it, along with other basic, key things about us as humans, radical acceptance-style.
However, it is also VERY important, if you can force yourself through the immense discomfort of it, to write about your FRESH feelings about the big stuff, not feeling the need to censor yourself or judge or overcompensate to sound more wise and reflective. This is perfectly alright to do, and also important, so I don't want to say that it's ideal to not do this at ALL. It can definitely serve to help you mentally and emotionally purge and get by without having these thoughts plague you non-stop. This is ALSO pretty hard to do. Journaling might not work for some people – it could even end up hurting more than helping – but it's worth trying, even for the small stuff. Personally, I'm really bad at committing to and maintaining a journal. But I hope, with all I've learned, that I can follow through this time for at least a while, and remember to go back to it from time to time. I know I certainly won't delete any of my entries even if I don't read them for years. I'd do myself a major disservice to do so.
So all that I've described in the last few paragraphs explains why I chose to make my very first journal entry in this particular journal so generic, not about what I'm feeling or experiencing. It's what I'm most comfortable with right now: trying to be objective, in the sense of explaining my own philosophy about self-awareness without judging myself in an over-compensating manner. I think this will be a good reminder for me, from time to time, and I'd love to share it on my blog but even more so, with the people I love when they need it, or even just to start a philosophical discourse using this as a starting-point for what I believe – at this moment, at least. Journaling is especially good at tracking what you believe or feel or are experiencing and what you think about it at any given time in your life.
I suppose this is a good point to explore THAT aspect of journaling. If you use it to frequently track your thoughts and emotions, in-depth and honestly or even just venting, then you can use your journal to track how you grow and how your mind develops over time. What I mean is how you approach emotions, how your ways of dealing with them change, what you believe to be true about yourself. This works for tracking your view of the world, your actions, and the way you think as well.
Psychiatrists and psychologists also do this, from an outsider's perspective, but their ability to do so is limited by their position AS outsiders: they can't really know what's going on in your head because no matter how honest and comprehensive you are in the way you express your self-awareness and thoughts, I think it's impossible to do so as comprehensively as you can in a personal, secure-feeling journal. As doctors, THEIR purpose is to be the CLINICAL outsider who can use the information you give them to track your thoughts and self-awareness as they apply to your mental health, and can try to advise you and inform you of how they see your progress. Sharing with intimate loved ones, in a different manner of course, also serves this function. They are also good at simply being emotionally supportive people who can advise you, or, much more importantly, simply LISTEN and comfort and commend, when appropriate. This is yet another resource which I personally think is very, VERY important in staying grounded and functional as people.
To sum up: journaling is a resource for tracking how you feel or think, how it changes, and how it affected what you did at a given time. It tracks how your mind and life changes, because they DO, a lot, over time – even over short amounts of time. There are many ways to write in your journal, and sometimes you can't do ALL of them; in the best of circumstances, you can. But being able to do ANY of them, whenever you can, is a great thing to do for your own good. It also affords the chance to share either your very personal and raw entries, or your philosophical entries, or any entires you choose, with your doctors or loved ones when you choose to.
If you can bear to, it's absolutely worth it to NEVER delete your entries, as every single one can be worth re-reading at various points of your life, even if just to amuse yourself. In addition, it's important to allow yourself to keep them secure in whatever way makes you feel safest so that you continue to feel comfortable writing in as raw a manner as you want to or can throughout your life, or as long as you value the journal. Keep in mind that this can and WILL change, so even if you feel like something or even the whole journal is obsolete, it really, really isn't. If nothing else, the entirety of it or some of it would be a wonderful thing to leave as a testament to who you were throughout your life for those who survive you, loved ones and strangers as well, in case you end up being famous or someone happens upon some or all of them.
The reason I think the part about strangers is true is because of my work in the classics, oddly enough, because the most accurate and beautiful way Greeks saw immortality (through Homer's philosophy) is not through transcendental or spiritual means, but through word itself. It is ultimately the only form of immortality I believe in. Written word is one of the most spectacular things we're capable of as human beings, for society, for history (if written records are able to survive for a while), for a lasting impression on the world through loved ones AND strangers. And, as I argued above, it can be crucially important to knowing ourselves at a given moment and throughout our lives.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Past creativity re-evaluated.
Before I get ready to share my take on where my identity and life has taken me with the the internets (but moreso the people I care about who'd actually read this), I'd like to share something that approaches it, just like the music post I just put up.
Since about age 15, when my creative faculties were petering out and I desperately feared that I was losing it forever (which apparently meant that I was becoming something empty and not myself and I didn't deserve to live. I was really cute at that age), I had the attitude that nothing I created was of worth. Every image I drew was convoluted, attempts to make reality and failing, or copying masters without inserting anything deeper from my mind. Art, which should be for expressing that which you can't do in conversation, expressed nothing within me. Not even writing, which is the easier form because it's closer to expressing yourself in words to a friend.
Trivially, this meant I looked at my old art and writing, and the stuff I was writing then, and wanted to destroy it all. I was desperately ashamed of everything I made because they were talentless crap - less trivially, because they were devoid of substance, if not content. Luckily my mother - though it annoyed me to no end at the time - forced me to keep things, if nothing else than just for her.
This feeling extended itself in such a way that exacerbated my dying creative exercise. It got to the point that immediately after creating something, or in the process of doing it, or even before I BEGAN, I made myself certain it wasn't worth my time and I should give up before making a fool of myself. So I have a lot of incomplete stuff and just plain scratched-out beginnings on dirty paper full of eraser marks. There are a few exceptions but even those I avoided re-reading or looking at. This was easily applied to music as well, because I only did covers (as now) and felt like it was foolish to just try to mimic other people's art because I could add nothing, and I was incapable of increasing my skill, or having any in the first place. I loathed the people who insisted otherwise, like the people who insisted I once had and STILL had great skill as a writer and artist.
The funny thing is that this lasted as far as...well, a few months ago, even after my depression healed significantly. I think it's because, even as I was recovering in this sense, I still struggled very hard to express myself, in words but mostly beyond them. I tried to force myself, to do things like free-form writing which people told me was the best way to become a practicing writer again - as a great writer said, "A writer is a person for whom writing is excessively difficult". But nothing worked. And I used the fact that I was so embedded in being functional and a whole person with other aspects of my life as an excuse for not being creative: I had relationships, work, motivation to succeed, desire for a future and the ability to enjoy myself in the midst of stress. I don't see this as an "excuse" anymore.
But now, even though I still play covers of songs - though now I know how significant the addition of my own voice is, a voice I can now use with pride - even though I barely draw, even though I've only written two or three new bits of expressive fiction and non-fiction, I know it's coming back. I have enough space and introspective desire to be an artist capable of expressing myself in plain words and in the transcendent ways art allows one to express the life and views that make up a full person who knows herself.
And an interesting development in this came in reading some old stories and poems and essays I wrote when I was 15. I was on the plane and in for a laugh - which is usually my reaction to my foolish old work. But I was also wondering if there was substance then, despite the walls that locked me in from even my own feelings, and despite the self-loathing limitations I imposed. And I was shocked to find it in EVERY bit of work I read. And in the artwork I found in my notebook from a year ago. These stories and poems I dismissed as flippant now speak to me in ways that I never imagined. They show me not only that I was a full person then, as much as I hid it away and refused to let it shine, but that that person persists to this day, and has made me what I am now. I am not a new person, a new adult. I am Felice. I am what Felice always was, and the potential she had within her. It's the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.
So I'll post a few of these interesting findings for a while as I gather myself enough to express myself in ways that don't involve screaming The Beatles on the ukulele. BEWARE.
Since about age 15, when my creative faculties were petering out and I desperately feared that I was losing it forever (which apparently meant that I was becoming something empty and not myself and I didn't deserve to live. I was really cute at that age), I had the attitude that nothing I created was of worth. Every image I drew was convoluted, attempts to make reality and failing, or copying masters without inserting anything deeper from my mind. Art, which should be for expressing that which you can't do in conversation, expressed nothing within me. Not even writing, which is the easier form because it's closer to expressing yourself in words to a friend.
Trivially, this meant I looked at my old art and writing, and the stuff I was writing then, and wanted to destroy it all. I was desperately ashamed of everything I made because they were talentless crap - less trivially, because they were devoid of substance, if not content. Luckily my mother - though it annoyed me to no end at the time - forced me to keep things, if nothing else than just for her.
This feeling extended itself in such a way that exacerbated my dying creative exercise. It got to the point that immediately after creating something, or in the process of doing it, or even before I BEGAN, I made myself certain it wasn't worth my time and I should give up before making a fool of myself. So I have a lot of incomplete stuff and just plain scratched-out beginnings on dirty paper full of eraser marks. There are a few exceptions but even those I avoided re-reading or looking at. This was easily applied to music as well, because I only did covers (as now) and felt like it was foolish to just try to mimic other people's art because I could add nothing, and I was incapable of increasing my skill, or having any in the first place. I loathed the people who insisted otherwise, like the people who insisted I once had and STILL had great skill as a writer and artist.
The funny thing is that this lasted as far as...well, a few months ago, even after my depression healed significantly. I think it's because, even as I was recovering in this sense, I still struggled very hard to express myself, in words but mostly beyond them. I tried to force myself, to do things like free-form writing which people told me was the best way to become a practicing writer again - as a great writer said, "A writer is a person for whom writing is excessively difficult". But nothing worked. And I used the fact that I was so embedded in being functional and a whole person with other aspects of my life as an excuse for not being creative: I had relationships, work, motivation to succeed, desire for a future and the ability to enjoy myself in the midst of stress. I don't see this as an "excuse" anymore.
But now, even though I still play covers of songs - though now I know how significant the addition of my own voice is, a voice I can now use with pride - even though I barely draw, even though I've only written two or three new bits of expressive fiction and non-fiction, I know it's coming back. I have enough space and introspective desire to be an artist capable of expressing myself in plain words and in the transcendent ways art allows one to express the life and views that make up a full person who knows herself.
And an interesting development in this came in reading some old stories and poems and essays I wrote when I was 15. I was on the plane and in for a laugh - which is usually my reaction to my foolish old work. But I was also wondering if there was substance then, despite the walls that locked me in from even my own feelings, and despite the self-loathing limitations I imposed. And I was shocked to find it in EVERY bit of work I read. And in the artwork I found in my notebook from a year ago. These stories and poems I dismissed as flippant now speak to me in ways that I never imagined. They show me not only that I was a full person then, as much as I hid it away and refused to let it shine, but that that person persists to this day, and has made me what I am now. I am not a new person, a new adult. I am Felice. I am what Felice always was, and the potential she had within her. It's the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.
So I'll post a few of these interesting findings for a while as I gather myself enough to express myself in ways that don't involve screaming The Beatles on the ukulele. BEWARE.
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