THE DEMISE OF MALLS

July 24, 2017July 24, 2017 / Brianda Domecq / 2 Comments

A recent on-line issue of TIME decries the death of shopping malls due to on-line buying (I don’t even buy printed issues of TIME anymore and rather settle for what they print on-line). I read the article and smiled. Memories…

I was in Mexico when the first Mall was built (according to the article, in 1956 Southdale Center in Edina, Minn.) and we were still far from buying into the consumer madness that Malls represent. We went to the park instead. That was where we saw people, picnicked, bought junk and played, interacted, breathed fresh air (Mexico City air was still fresh then, with a population close to 6 million; today at 25 million+ there is a pea-soup-like cloud of smog lying over the city and Chapultepec park, where we used to go, shows up to the passengers on landing airplanes as a small green smudge in the midst of a sprawling concrete megalopolis), rode bicycles, ate popsicles. It was a place where grandmothers and the first blue-jeaned crew-cutters crossed paths; where concerts and clowns entertained visitors of all ages and balloon vendors hawked their colorful bouquets. Cotton candy and tacos, tamales and soft drinks were offered from push-carts. Families pushed baby carriages, walked dogs, lounged on the grassy slopes or visited Chapultepec Castle to once more hear the story of the five young militias who, wrapped in the national flag, hurled themselves to their deaths from its tower rather than be captured by the invading “gringos” (as Americans are disparagingly called).

The first Mall that opened in Mexico City was built by Carlos Slim (just Google him) in Nezahualcoyotl (you can Google that too, but it probably won’t help you pronounce it) on a spot supposedly reserved for a street market that had been displaced by some other construction project. I do not know the year, but I am sure I never went there. Nezahualcoyotl is an area of Mexico City known for its high crime rate and drug trafficking so it was not the place where a little blond, blue-eyed gringuita would go.

The first Mall I actually went to was Plaza Satélite built in the municipality of Naucalpan de Juárez, north of Mexico City which was inaugurated exactly on my daughter’s fourth birthday according to Wikipedia. That was on the 13^th of October, 1971 (the black and white picture to the right was taken one week after the inauguration). I don’t clearly remember my visits to the Mall; I am not a shopper much to my daughter’s dismay and therefore I always used to avoid large supermarkets and malls as much as possible. Restaurants, movies and Xmas shopping, however, would have taken me there and I do remember several outings on Sundays to do the Mall and then eat and take in a movie. Doing the Mall entailed walking, window-shopping and usually munching or slurping something and I remember thinking to myself, while I observed the passers-by, that this was the new gathering place for families on weekends. Malls had substituted parks. Families, composed of two or sometimes three generations, strolled down the long passageways in front of the lit and decorated store windows; grandmothers rested on the benches provided for grandmothers to rest on; children ran from one store window to the next hoping to eventually break down their parent’s resistance. Restaurants and cafés were filled to the hilt and in the afternoon the lines for buying movie tickets would have reached around the block if they had been on the street.

I remember shaking my head and feeling quite judgmental about the new Sunday entertainment, but I don’t remember ever going again to a park. Of course, by that time we had a house with a large garden and lived in a neighborhood where it was safe for the children to play kick-the-can on the street, so we didn’t need to go to a park to get away from the concrete of the city.

If my memory serves me, the kids loved going to the mall as did both my husbands who were shoppers, and I was grateful to be freed from Sunday lunch when the maids had the day off so I have seen the inside of more than one Mall in my lifetime. Today, when I go to my daughter’s house in Mexico I often visit the Mall up on the hill called “The Cusp” or “La Cúspide” either for a meal or to pick up some item in one of the humongous super markets available there. It is more open-air giving the impression of a small city with streets and even includes a miniature golf course, and one has the feeling that they wanted to capture some of the charm of the parks they have substituted. I now find it convenient to be able to buy anything I need from light bulbs to a manicure to a meal and a movie, from toys to toe-nail clippers, or some pork chops for dinner, or an outfit for a wedding, cash from the bank, a computer, a pet, an umbrella or suntan lotion; to fix my portable phone, buy or rent a van, acquire or sell a house, choose a bed or just a nail file, all in one place without moving my car. It’s good exercise too and opens from 9a.m. till midnight. If we are to judge by the zillions of comments and who makes them, youth flocks there and completely enjoys it. So, though it might be true that Malls in the U.S.A. are dying, from what I can see they are still thriving in Mexico since that time long ago when they displaced the parks as a center for family entertainment.

So, what about malls in Europe or, to be more precise, in my little French town of Salies? Well, we have our Thursday markets where almost everything can be bought. The Thursday market has the advantage that it is ephimeral and disappears completely by 1pm leaving the town unscathed except for a few remains which the cleaning truck promptly sweeps up. And, if I ever get nostalgic for a mall, I just hop in my car and drive to San Sebastián across the now non-existent border, to Garbera: a US style mall with most anything one’s heart could desire. It doesn’t seem to be dying either. I do notice, however, how much more I am buying over internet… so, perhaps the eventual demise of malls is more than just an American phenomenon. We will see.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE OLD?

July 22, 2017July 22, 2017 / Brianda Domecq / 4 Comments

WIN_20170722_130919 (2) I slept and dreamt that Life was happiness; I awoke and learned that Life was service; I served and discovered that service to Life was happiness.

(I have no idea who said this or even if this is the exact way it was said, but it is the expression of what I know to be true for me today.)

This year I am turning 75. Sometimes I find it hard to believe and others it is just a number with no meaning whatsoever. When my grandmother turned 75 and I went to wish her a happy birthday, she said: “I’m 75 years old and I don’t know what I have done with my life!” I have commented on this before but want to once again thank my grandmother for this warning. I know now mine has been a life consciously lived –although not always consciously liked- and will continue to be so as long as consciousness remains.

Recently, a dear and ‘old’ (both in duration of friendship and personal age) friend sent me a brief text (anonymous) with the title “What’s it like to be old?” Everything contained in it was absolutely true for me, even though some of the examples did not pertain to my experience. I decided to plagiarize the writing and turn it into my own. So I began and found the following outpouring of my heart blending with the outpouring of that unknown heart to whom I am deeply grateful for the gift of words (theirs and mine). 20131116_105036

So, what is it like to be old? The text in front of me posed the question, and I was forced to answer much like the original author. I don’t think of myself as old, there is in me a something that doesn’t age, a something or a place that is as curious, as open and as excited about life now as when I was three years old and just beginning to become conscious. However, as I contemplated the question, I felt grateful and excited about being able to answer it along with my unknown collaborator.

Old age, we decided, is a gift.

I could joyfully say –along with the text on my computer screen- that I was, perhaps for the first time in my life, the person I had always wanted to be. For once (say I) I live the daily miracle of waking up with myself, delighted to meet me once more and curious about the day that lays ahead. Of course, I don’t bound out of bed and race towards the day as I once used to, but rather close my eyes around the 10 or 20 extra minutes I allow myself under the blankets, savoring each second of added warmth and relaxation.

Yes, old age is a gift. Oh, not precisely my body (I cry out in unison with the invisible author, my new friend)! Agreed! Not the wrinkles (and Life is so kind to take away the sharpness my eyesight as it increases the wrinkles), the fat around my middle, the bags AUTUMN 002 under my eyes, the pains in the joints that come and, sometimes, go. Often I feel the shock of seeing that stranger in the mirror that looks so much like… my grandmother! Then I smile, a secret smile, and feel gratitude for a long life lived a duo.

I would never trade in my wonderful life, the profound love for my family, the marvelous friends, all the new adventures and the deep satisfaction of my actual work, for less wrinkles or a more sculpted figure. As I have aged, I’ve become so much kinder to myself, so much less critical. I’ve turned into my best friend, a wonderful companion.

I no longer scold myself for eating my big plate of Häggen Das occasionally, or the third cookie I slyly snap up on the way through the kitchen. I have no problem spending the extra money that comfort sometimes requires; I deserve that consideration, that simple joy. I can splurge on myself and not worry or splurge on my loved ones (which is the same as splurging on myself) with abandon. 20160520_143050

In my life, I have seen too many people arrive at the birthdays I have now celebrated, complaining endlessly about their old age, angrily wanting back the youth they no longer have to do the things they hadn’t thought of until too late, and completely oblivious to the gift of freedom that comes with the years.

After all, who cares if I decide to spend a Sunday afternoon playing computer games, or if I go to the movies more to eat popcorn than to watch the film, or if I take a cozy nap curled up on the sofa under a warm, woolen blanket? And whose business is it if I find myself dancing wildly to a hit song from the 50’s or 60’s, or collapsing into a loving heap of nostalgic tears over a remembered boyfriend or lover? I no longer fear taking all the courses I want even though the youths that fill the classroom might ask what good it will do someone my age; they too will become old someday.

“Yes” (I whisper to my anonymous author) sometimes I forget things, but then some things are better forgotten. Over the years I have found that the tragic stories about my childhood and youth are no more than that: stories. And, in the long run, I remember that which is important to me today. I find my mind much more flexible than before, willing to let go of useless beliefs, willing to not be right, anxious even to step out of the role of the-mind-that-knows. My mind today seems perfectly happy to live with me in the present, to be clear about the options that open up before us and to direct me wisely and kindly towards the best path. Today, this mind that once was a torture chamber of mistaken beliefs, is a faithful friend, my favorite toy and beloved instrument, my constant and loving companion. It takes me where I want to go without my ever leaving the chair where I sit.

I’ll agree –if you insist- that life has sometimes seemed hard, that there have been unwanted frustrations, the loss of loved ones, painful separations, trials and tribulations that at moments seemed insurmountable. But the trials and the frustrations are what have provided strength, understanding and compassion. A life without trials is sterile and empty and will never experience the deep joy that the miracle of living bestows on us.

From the deepest corner of my soul, I am grateful for having lived enough years to begin to see the laughter and tears of youth etched into the expanding grooves on my face. Time, far from taking away, has rather given me the opportunity to live many lives in one, to experience the true abundance of each day (not the abundance of “stuff”), to reach the precise place inside myself where unlimited and unconditional love is born. Today I understand that what others think of me is beside the point; I have earned the right to be wrong, to make mistakes or look absurd in the eyes of others without punishing myself, for I have arrived at the knowledge that nothing is ever a mistake… not ever.

20130622_225437 So the next time someone asks me (or I run across the question) what it feels like to be old, I’ll be able to honestly say: I love it. Age has freed me. I love the person I have become, the one that was born of me thanks to the years that life has provided. I know I won’t live forever (heaven forbid!), but as long as I am here I am not going to waste a minute complaining about things I have not had, moments I have not lived, persons I have not been, goals I have not achieved; neither will I spend and instant worrying about what awaits me in the future. I will live in the fullness of the unwavering present, seeing how I might best serve this life, this person, this instance in front of me, for serving today gives me the extreme joy I once searched for in others, in things, in sex. I’ll eat popcorn and ice cream, I’ll sleep that extra hour in the morning with the furry warmth of my little schnauzer clinging to my back, I’ll take the longed for journey as it occurs to me, and every morning I’ll contemplate the day ahead through the eyes of innocence that life has returned to me. Above all, I will love with all my heart until this heart stops beating. I know now, this is what I am here for, and my heart fills with gratitude.

When someone near me exclaims: “Oh God! I am about to turn 30 or 40 or 50 or 60!” I will be able to tell them honestly that it only gets better, that each decade surpasses the previous one in ways unsuspected. I know this. I’ve been there, at 30, 40, 50 and 60 believing that it couldn’t get better. And it has! Life has proved me wrong each time around. It not only could get better, it did!

I THINK I MISSED MY CALLING

March 11, 2017March 12, 2017 / Brianda Domecq / 4 Comments

Restos_du_coeur_Logo_svg Today I did 3 hours of volunteering for the French Association called “Les Restaurants du Coeur” or the Restaurants of the Heart. It was the local collect in the supermarket and my neighbour and I were on duty from 4 to 7. I have never enjoyed anything so much! I really thought I would hate having to ask people to give something… and in French! I believed I would be embarrassed and feel badly when they said “no”. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

From the very start I found myself speaking from my heart, approaching each shopper as he or she entered and smiling because I really felt happy; there was nothing fictitious about what I was doing. I seemed to find the words; most people stopped and listened, took the suggested donation list that I offered and smiled back saying they would cooperate. When someone waved me away saying they had already given, I spontaneously thanked them from my heart for their donation which I had no proof of, but why would I have doubted such beautiful people. For suddenly everyone who entered had become beautiful and gracious. I don’t where the magic came from; I felt as if I had just fallen in love and nothing, absolutely nothing could go wrong even if they spat in my face. When they said “no” and refused to take my little sheet of paper, I said “thank you for your honesty” and sincerely felt it; strangely, I did not feel bad for myself, but rather for them not having the pleasure of giving, for I began to notice that all the people who came out with a donation, no matter how small, looked different, were happy, were glad they had given, felt generous, perhaps even a bit proud of themselves. I really wished that for everyone, not that they should give to the “Restos”, but that they should give that to themselves. I loved everyone! And then… the people I met!!!

Friends came and I realized how many people I knew and how many knew me and were happy to see me. Some asked about Salomé, others stopped to talk and bring me up to date on their lives while I continued giving out flyers and inviting people to participate. My friends didn’t seem to mind that I interrupted them off and on; they would just pick up their conversation where they had left off when I broke away. collecte

There was my old French teacher, Annie, who I was delighted to see. She did not look well so I gave her an especially tight hug and asked about her new apartment; she said it was too small for two people to each have her or his own space. Then there was Maité one half of the first lesbian couple I met upon arriving here (I had never met a lesbian couple before, so it was a first for me); she is fond of me, I can tell by the way she always hugs me a bit too tightly and a bit too long for just a normal salutation. She talked for almost 15 minutes telling me the latest about the problems they have had with their builder whom they are suing.

Then there was a lady who goes to the same café I do in the morning and –although we do not even know each other’s names- she asked about Salomé who everyone knows. And a gentleman who I know from just passing him in town frequently and always saying hello, and the lady that used to own one of the restaurants I go to sometimes, and my hairdresser…

But, more than the people I knew, it was the people I didn’t know that gave me the most. A man came over from the checkout counter and asked to borrow one of the large cartons we were filling with produce. Then he returned with the box completely filled to the top with canned goods. A darling little man was about to walk by and leave the store when he saw me, covered his mouth and muttered: “I forgot”. Then, instead of leaving the store, he handed me his goods to watch, re-entered, went through all the trouble of standing in line again at the checkout and brought me a bag of noodles. I couldn’t believe it. I told him he was ‘adorable’ and he seemed to like that. We were just two people completely in love.

A rather scruffy looking tall man sidled over. He didn’t look as if he could buy anything for himself, much less for us, but I invited him to anyway. He said no, he was a store thief and had come to steal some food. I asked why he didn’t register for the Restos de Coeur for food and he got angry, saying that he had tried but they had demanded certain legal papers that he didn’t have and he had decided they were no good (or something like that). He talked on a bit, but as I was busy inviting other people I couldn’t pay much attention to him. I know that the Association is strict and people must have their papers in order for them to receive aid. A while later, the ‘thief’ came back; he seemed in a better mood.

“Are you giving away any of that stuff today?” he asked. I said “no”, we were collecting and did not have permission to share any. I asked him how his ‘thievery’ had gone. He shrugged and with a sly smile, said that it hadn’t gone at all well. “There were people watching; I couldn’t take anything. I’ll have to give it another try.”

“Better luck next time” I said and I really meant it. He stuck around for a while; he seemed pleased that someone had taken his ‘occupation’ seriously. He explained how he hid things in his clothes, or ate them in the store. As a justification for his trade, he explained how the managers and owners of big businesses were stealing left and right and people like him were arrested for lifting a loaf of bread. “And don’t forget the politicians,” I added. That seemed to encourage him and he went back in. I didn’t see him again so I have no idea if he got to eat his meal or take home a few bars of chocolate for dessert.

People kept coming with stuff, filling up all the boxes I had. They seemed so happy and it pleased me tremendously to have given them the chance to feel so good with themselves.

A sort of dark-skinned good-looking young man came in and I presented my spiel. He shook his head and in broken English said he did not speak French. “What do you speak” I asked in English. “English and Spanish” he said, immediately clueing me in with his accent to the fact that Spanish must be his first language. What a relief! I immediately broke into Spanish asking him where he was from. It turned out he was Peruvian and he had come to give a conference for some business (I didn’t really catch the name) in town and he urgently needed a current adapter for his computer or he wouldn’t be able to give his course tomorrow. I was not sure he could find one in the store so I told him that if he didn’t, I had plenty at home and if he waited or returned at 7pm I would take him home and loan him one. He returned a few minutes later with an adapter in his hand: problem solved. I asked him if he would kindly help me take the full box of cans and goods off the top of the empty boxes so that I could get one out and he did. He was a lovely young man and I was so glad to speak in Spanish for a few minutes. We thanked each other and he parted.

A couple of tall, lanky teenagers strode into the store and –in spite the fact that someone had mentioned that youth seldom gave- I stopped them and offered the list, saying that any small thing would do. About twenty minutes later they came out and approached, handing me two small boxes of cookies: “It was all we could afford” they said, looking slightly embarrassed. “Oh no!” I cooed, “It is wonderful, just perfect. We are so grateful and the kids at the Restos des Coeur will love them.” If I hadn’t been so sure that they would feel very uncomfortable, I would have hugged them on the spot!

One lady, when I tried to explain about the Restos, stopped me. “I know” she said, “they helped me out for a while there when I was in trouble.”

“Are things better for you, now?” I queried.

“Fortunately, yes” she said; “What is it you most need and I’ll get some.” I told her some cooking oil would be good and she came back shortly later with three bottles. Another lady stopped and told me she had heard the advertisements about the collect on television and that she did not agree to giving the recipients cans of cooked food. “They don’t learn how to cook their own food that way; it is not right; I don’t agree with that.” I nodded my head and said I found her opinion interesting and that she just might be right about it. Then I suggested that she could always give a bag of lentils or rice and she smiled, and nodded. A while later she returned with two cans of cooked vegetables, so I guess her opinion wasn’t so solid after all.

Exper don iences of extreme generosity, of efforts made in spite of not having much for one’s self, of the painful way people hid their faces when they didn’t want to give or even take the paper, and so much love that my heart was overflowing. As I left, mentally kneeling down with gratitude, I wondered if somewhere along the line I had missed my calling. It has been a long time since I have felt so much love in my heart. How to say ‘Thank you,’ except…. Thank you.

BIG BROTHER

March 8, 2017 / Brianda Domecq / 5 Comments

Now that Wikileaks has published all those documents proving that Big Brother is none other than the CIA or the NSA or whatever department is in charge of HOMELAND security at the moment, I see no harm in sharing my own experience. About 2-3 weeks ago, I requested my ESTA document which is the form one has to fill out for entrance into the USA from Countries with a Visa Waiver Status. Although the format has changed and a thousand new questions are being asked (about other passports, other citizenships and your intentions to commit a terrorist crime while in the USA), I had no trouble filling it in. About three hours later, I checked and my ESTA had been approved. No problem.

The following day, however, I received a notice from Microsoft that someone from somewhere in the USA had entered into my computer. They asked if that someone was me. It was not; I am in France at the moment. So, curious, I clicked on the link that said something like “See from where your computer was entered” and … I´ll give you 3 guesses and the first two don’t count: Yup! Washington. Was it a coincidence? I don’t actually think so. So Washington tapped into my computer. Fortunately, I have nothing to hide and my life hangs out there on my blog for all to see, so it doesn’t frighten me, but it is NOT legal. And it is not pretty.

I used to feel proud to be an American. When I was little and living in Mexico, I remember how I would stand at attention and salute if the American flag or the National Anthem came over the radio or the televisión. If anyone asked me where I came from, I would puff up when I said the United States. It was my country, even though I had lived in Mexico since the age of 9. I went to boarding school at Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts and once there, I felt as American as the next person even though my vacations were spent in Mexico City. Even when, later on, I married a Mexican doctor, I still felt American and used my American Passport when I travelled.

It wasn’t until the Vietnam War that something changed. I don’t think anyone felt proud of that war or actually believed that it was carried out for a ‘higher purpose’. I remember writing a long, and very bad, poem about my profound disappointment in what my country had done, and I began to feel embarrassed about being an American.

I was already in my 30’s and had two children when I went to the National University of Mexico to study Hispanic Language and Literatures. It was there that I realized that I had stopped feeling American, that I was actually more identified with Mexico and that Spanish had become my principal language and English was secondary. I started to write in Spanish and publish in Mexico; my name appeared in the Diccionario de Escritores Mexicanos (the Dictionary of Mexico Writers). I was Mexican in everything but my Passport.

After my divorce, I decided to legalize my adopted country as my own and I became Mexican, renouncing my American Citizenship. Little did I suspect that only three years later I would move to Spain and claim my father’s nationality. At that time, the European Unión was a dream coming true and I definitely wanted to be part of it. My Spanish Passport gave me that possibility. Now it is the only one I use. Today, as I watch my country of origin turned into a global laughing stock, I feel sad. I remember how proud my father was when he got his US citizenship and how he defended the United States against any criticism; I think of my son who is grateful to the US for the opportunities this country has given him to grow in his selected line of work; I look at my own heritage and there is no way I am not as American as the day I was born, but when Microsoft advises me that someone from Washington has gone into my computer the day after I requested entry into the USA, I feel like publically saying to someone: “You should be ashamed of yourselves!”

So there it is, said and done.

IS THE WORLD ENDING?

January 26, 2017January 26, 2017 / Brianda Domecq / Leave a comment

inside-job Or is it just the beginning of The War of Tweets? This morning, on the news, first the Donald (I loved what Obama called him) announced he would begin the Wall between Mexico and the USA in a few weeks and that the Mexican President –who had announced a state visit in a few days- would agree to pay for it. Then, as I turned to French news, one of the candidates for President from the left was being interviewed and the interviewer was asking if he, as President, would use a nuclear weapon against another country as a deterrent, in other words, without being attacked first. I was horrified to hear the possible candidate wiggle and waggle and worm his way around the question without ever answering it. In Spanish we say “El que calla, otorga” which means “He who remains silent, gives permission or agrees”, so I took the wiggle-waggling as a “yes”.

Without actually formulating a fear, I spent the rest of the day feeling slightly depressed: a wall against Mexico and Nuclear war all in one day. It was just too much. Then the Tweets started. The Donald threatened (if you’re not going to pay for the wall, there is no use in your coming), and –fortunately- Peña Nieto answered. untitled He tweeted his cancellation of the trip. There will be repercussions, of course, and Mexico will probably suffer economically for a while, but for Mexico to retain its trade agreements Peña Nieto would have had to accept paying for the wall and the Mexican people would never have forgiven him. You can’t eat pride, but it sure makes hunger feel a lot less hurtful. I actually checked into my Twitter account for the first time in about 10 years and tweeted the President of Mexico my heartfelt gratitude.

So… We may not have nuclear war yet, but we do have the War of Tweets. If I were really brave, I would tweet the Donald saying “Shame on you for trying to bully Mexico into submission!”, but the truth is I still have to go to the US in April in order to see my son and take a trip with my daughter and I don’t want to be stopped in immigration and not allowed entry. See how scary this is?

The interesting thing was that the moment I made my small contribution (a tweet) I felt better, I actually felt I had done something; I had become a soldier in the Tweet War. But, does a Tweet matter? Apparently to the Donald it does! He counts noses (at his inauguration) and I am sure he counts tweets, at least the positive ones! img-20150721-wa0000-2

Today my son said on our family’s WhatsApp: “Problems are opportunities; how we take advantage of them defines who we are.” I so appreciate his wisdom; somehow it makes me feel safe and hopeful in face of the changes going on in the world. Whatever comes is a creative challenge and with internet there no longer has to be anything called “the silent majority”. And my daughter, well she is making a marvellous video to promote a film her brother is distributing in Latin America. So my family is alive and wonderfully well, living on either side of the future wall!!! And me on the other side of the Ocean. What a world!

THE BROKEN THINGS

November 21, 2016November 21, 2016 / Brianda Domecq / 5 Comments

A willingness to sanctify the broken things. Jeff Foster

Recently Jeff Foster wrote that it is necessary to have “a deep reverence for endings. A willingness to sanctify the broken things”, and something deep inside me resonated with his words. I am not sure what: there was a strange vibration, tears rose to my eyes and trickled slowly down my cheeks. We are all broken in some way or another, some of us in many ways. I hear Leonard Cohen singing “the cracks are how the light gets in” and I begin to understand or at least to be able to revere. The radiator to my left has a leak and every once in a while a drop falls into the dish I have placed to catch it. Its sound reaches my ear as I write this. The radiator is my mate in broken things.

The sound of water reminds me that my brother is going to sail across the Atlantic Ocean, from the Canary island of Lanzarote to the Caribbean with his two unexperienced sons as crew. I know he has been broken somewhere deep inside and is somehow looking for home. I hope his journey is a safe one.

I watch as the world changes: my general doctor as of 16 years dies; the sun gives way to rain and wind; Trump is elected; my daughter loses the battle she has been fighting; a friend dies suddenly, unexpectedly; I buy some new dishes (black) and decide to throw away all the old ones; outside my window the waning moon rises still in the memory of its SuperMoon but 48 hours ago. Nothing is ever the same and yet it would seem so. The clutter of notebooks and papers on my desk, the glass full of pens; the rumpled sheets because I am lazy and don’t make my bed; the closet that needs arranging. Downstairs, the azaleas I bought last year to decorate the entrance have developed a fungus. I have carefully washed them with detergent twice, but the brown grime on the underside of the leaves returns and the leaves fall off. They will die eventually: broken things, and I will tear them out by the roots and replace them with new, fresh, flowering azaleas. Will I remember to sanctify them in their brokenness?

Yesterday a friend called; her latest ‘relationship’ had just ended and she has had and lost so many I don’t even know if to call it that. I can’t tell her to sanctify her broken things, not now. She wants to visit, “I need to be with someone serene”, she says over the phone. I agree. Today she calls: she is sick and can’t come. I agree. Broken…

This morning another friend called: “I am terrified,” she said, “I am terrified that I will not be up to the job”; her voice was filled with anguish. Sanctify the broken things. We talked; I listened to her fears, her anguish, her envies. I offered what I had; she took it and said she felt better. Sometimes the cracks are for things to come out and spill over onto others. Sometimes they are to let things in…

My mind often turns to the immigrants (broken things) and my heart goes out to those thousands of unknown faces. If there is something I can do… In the market, this morning, a lady hands me a piece of paper: it is an invitation to volunteer at the food kitchen arranging or serving the food. Ask and you will receive. I will call tomorrow and begin to volunteer. Broken things need to help other broken things to mend, or to help let the light in…

I am crying again; there is a softness in thinking about the cracks that fills my heart with love and longing. Recently my brother came to visit; it was a surprise, a delightful one. We spent a day walking around town and talking. We spoke deeply of our father and of all that he gave up. My father was one of the broken ones, and there was a lot of light inside. When he was 38 he gave up his family, his first wife, his four children, his country, his language, his culture, his history, his friends, his place in society… everything, and went to America. We realized, my brother and I, that we can’t even begin to imagine what that was for him or how he lived with all the cracks.

It is night time now and I must take Salomé, my little dog, out. I wonder if she has cracks too. Is she broken because we, humans, have forced her to live a dependent life, always waiting for her needs to be met, never free to fulfil them herself? There is a gentle sadness in me this evening, it is not unpleasant; rather it is soft, like a warm feather pillow against my chest.

TRUST

October 31, 2016 / Brianda Domecq / 1 Comment

“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” Albert Einstein

For some time now I have truly believed that the most important thing Life had given me was Freedom. But recently I realized that this was not true: Life did not give me Freedom. The most important thing that life gave me instead was TRUST and when I finally trusted, I found true freedom.

In the beginning there was no trust, there was only fear. Hunger pangs caused a fit of screaming because there was no way I knew to trust my mother to feed me on time. Cold, wet diapers, an earache, a sore throat… everything exacted the same response to make sure the Universe knew I needed something and got it to me as quickly as possible if only to shut me up. Screaming did it until around the age of 5; after that it was being good, studying, not bothering and brushing my teeth even though the sound gave me goose bumps.

By the time I reached my teens, there was no doubt in my mind that this was a Do-It-Yourself Universe and that you only got what you screamed, kicked, worked, pleaded and fought for, and even then, there was no guarantee.

My grandmother, bless her, quickly confirmed this when she repeatedly told me that we lived in a dog-eat-dog world, and that bringing children into it was an act of extreme selfishness. Her remedy would have been –if she had had anything to say about the matter- to put a sterilizing machine on every street corner and ¡zap! every man that went by. My grandmother was a woman with very definite beliefs about what was and what wasn’t and she expressed them at the slightest excuse or without one.

My mother was not given to philosophical considerations like my grandmother, so I have no idea what she thought of the Universe and its workings, and my father several times said that he would rather be cheated and lose than to go through life untrusting. I particularly remember him saying this after being swindled in a business deal where he lost a lot of money.

My father however was not talking about the Universe; he was referring to other people. I really don’t remember him going into philosophical considerations about the cosmos except to say that he was an agnostic, having lost his faith (the Catholic one) early on when God failed to strike him down for all the terrible things he did. My mother seconded his agnosticism without justifying it, and my grandmother –whom I mentioned earlier- was a devout atheist who spoke of God almost every day of her life to declare His nonexistence. My grandfather was more dedicated to drinking, gambling and philandering than to discussing the conditions of the Cosmos.

Therefore I was left to figure out the walks and wanderings of Life on my own and I quickly came to the conclusion that it was heaped with disappointments, frustrations and disillusionments and had little to offer in the way of gratification unless you grabbed whatever chanced to come your way before anyone else spotted it. I remember my father repeating a Spanish proverb that says “Opportunity is bald and you have to grab it by the hair”.

So my upbringing was pretty straight forward: there was no God (no friendly Universe either) showering down blessings; no free rides. Whatever I wanted or needed I would have to work, grovel or cheat to get and, even then, nothing was guaranteed. This is the way I went about life for all of 49 years, and then Life itself stopped me in my tracks.

I’ll never forget the day I interned myself in a clinic for addictions. I truly believed my life was over and I had been a rotund failure throughout. But from the very beginning, the very first day, something strange happened. From out of the blue, a phrase popped into my mind that later would turn out to be one of the pet phrases of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Let go, let God”. I didn’t believe in God; even much later, I crossed out the word “God” in all the AA literature and put HP instead, which stood for “Higher Power”. To this day, I have no idea where or when I had heard the words, but Let go, let God was a catch phrase that helped me surmount my overpowering fear and stay in the clinic for the time necessary to clean my system of alcohol and learn the basic ropes of staying sober.

Repeating that phrase, however, by no means meant that I believed in God or in the Universe or in anything other than my AA group and my companions at the time. I counted myself as lucky to have landed in a “therapeutically inclined” AA group rather than in one of the “spiritual” ones. And the truth was that I trusted no one but my therapist.

Nevertheless, there was no way I could deny that there were strange things happening. For instance: the very first day I didn’t drink I went to bed thinking I would have trouble sleeping. Not only did I fall asleep immediately, but at 3a.m. –the hour when I was usually awakened by terrible nightmares- I awoke with the strangest feeling coursing through my body. It came –I realized- from the enormous smile spread across my face which was electrifying me in the most pleasant way. Immediately I understood: my decision to stop drinking and get help was the way to go. I fell asleep again filled with happiness. Where did that smile come from? At that time I decided that it had surfaced from the unconscious mind to tell me I was doing the right thing, but the marvelment of that small happening has lasted to this day. And then again, where exactly is the unconscious mind?

If I look back, I can notice now how everything fell into place so that I would follow the path I did: the friend I called (a psychoanalyst) had two alcoholic brothers and knew the name of a doctor specialized in addictions; the doctor immediately put me in touch with a marvellous clinic and they had space for me; once out of the clinic I was directed to an AA group that is –to this day- the best group I have ever participated in for its level of recovery (people shared how they were recovering, not how they had been drinking). When I divorced 18 months later, I got to keep the spacious house we had lived in and immediately was able to rent it to an American executive for an exorbitant price that gave me a decent income; the first day I went to look for a place for myself, I remember turning into a street in the section of the city where I wanted to live and seeing a brick wall at the end of the block. Immediately I knew that that was where I was going to live, before I even saw that the house was for rent.

It was in that house that I received the first gift from life: the gift of Gratitude (read “Life Doesn’t Owe You Anything”) and was invited to let new love into my heart. It was then that the idea of trust began to slowly seep in. Gratitude made me realize the abundance in my life and the fact that I had not done anything to deserve it or to achieve it. As a matter of fact, I had not even noticed it until that strange voice in my head brought it to my attention. It was gratitude that actually made me see that I was not going anywhere I was being led. For the first time since sobering up, I felt the deep meaning of the catch phrase that had accompanied me in the Clinic: “Let go, let God”. For the first time in my life I really experienced from deep inside that a Power Greater than myself (as they say in the groups) was doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself. Consciously I began practicing letting go; I stopped grasping, clinging to or longing for things and sort of settled back (nervously at first) to see what would happen.

For once, I really began to notice that everything I needed came to me exactly when I needed it. If there was something I thought I needed and didn’t get it, shortly afterwards I would discover why this had been for the best, or instead I would get something even better than that which I had wanted. And then the clincher came.

Once I felt sure enough that the sober life was the one for me and that I wasn’t going to slip easily back into my old habits, I made a wish. I wanted to fall in love, really fall in love, like an adolescent. I actually told the Universe about this wish, and then tried to take things into my own hands checking out every possible candidate. I even propositioned a couple of them and was turned down. After a while, I got tired of hoping and trying so hard and I gave up, throwing myself into other things. I founded a women’s group for co-dependency; I translated Melody Beattie’s 12 Steps for Codependents into Spanish and got it published, I made friends with other single women and started making a life for myself. Of course (I can say that now), when I stopped obsessing about it, it happened.

I was sitting in front of the room facing towards the door; I had just finished coordinating the meeting, when the door opened and he walked in. The moment I saw him I knew. Without a thought, I stood up, crossed the room and held out my hand:

“Hi, I’m Brianda.”

His name was Fernando, like my ex-husband; he was recently divorced and had been sober for 13 years. He was tall, slender, well-dressed and 4 years younger than me (which turned out not to be a problem). Less than a week later we were going together and I was madly in love, so much so that I thought I was going to die. Be careful what you wish for!

By the time we had been dating some 6 months and I knew that I wanted to live with Fernando, but I had been to his house and seen that moving in would probably be a fast-track to the end of the relationship. And then, one day, I had a dream… no, not an asleep dream, a waking dream: a day-dream. I was walking down the street thinking of my love when a vision appeared in my mind’s eye. It was like a movie: I saw myself knocking down a wall between Fernando’s house and the house next door. The vision was so real and I got so excited that the minute I arrived home I called him.

“You won’t believe this, but I just had this waking dream,” and I told him about the vision. “I don’t know how you feel but I want to live with you and I don’t fit into your house. So, if you agree, I need to buy the house next door,” I blurted out, suddenly realizing that I was proposing to the guy.

“It isn’t for sale,” he answered, “and I don’t think they will consider selling it as the woman who owns it rents it out and lives from that income.”

I wasn’t worried about details for some strange reason; what I wanted to know was if he felt the same, so I asked him straight out. He said that he did, that he too wanted to live with me. That clinched it.

As the house next door was not for sale, I went around to the neighbour that owned a large stretch of property directly behind Fernando’s house and asked if she would sell me a piece of her enormous garden. She said no. I insisted; she got nasty. That was the end of that. For a few days, I went over and over the possibilities without finding a solution and then, one day, I threw my hands up in exasperation:

“I give up”-I was addressing the Universe or whatever- “If you want me to have this relationship, if it is the best thing for me, then you make it happen.”

And I actually let go. I carried on with my life and forgot about our living or not together completely. Then, about ten days later, I came home from whatever I was doing one afternoon and the cleaning girl told me Fernando had called 3 times; this was not usual as he very seldom called before night and never more than once. I phoned him back.

“They just put the house next door up for sale. Do you want to buy it?”

Ten days! This was the house he had been sure wouldn’t be sold so we hadn’t even asked. Ten days, for god’s sake! How was it possible? Coincidence? Chance? Call it what you will, there was something at work here that had nothing whatsoever to do with human endeavour.

To make a long story short, I bought the house and we knocked out the wall between Fernando’s bedroom and a room in my new house just as I had seen it in my daydream, and made a master bedroom connecting both houses so that each morning we would get up and he would go into his house and I would go into mine. The vision that had come to me completely out of the blue had become reality through no effort of mine, but simply by letting go.

It was then and there that the element of Trust was born in me. I realized that there had never been very much that I could do, that there were really no decisions that could be taken intelligently as we could never know the outcomes, that my life had been led down paths I could never have suspected and that I might as well trust what was “doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself”, because to date it certainly had seemed to want what was best for me.

Since then I have basically trusted, letting what I call The Universe, do its job with the least possible interference from me. Today, I look at how things have unfolded without much input from me and I find it hard to believe. Many of the things I thought I would never experience in this lifetime (living in Madrid, visiting Machu Picchu, moving to a small town in France, spending three years on a fascinating new project that got me up every morning at 6 a.m., etc) have come to pass, and every day I wake up wondering what adventure is next.

Since then I have but one prayer (if it can be called that) and that is “I’m willing…” I live with faith and trust in the Universe knowing absolutely that it is friendly and will bring nothing but the best for me. And as I said at the beginning, this Trust has given me the greatest gift of all: Freedom.

And if all the previous proof wasn’t enough to believe in the intervention of the Universe, while I was writing this piece I happened to look over some other posts I have on my blog spot and thought to myself that I really would like to make a book out of some of them. Then tonight before turning in, I took one last look at my mail. I always check the Spam before erasing it and there was omeone who subscribed to my blog. I opened his page out of interest and it was publicity inviting me to make a book out of my blog posts, yes… exactly… I thought the same.

THE SELF…

August 21, 2016August 21, 2016 / Brianda Domecq / 2 Comments

THE SELF

Jose Ignacio Domecq After my divorce late in 1992, one of the first things I did was to take a trip to Spain to attend my favorite uncle’s 80^th birthday celebration. Other than flights back and forth to boarding school where I was seen off by my parents and met by my maternal grandmother, I had never before travelled alone, so it was quite an adventure.

In Madrid, before I drove to Jerez for the party, I met my cousin, Marina, with whom I had kept up a lively correspondence over the years since the time she had lived briefly in Mexico and we had become friends. Marina invited me to go see an Argentinian woman who read the tarot cards. I didn’t really believe in those things, but it sounded like fun and as I was starting out on a whole new life, I was interested to see what she would say.

images9KRW67GH I went in first and sat in front of a woman in her thirties who held a deck of cards in her hand. As I watched she turned up a row of cards one by one. I don’t remember the faces on them. Then she raised her eyes and looked at me.

“What are you so afraid of?” she asked in Spanish with an Argentinian accent.

Considering I was not conscious of being frightened, I had no answer. Yes, I had been afraid before leaving Mexico. When my uncle wrote and invited me to his birthday party, I mentioned to a friend how sorry I was not to be able to go.

“Why not?” she said, “You’re free; nothing to stop you. Go!” It took me all of five minutes to realize she was right so I got my plane ticket, reserved my hotel and flew to Madrid all alone. I was so nervous and excited that I couldn’t sleep on the plane; I watched three movies. When I arrived at my hotel at around 9a.m. I was exhausted and miserable. Before falling asleep, I decided I would catch the next plane back.

Nevertheless, when I awoke at 1 p.m. with the sunlight streaming in my window and a light breeze blowing across my face, instead of fear, I felt exhilarated. That had been several days before my meeting with the foreseer and I hadn’t felt a bit of fear since. Yet the Argentinian woman insisted that I should look into the matter as soon as possible.

lg_2014%20Citroen%20C1%20Hatch%202 With her admonition in mind, I decided to be daring and rented a car for driving alone to Salamanca. After a night in the Medieval University city, I was about to return to Madrid but, when I reached the highway there was a sign pointing in the opposite direction, reading Zamora. During my studies of Spanish literature I had discovered the fascinating character of Doña Urraca who came from Zamora so, instead of heading for the Capital City. I turned right and took off on my first adventure.

ciudad-de-zamora Zamora was not a disappointment. I stayed there overnight in a roadside hotel and left the following day for Madrid. However, still thinking of my card reader’s advice, I did not take the Freeway back, but rather decided to travel secondary highways which took me along the border with Portugal. My chosen route took me through a beautiful mountainous country which was a nature reserve. After a while, I noticed there were no other cars on the road, neither coming nor going and my immediate thought was, “what if I have a flat tire?” Needless to say, I began feeling a bit nervous, but the crevices and peaks were so breathtaking I soon forgot my worries and enjoyed the scenery. It was over two hours before I reached anything that looked like civilization.

I spent the rest of the trip driving all over Spain without a quiver in my heart, and I hoped that would do it as far as fear was concerned. I returned to Mexico over three weeks later without a mishap and feeling like a seasoned traveler with the world just waiting for me.

About ten days later, a friend called and said she was going to run the rapids in the state of Veracruz and would I like to come. The rapids sounded like something that would really frighten me, so I accepted and a week later I found myself on the bank of the Fish River (Río Pescados), donning a helmet and a life jacket, grasping an oar and climbing into a imagesHPPW3T2T Zodiac with 9 other daring people.

We had been carefully instructed how and when to paddle forward or backwards, what to do in case the instructor yelled “high side!” (which meant that the raft was thrown against a rock and the people on the side the rose had to push hard to force the zodiac back to level position), and how to hold ourselves tightly by tucking our heels under the cushiony inflated tube that formed the side so as not to fall overboard while, at the same time keeping our hands free to handle the paddle. We had also been told what to do in the case of falling into the water (something I had no intention whatsoever of doing): be sure, the instructor said, to go with the current feet first so you don’t hit the rocks with your head; do not let go of your oar. If the river pulls you under, don’t struggle, it will bring you out again by itself; do not let go of your oar. I repeated the instructions in my head although if there was one person who was not going to fall out of the zodiac, that was me.

rafting 2 The instructor (our captain on the descent) also mentioned that the heavy September rains had glutted the river, raising it from a number 3 rapids to a number 5 (the maximum is 6), so we were in for a good ride. This news made me even more decided to not fall overboard. I’ll admit I was scared, but I was doing it, wasn’t I?

The rapids were fast and furious, and we worked really hard to keep the zodiac straight (steady was out of the question), but I was getting the hang of it and beginning to feel more confident when a large rock appeared in the middle of the waters.

“There might be a hole on the other side,” yelled our captain, “¡hold on!” I wondered what on earth a “hole” was in the middle of a river, but didn’t have much time to think about it because we were accelerating and had to paddle faster than ever to keep the raft under control as we rushed past the boulder and into the “hole”. I now know what a “hole” is. It is the effect of a great amount of rapidly flowing water washing past a large obstacle such as a boulder; immediately on the other side of the obstacle, the water form a kind of furious depression before shooting out again down river.

As we entered the enormous “hole” that the boulder was causing the water to form, the zodiac literally folded in two and then sprung open again flinging the three persons in the rear into the river. I was one of them. I suddenly found myself in a vortex of water (no oar in my hands, of course) that was flipping me over and over like just one more pebble in its current. I struggled to get my head out of water and finally managed. But, just as I opened images9FC0Y7JJ my mouth to breathe, a wave hit me square in the face and the river pulled me under again. Suddenly I had twisted and turned so much that I no longer knew what direction was up. My mind produced one thought: “How can you be so stupid to come and drown in a river called Fish!” and I knew at that moment I was going to die, so I just stopped struggling and sunk into the deep sorrow of that certainty.

Of course, the moment I stopped struggling, the river pushed me to the surface, I gasped for breath, saw an oar stretching towards me and grabbed it. Someone pulled me onto another Zodiac and I was saved. The experience of joy was immediate: I had not come to the Fish River to drown that day.

The moment I was safe, in my mind I suddenly experienced that something had been out of my body. For some time I spoke of an “out of body” experience, saying that I had been out of my body, but now I realize there was no I at all, just as there was no “out”: it was a non-local, non-personal experience of what I have since called ‘cosmic compassion’ for a minuscule body being tossed about in the rapids, and whatever it was, could not experience itself, because there was no self, no identity whatsoever. The experience was only realized (made real) when self was restored by my body being pulled out of the water.

For me, this experience was instantaneous so that my self-identity returned in full the moment I was pulled from the water. For others –Byron Katie and Dan Siegel, for example—the period of self-less-ness lasted much longer and the experience transformed their lives completely. You can listen to Dan’s experience through the following link: (https://www.facebook.com/eOmega.org/videos/10153492113806325/ ) and Katie’s is in her book Loving What Is and several others.

As my experience happened when I was still at a very primary stage in my evolution (I wasn’t even to hear of Byron Katie for years to come), I immediately related that happening (or non-happening) to some form of the religious idea of soul so, henceforth, I believed that there was a part of me that didn’t die.

Today, I don’t even try to define it or give it a name: it is what is when the self disappears, the self that lives the dream it calls life. It is the “stroke of insight” that doctor Jill Bolte Taylor talks about after experiencing a massive stroke (https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en) and discovering the difference in perception of the two hemispheres of her brain; the no-where-to-go-nothing-to-do of Jeff Foster’s Life Without a Center (https://batgap.com/jeff-foster/), the freedom of the Don’t-Know mind with the four questions of Byron Katie.

I have not re-experienced that no-self, I don’t have to, I am here to live in the self at this moment and enjoy it. If I find there is something I am not enjoying, well I have what for me is the simplest way of setting myself free: I have 4 questions and a turnaround for which I am forever grateful (see www.thework.com).

WHAT IF…?

August 15, 2016August 15, 2016 / Brianda Domecq / 3 Comments

I think the most pernicious thoughts in my existence start with a “what if…” and then the death sentence: “What if I’m doing it wrong” (it being life itself), and what if I don’t find out till the day I die. What if I have made a mistake and there is no going back. What if I have lost the opportunity to… what? Do it right!

Although it can happen at any moment, panic loves to arrive about 3 a.m. when there is nothing around to distract me from that drowning feeling that everything is all over, that I have had a chance and botched it, no more chances: I’ve done it wrong.

It was shortly after having moved to Salies that the last remembered “what if” panic hit. Everything gone! The apartment rented! No going back! OMG! What if it was a terrible mistake; what if I regret this for the rest of my life. What if, what if…

As I sat alone in the restaurant of a local hotel waiting for my plat de jour, looking out the window at the leafless trees and paling grass of a cold January day, the “what if” crunched my heart. What if I had made a mistake and now it was too late. Even if I did go back to Madrid, there was nothing to go back to. I heard in my head my daughter’s voice: “Why do you always have to be so drastic?”

Then I remembered another time. I was 18 and had come home from Barnard College for summer vacation. I had not been happy at Barnard –as a matter of fact I had been terrified of the way my life seemed to be going there- but I was planning to go back for my 2^nd year, solely in order to attend my best friend’s wedding. My parents, however, informed me that this was not to be. I could not go to my friend’s wedding because it meant an extra expense that they couldn’t or wouldn’t cover at that moment. Without the wedding, there was nothing to make me want to go back to college, so I decided not to continue my education but rather to stay home where I felt safe.

Once the decision was taken, once I had faced my father’s disappointment, once I had sent the final letter, the horror set in: “What if I have made a mistake and my whole life is ruined.” It was then, in the middle of the night, in the dark and quiet room where I lay realizing that all of my Destiny had changed with that one decision, that panic set in and “what if” became the key to my own private torture chamber.

Of course, it is not possible ever to know what would have been if I had not taken that decision, so there is nothing but horror at the end of the question. Every single one of those unimagined and unlived moments, that vast ocean of ignorance for one to drown in again and again, the future that might have been and now will never exist, turns into a living hell in the terror of the moment: What if I have made the wrong decision?

The second time I remember it happening was a week before my wedding: What if it turns out I don´t really love him, what if he is not the One? What if I am terribly unhappy, what if it doesn’t work out? My mother heard me crying and came to sit with me on my bed. She told me we could call the wedding off if I wasn’t sure. But what if I called it off and then discovered that He was the Right one and it was too late? What if no one else ever wanted to marry me? Eventually, the mind must find peace in the what is, and leave go of the what if. I was married a week later.

Then again, when my second husband and I decided to move from Mexico to Madrid, there was another what if? Panic! In the middle of the night: What if we don’t like it, what if his business doesn’t work, what if… what if… it is the wrong decision?

I remember calming myself with the thought that if it didn’t work out we could always come back. But we had sold most of our furniture and put the house up for sale. We had shipped the rest across the ocean and signed a rent contract in Madrid for two years. My husband had closed down his business, hoping to start a new one in Spain. There would be no coming back, at least not for me, although my husband left after nine months. There is no going back ever. Change happens and nothing is ever the same. The past doesn’t exist; we could never go back to it.

So in four life-shaping moments I have felt the what-if panic and yet never been sorry for any one of the “decisions” that led to those moments. And I have put the word “decisions” in quotes because, as Shakespeare would say, “there’s the rub”. The whole posing of the question is downright wrong from the beginning. What if is short for “what if I take the wrong decision”. But did I ever really decide anything? What if there is NEVER any such decision to be taken?

The Barnard “decision” hadn’t been mine. The only reason I was going back to college was because I wanted to go to my friend’s wedding; it had nothing to do with the college. What I was doing and experiencing in Barnard was terrifying me, I felt I was losing myself. When my parents didn’t let me go to the wedding (and how could they know it was the only reason I wanted to go back) there was no decision to take: my whole being balked at the thought of returning and the decision had been taken for me.

The “decision” to get married… I was 20 and from the photographs, pretty good looking, but for some strange reason, I thought this was my last chance; my father had the bizarre notion that if I didn’t marry this candidate, I would become a nun. I had already broken off our relationship once and then spent 3 days crying before coming back to it; another break would be definite. It was a no-brainer. I got married. What decision? I had thirty years with the man who fathered my two beautiful children and most of them were pretty good.

Long before I moved to Madrid, I had visited the city and gone with a cousin for a card reading. Towards the end of the session (and everything the woman said I wrote down and watched as it happened) she said “You aren’t going to die either in Mexico or in New York (where I lived and where I had been born)” and in my mind I immediately heard “I’ll die in Madrid”; it was like a certainty, like an announcement. At that moment, it seemed absurd; I even thought that it would have to be in a plane crash when arriving here from Mexico. But I can see now that the decision was already taken, so that a year later, when my husband said that, due to the economic crisis in Mexico, he wished we could go and live in the United States, I simply pronounced the words that would seal my fate: “I don’t want to live in the US but if you want we could move to Madrid.”

And Salies, well that was even more obvious. It was the third time I was coming up to spend August here. I was a couple of hours out and thinking about being bored with the experience I had had the previous two summers because there were no French courses to take and my one-month visit didn’t give me time to get to know anyone or integrate in the town’s activities. I was wondering in my mind if I should look for a new place to spend summer months, when a voice asked: “Why don’t you move to Salies?” Again, as in other life-changing instances, it was not ‘my thought’; it wasn’t anything that was in my conscious mind: it was a question that came from nowhere, and that even seemed absurd at the moment as I was in the process of judging the place dull and boring.

But then, during my stay in Salies, I found myself drifting past Real Estate offices and looking at the ads in the windows. Finally, I went in to one that announced Spanish and English spoken and said I was interested in looking at some apartments. After seeing three or four that were absurdly expensive (I calculated I could rent one for about 60 years for the price I would pay to buy it) I apologized and said I really wasn’t interested in buying and probably would rent something.

“Oh, that’s great!” the realtor exclaimed; “I have just the thing for you.” And he took me to the perfect bachelor’s apartment and I rented it on the spot, paying a whole year’s rent on the condition that they redo and equip it. There was no decision: I just found myself going through all the motions. After that was done, I told my children in an e-mail not to worry, I was not going to move to Salies. Now, I couldn’t have done that if I had taken a decision could I have?

It was not until driving back to Madrid from Salies, with no idea in the world why I had just rented an apartment, that the realization came to me (I had nothing to do with it) that my dream of getting rid of all the stuff I had accumulated over the years was now possible if I moved to Salies! Not only that, but as there was a perfect someone to take over the workshops I gave in Madrid, someone who was a dear friend and had trained with me, well I was free to go. Such a joy entered me that I didn’t doubt, even when I saw all my things (grandmother’s dining table, mom’s sideboard, pictures, books, sofas, chairs, rugs… everything I had been given or bought over the years) leave with other people. It was a gift to see how happy they were to have all my old stuff (I say stuff but there were very nice antiques, and lovely bronze and glass furniture, beautiful sculptures and paintings, and almost all my books). The sale garnered me over 36,000 euros and there was so little left that the movers only charged me 500 euros to take it to France.

After my brief “what-if” moment during that lunch in the Casino, I soon found all the delights of living in a small town surrounded by countryside of rolling hills and deep forests and I am going on six years since that life-changing… I was going to say “decision”, but that isn’t possible, is it?

Far from regret, I find only joy in what life has chosen for me. Will I stay here, some people ask? How would I know? I am not the one making the decisions, so I don’t worry about it. A higher consciousness is at work here: No mistakes, no what-if’s. Only peace and –as Katie says– ‘following the simple instructions’.

DO WE “DESERVE” ANYTHING?

August 13, 2016 / Brianda Domecq / 1 Comment

You often say, “I would give,

but only to the deserving.”

The trees in your orchard say not so,

nor the flocks in your pasture. (Kahlil

Gibran, The Prophet)

APPLE TREE

Recently I worked with someone who was upset because her life had become so happy and she couldn’t seem to enjoy it. She believed she didn’t deserve any of the happiness that was coming her way. So her thinking was that she should know she deserved it 1) just because she was alive and 2) because she had “suffered” so much previously. The fact was that she couldn’t enjoy what life was giving her because she believed she should feel entitled to it. Her thought went something like this: “I am angry because I don’t believe I deserve all the good things I am receiving in life.” It was a double whammy! She wasn’t enjoying what she was getting and on top of it, she was punishing herself for not enjoying it. So I went for the jugular.

“So you deserve what you are getting in life, is that true?” and then proceeded, internally to do my own Work. untitled

How do I react when I believe that I deserve all the good life gives me? What happens when I believe that either my previous suffering or my hard inner work has earned me the blessings that are showering down on me day after day? Oh, how the Ego loves that! Oh, how it puffs up! I earned this; I am doing it right. Or perhaps it turns judgmental and feels it is about time it got something good! After all I have done, after everything I’ve been through, how can life treat me like this! What the Ego doesn’t do is feel grateful, and gratitude is the attitude (rhyme on purpose) that fills me with joy.

apples To begin with, I didn’t do anything to deserve being born; I wasn’t even chosen. I just happened, popped into life so to speak, and there I was. I did nothing either to be loved and cared for and not left to die the moment after arriving. As a matter of fact, I did all the opposite. I screamed for food or warmth or comfort or attention; I peed and pooed my diaper making a stinking mess; I didn’t let my parents get any real sleep for a long time after coming and, later on, I ignored their wishes at every opportunity and did whatever I pleased. Besides that, I never thanked them for a thing; quite the reverse, I blamed them for every little supposed “trauma” that I believed I had (until I stopped believing that traumas actually exist). Seen with clarity, I didn’t even deserve to live. If any parents were in their right mind, they would do us in immediately after birth if they had the bad luck to get pregnant and allow that state to evolve, ungrateful little wretches that we are!

Oh, but I was sooooo cute! Really! Drooling on my mother’s silk blouse, making tooth marks on the gold locket my father had just given her, being born with four toes on my left foot so that my parents had to spend a fortune making sure both my legs were more or less the same length when I grew up. Wetting my bed stubbornly until I was eleven… What was cute about me? images

And after the age of six, when I fell absolutely and uncontrollably in love with the idealized image of my father, I treated my mother like a second class citizen. I made it so obvious that I didn’t want her along on our walks that most of the time she would let me go alone with my father; later, I decided she was beautiful but stupid so I would be intelligent and win my father’s love away from her. Many a night while my mother went to bed, I sat up with him discussing important things that she wouldn’t understand. And I did my mother the favor of hating her because she wouldn’t let me have him. My poor mother! What had she done to deserve me as a daughter?

And my mother wasn’t the only one I couldn’t stand. I didn’t even go near my little brother, who was six years my junior, except to torture him and make him cry. I remember one day in a doctor’s office, I wouldn’t stop picking on him and my mother finally got so desperate she lost her temper and slapped me across the face. Of course, I never forgave her for that one time or understood her desperation. Arrogance was my middle name: I definitely deserved a different mother or perhaps no mother at all so I could have Daddy all imagesY6UE8290 to myself. Now I know that if I deserved anything it was that slap and many more!

But somebody somewhere seems to have come up with the strange idea that we deserve everything good simply because we exist or that we don’t deserve anything because we haven’t lived right. Ha! And then when we get the good things, we can’t really enjoy them because we can’t figure out what we have done to deserve them. And, unless we judge them –which we do sometimes- neither can we figure out what someone else has done to deserve his or her “ghastly” life. Well the answer, at least in my case, is NOTHING.

That is why, that signal day, when I couldn’t understand why I was so miserable when I had done everything I knew to do to be happy, my thinking was exactly that: having done the work, I deserved the prize (happiness) and Life wasn’t doing its job! So Life finally sang it to me as it was: Brianda, Life doesn’t owe you anything.

Since then I live mentally (and sometimes physically) on my knees in gratitude for all I have received, never having once done anything to deserve it. Or as Kahlil Gibran says in The Prophet: “For in truth it is life that gives unto life –while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.”

Writing a life

Can I say it as I see it?

Life As I See It