A Girl Named Eve

In August my family and I took an unforgettable cruise to Alaska.  I took from that vacation several ideas for travel articles and have since written about my adventures in articles such as  How to Avoid Overspending While on a Cruise . One of the most memorable things we did was zipline in Skagway, Alaska. I wrote a travel article about it on AC,  Ziplining in Skagway, Alaska . I had been wanting to zipline with my husband and sons for some time and I'm glad we finally got a chance to do it.   The guides were young men from Oregon who took the  Alaskan Marine Highway System  to spend an adventuresome summer in Alaska. One guide called Smiley seemed to have a smile that emanated from his bones. He looked so blissed out, it was hard to image he'd ever had a parking ticket, or gone through any sort of trauma, or disappointment in life. I expected to find that sort of happiness from a  Buddhist  Monk not some 18 year old. I made a mental note to...

I went to see Josefina Lopez’s  world premier play, “ Detained In The Desert ”. Josefina, known for her popular Real Women Have Curves, was vacationing in Arizona when SB 1070 was passed. She was unable to go to protest rallies held that night because of prior family commitments but Josefina had it in her heart to do something.  In the five years between 2003 and 2007, there was a 40 percent increase in crimes against Latinos. It’s no wonder considering the proliferation of “hate talk” that spews off the radio, TV, and internet and aims at infuriating the masses. In a climate saturated with negative propaganda, fear mongering, and increasing violence, what one would consider a random act of violence is in reality not so random after all. When we create a society that is so pitted against one another, our chance encounters become unavoidable collisions between unsuspecting individuals caught within the biome of the conflicted society in which we live. It’s like walking into a ...

I've been attending a Josefina Lopez's writing workshops on Tuesdays in Los Angeles with my sister. It is an unforgetable learning experience. Josefina opens herself up and shares her professional experiences with us so that we can learn and move ahead in our own writing ventures. She clearly wants us to succeed. The classes are three hours long but I'm immersed the whole time so it feels like only twenty minutes. Each class is only $10. The best part is how much real world experience we learn from her. We leave the workshop with a long drive home but excited and contemplating the possibilities. With Josefina it feels like anything is possible if you pursue it. I get home late, wrap my arms around my sleeping husband and fall asleep completely blissed out. http://www.casa0101.org/

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...

I have found that blogging is a good way for me to feel my own pulse. I read through my past posts, and it puts me at a time and place in my life. There are so many moments I find blog-worthy. Ironically, I find it hardest to write about things I enjoyed the most. I wanted to write a great review to a play that I saw, or a trip that I took, but I was paralyzed on how to begin. I remember the advice from writing books I’ve read tell me to begin, and I do. I’m currently sitting on a collection of drafts that I’m waiting for a wave of inspiration to roll through me so I can finish them off one evening with a glass of red wine. Actually, it’s more like I’m waiting for this fatigue to finish wearing off so that when I do write, it can be pretty and clever, instead of tired and spent like I’ve been feeling. I was having one of those weeks were if I was a smoker in remission, I would have picked up a cigarette and had a long drawn out puff that would have shattered my months or even years o...

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 ...