A Girl Named Eve

While in Alaska, my family and I saw an bald eagle soar right above our heads. It made us stop, turn, and gasp a deep breath. Later on that same trip, a brown mother (or father) bear walked in front of our bus as we slowly approached our glacier destination. Everyone got up and raced to the left side of the bus almost trampling over each other to take pictures. Both those times my instincts led me to reach for my camera. I didn't succeed with taking the shots.  Thirteen, eleven, and eight years ago, a slimy new born baby was placed on my deflated belly and we both stared into each others eyes for the first time. I have to trust that my memory will preserve my memories for me.  While waiting to board our cruise ship, I took a picture of an ordinary pigeon I saw later that same day to celebrate the ordinary moments. The breath taking moments, I know are irreplaceable and I entrust them to my memory. But among the rare fleeting moments are all the ordin...

When I first stepped out of the hotel on a warm and muggy end of May morning. I wanted to go right back in through the revolving doors of the hotel I stayed at and come back out again as I was unexpectedly greeted with the sound of concrete drilling, traffic of local businesses setting up for the day. At first glance it felt like I flew 4 hours booked a hotel room only to awaken in L.A. Don't hate me New Yorkers. I did end up failing for NYC but it wasn't love at first sight. I found after the fact that I am not the only one who was shocked to find that NYC is not as glamorous as it appears in Sex N City. I know it's nieve but that's just why I was so surprised by my first impression. So when did I fall in love with NYC. Days later after waiting in line with hundreds of people of many different ethnic origins waiting in line to see the city from the top of the Empire States building. And after witnessing the Statue of Liberty and learning about the struggles i...

It feels like lately I'm back in school struggling with long division, essays, projects, and breaking down trinomial equations into binomials with my kid's homework. Consequently, I found I finally put my engineering degree to good use by finding application for the advanced math I once took. It’s hard to believe a few weeks ago, I was making minestrone soup from scratch on a school night with my boys. The new busyness makes me appreciate the evenings we spent playing outside till it got dark. Because of the new soccer season and school project deadlines, I was working with my kids’ homework calling it a day at 7:30-9:30 pm on days when we are out of the house 7 am headed for school. As assignments get turned in and March charges further into the New Year, I can start to see the light at the end of tunnel, and its seas on is spring.

While putting away our Christmas decorations, my husband lowered my memorabilia containers from the high shelving in our garage. I wanted him to bring down the boxes because one of them contained my childhood diaries. In the first plastic bin, we found my kid's old baby outfits. They were cute colorful sleepers that brought back memories of chubby cheeks, little hands wrapped around my fingers, and long hours spent nursing and singing them to sleep. I compared the white baby shoes with bells on them to my 13 year old's big shoes as he was lying down reading. We marveled at the changes. The second box had awards, yearbooks, birthday cards, and the diaries. I wondered if there would be any good to them. Had I written any details I'd since forgotten? And would any of it be worth reading? I raised the silver diary with a red colored rose on it to my nose. That one used to smell like roses. I inhaled. It had lost its scent. I opened the diary and started reading. Streams of...

I finally finished Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was a breathtakingly beautiful book. It reminded me of my own spiritual journey which I have been in for the last couple of years. Spiritual living is not a destination but a way of living. I recommend the book. I hope you are far along enough on your own spiritual journey to capture the depths of this book. I've heard the book gets mixed reviews. Some people just don't get it. Like Eckhart Tolle’s New Earth, you most likely have to have some higher-level of consciousness to grasp the message of the book, and it takes a while to get through the book because you want to stop and reflect. Elizabeth Gilbert takes you on a soul-searching journey with intimate details you would share only with a bestfriend.

In the middle of school, soccer games, church, family parties... life, my sister and I still made the time to regroup with the women we met at the Memoir Writing Workshop a month ago. Although I liked them immediately and we said we'd meet again to start our own writing group, I wasn't sure if we would actually ever see them again because it wasn't the first time we had said we'd form a writing group, and then lose all communication with the group. And, this one was the furthest away. So when we got the email about the upcoming meet up, we were ecstatic and knew we had to go. My sister and I once again set out on a 45+ minute commute to pursue our writing passions. Although I had seen my sister at a family party the week before, when we see each other to drive to a writing workshop it's very different. We catch up on what we are reading or writing, we talk about what our latest hopes and plans are. We'll...

Winning Our First Game of The Season We finally won our first game of the season in the 30 and over coed soccer league. I wouldn’t say that our victory was sweet because at the end of the game our team looked defeated. It was a frustrating win. We struggled against the team that was ranked the lowest in the league, and they even had fewer players out there than we did for the first half of the game. At one point, they were ahead by two goals. I thought for sure we lose yet another game. But then, one of the midfielders managed to score two consecutive goals; moments later, someone else on our team scored another. We won in the last few minutes of the game. Whereas I felt the team should be celebrating, they were mostly sitting quietly taking off their soccer shoes, exhausted by the heat, and frustrated by how long it took to turn the game around. That game was won by my teammates. As for myself, I still felt like I was drowning out there. If you have ever come close to d...

I went to a memoir-writing workshop recently. I don't want to be the girl who cries at the slightest thing but, in this case, I was. They asked the question: who told you, you can't write? We had to state our writing demons, and then  write out the dialog between this inner critique and our retaliation to their remarks.  Ultimately, it is only ourselves that can hold us back from our own dreams. But sometimes we've internalized the voices of others tell us that we can't.  I'd done this exercise before privately, in my own bed, in my own room, and in my own journal but never out loud. When we were done, we had to go around the table and read the dialog. I was picked the first to go. Before I could even let out a word, my throat choked up, my face turn red, and my eyes began to water. I read and cried. We all cried. I thought I had left all that hurt hidden away on paper somewhere, and there it was strangling me. I can't begin to describe that whole situation wi...

My husband and I signed up for a local, 30 and over, co-ed soccer league that plays on Sunday evenings. We started our own team of soccer misfits, which consisted of soccer newbies, coach potatoes, and former recreational soccer stars. Most of the team had never met until literally minutes before our first game, and some of our key players weren’t able to make it. On the way to the game, my husband warned me that this new league would be harder than the scrimmages I’d played. I couldn’t see how. I was pretty confident in my ability to defend, and I thought, maybe he's just never really seen me play. The Kung Fu Panda in me wants to win the Championships this season, so I was very hopeful. We ended up losing 0 to 12+. We played against one of the better teams that have been playing for 2 years. Individually, they weren't that fast, but they knew how to play as a team. They kicked the ball long and high, and took shots from afar, which made it feel more like a volleyball game....

I started running with my boys on Sunday mornings at a forestry wilderness park. My husband has been running for years, and I was starting to join him more regularly, so we decided to take the boys out with us to see how they would do. I was hoping they wouldn't slow me down too much to get a good run in. To my surprise, Tony, my seven-year old youngest son, was a lot faster than I imagined. He's got a natural running stride that is light and quick. He ran along side me the whole way, practically running underneath my armpit.  Every now and then I get reminded about just how much they have grown up. This was one of them.  Running with my sons was a proud moment for me. We passed up bicyclist and hikers who were impressed they could venture out on this rugged six-mile trail at such a young age. I was most content because I knew what an awesome experience this was for all of us to be able to get up on a Sunday morning and run as a family.  The run was ...

On our trip to NYC back in May, my husband and I stopped by the Museum of Sex. We obviously had an interesting time then and afterwards, when we went back to our hotel room. It's definitely not a must do if you are visiting NYC, but if your hotel is a few blocks and you have the downtime--this is something to do. The first floor exhibit, Action ’Sex And The Moving Image’, had a written narration that chronicled how sex and sexual images have impacted our visual mediums-TV, advertising, the big screen, and the Internet. Along each placard, there was a large or small screen that displayed a video referenced in the narration. In all honesty, my husband read through all the history, I had a hard time concentrating because of the images. I tried reading, but I was just too distracted to make sense of the words. So, I pretended to read just like I did when I was 4. I didn't want to look like the pervert that only looks at the pictures. There was a large flat screen laid out horiz...

Sometimes when we hurt it leaves layers of scars much like an onion. When we decide to forgive and really feel it in our hearts, it's as refreshing as a new haircut. Then one day, we come across a part of the scar that is still there. We wonder why it's still there-then we realize this time we have to forgive ourselves for being so stupid or naive. In really deep scars, there's the incident itself. The layer of being angry about why things have to happen in the first place and a longing for a justification of some sort. That layer too must go, if we are to heal. I do a visualization technique which helps me peel back the layers. I just find that sometimes when I get too busy for an extended period of time, things start to build up-the annoyances, disappointments, and frustrations. When I'm relaxed and centered, I can let things go pretty easily. But, when I've been running on near empty for too long, depleting my own natural resourcefulness, I need to refuel. I ...