Motherhood [The Case of the Layaway Men]

Hola mi Gente,

Today, as I try to do every day through my actions, I honor mi viejita querida… my mother -- as well as all the mothers I have had the good fortune to have in my life.

• Some of the most powerful mothers I have ever known never had children of their own. My aunt, Josefa was a universal mother. She raised more children than you can shake a stick at and if she were alive today and met you, she’d be your mother too. But she never had a child of her own, biologically speaking.
•  I had an aunt in Puerto Rico who received lifetime achievement award from the Island’s governor, literally raised hundreds of children.
•  The woman my son calls mother is not the fruit of her womb. But she is as close to a mother he will ever know.
•  My sister Darlene never had a child but her instinct for nurturing and compassion is present in everything she does.

So motherhood (or parenting for that matter) is not just about biology, though that’s an aspect of it. I think the Mother Archetype is instructive to all of us in that it shows us the heart of the heart of compassion -- a role model I certainly needed when I my then seven-year-old son and I were thrust together and I had to be a “mother” to him.

My own mother wouldn’t allow us to have pets, but she would welcome fragmented people into her home the way other mothers collected stray animals. The exiled, the unforgiven, the broken, the traumatized -- they were the cast of characters that populated my childhood. And as much as my mother helped these poor souls, a few would turn on her and I would shake my head and ask my mother why she bothered, and she would look at me and say, “There’s a God and He sees everything, it’s not for me to judge. You help because that’s what you are supposed to do.” I believe my mother’s life’s philosophy goes something like this: “If you can help someone but refuse, then you have wasted your life.” It took me almost a lifetime to understand that wisdom… 

Basically moms led a hilarious life with her children in tow -- here’s a story I always remember…

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The Case of the Layaway Men

We were all crying because the bad men were going to take the TV away. There was little else in that living room, I don’t think there was even a couch. We would sit on the kitchen chairs with their seats covered in plastic to watch TV. And that’s what we were doing when these two strange men came into the room and started taking the TV away. I couldn’t have been more than five and my two sisters, Darlene and Yvette, were three and two, respectively.

We were crying. These two big bad men were taking the TV away.

There were two things I remember most about that Lower East Side five-story walk-up apartment. One was that the bathtub was in the kitchen and the other was that it had this long, narrow hallway. So long, in fact, that I used it to ride a tricycle up and down its length. My mother was obsessively clean, the worn linoleum would gleam with floor wax, and we would take a running start in our socks and slide across that long hallway.

However, most of my memories of that apartment weren’t so good because it was the first time I would remember my father’s absence. And, as I was to learn, when my father wasn’t around, things were hard for my mother and we had less to eat, less furniture.

But we had this nice, brand new TV and these strange men were getting ready to take it away, so I cried, and my sisters followed suit. And my mother was standing there, not knowing what to do.

Then she started arguing with these men. At first it was more of a plea. She was actually begging these men not to take the TV away. You see, the TV was bought on the ghetto “lay-away” plan, which was actually a scam to rip off those who had nothing to rip off in the first place. You would put an item on “lay-away” and that would allow you to take it home. You paid for the item in weekly installments. The thing was that the weekly installments often added up to much more than the sticker price. In fact, most of what you got on “lay-away” was used -- items that were taken away from other families who had failed to pay the weekly installment. Now, if the question occupying your mind right at this point concerns the wisdom of a poor family having a TV, I have no dialog for you -- you have no understanding of poverty. Fuck you very much.

Aside from the long, narrow hallway, it was the only form of entertainment we had.

Soon, my mother was engaged in an all-out argument with the men, who seemed to care less and weren’t even paying attention to my mother. You have to understand my mother is a petite woman who barely measures five feet tall -- not an imposing physical presence. So the men were ignoring my mother which made her more pissed off, which made us cry more.

“You can’t do this, Stop!” My mother yelled.

And everything stopped. We stopped crying because we knew that tone of voice. We had heard that tone many, many times before and it usually meant some deep shit was about to go down. So we stopped crying, curious about what would happen next. The men stopped because it was a defiant, authoritative voice. I guess they were used to taking orders and my mother had just barked one out that would’ve made a veteran marine drill sergeant proud.

The pause lasted a split second, then the men continued preparing to take the TV, and we got back to crying.

I remember my mother tried pleading one more time to no avail and then I became scared because when I glanced over to her, she had The Look. I can’t ever sufficiently describe The Look. It was the look of death and it actually made my mother look taller, more powerful, but these guys just weren’t getting it, but we knew. We knew some shit was about to jump off. I felt so bad, I almost warned the men, but, having learned even at that tender age that discretion is the better part of valor, I chose to stay quiet. My mother, seemingly defeated and frustrated, left the room...

And when she came back, she had the largest knife she owned in her hands. It was the same knife used on special occasions for cutting a pernil (roast suckling) or something like that, and she had this wild-eyed look in her eyes. I swear her hair was standing up!

“YOU’RE NOT TAKING THAT TV!!!” She roared. “You will take that TV over my dead body! My children are not going to suffer.” And with that, she yelled her death roar and made her charge, apparently ready to die.

Now, I was very frightened because I feared for my mother’s safety. My mother was small and petite and, after all, she was a woman. Surely, she wasn’t a match for these two big idiots who didn’t even know better. The men, who had until then been ignoring my mother, freaked out when they saw my mother charging them with this huge knife in her hand. They tried to calm her down, but it was too late. Shit, I could’ve told them that. She went after them and the funniest thing happened: The men ran!

Or rather, they tried to run, but my mother had them cornered, slashing at them with her knife and she meant to cut them. Through some miracle, they managed to elude my mother’s slashes and make it out the living room into that long hallway, whereupon they slipped and slid through the length of that recently waxed and gleaming long expanse. Somehow, they managed to make it out of the apartment, though my mother almost managed to stab the unfortunate one who slipped and fell.

But that wasn’t enough for her. My mother chased those men down five flights of stairs and down the street where they had their truck parked. They almost didn’t make it. By then my mother had ripped open her blouse and was yelling, “Rape! Rape!” at the top of her lungs which caused all the frustrated Puerto Ricans who happened to be hanging out on the street corner that fine summer day to join in on the chase of these two men. I know this because I was running behind my mother the whole time.

They jumped in the truck making their final escape in a squeal of tires and a cloud of dust, never to be seen again, a mob of oppressed and upset Puerto Ricans on their tail.

There we were in the middle of the street, my mother with a knife in her hand, clutching her blouse closed. She looked at me and said, “C’mon, let’s go home.” Somehow, I remember, my mother managed to look regal, her head held high, and no one dared say a word to her.

And that’s what we did; we went home up those five flights to that sad almost empty apartment. She put the TV back where it belonged, plugged it in, and told us that we could watch as much TV as we wanted and that no one would ever take our TV away. She left and got some overpriced, stale meat and other things on credit from the corner bodega. It is said that Cuba, the proprietor notorious for once refusing credit to his own mother, took one look at my mother and decided that was not the best time to mention her credit was stretched too far. Later she cooked us dinner, with a Blackout Special as a treat.

And we were so happy.

That was the kind of mother she was: ferocious, fiercely protective of her children. Later in life, it was her power of example that maintained me and taught me never to give up when the odds seemed insurmountable. It was also her fierce love that nurtured and protected me, serving as beacon to a path for becoming a better man. I believe that if I were to carry my mother on my back for the rest of her life, my debt to her would remain unpaid.

I love you Moms.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Sunday Sermon [Welcome to the Real]

Hola mi Gente,

One day I found myself at a maximum-security prison sitting in the mess hall mentally criticizing everyone else there. I did this daily. How stupid these people are, I used to think to myself. Every day I would observe their selfishness, and lack of awareness and how I wasn’t like “them.” I did this until the very real fact that I was there also became clear to me. If those people were so defected, then what did that say about me? That question right there was more important than any answer.

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Reality and the War on Our Senses

We throw our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

-- Unknown

We use one sense at the expense of the others. Ever since the invention of the photograph, for example, the visual sense has taken predominance over the others. We’ve become more and more insistent of having illustrations with stories, for example. Eventually movies became all the rage. Then television arrived in our homes, followed by video, cable, computer graphics, digital animation, and now, virtual reality. Imagine someone in the far future trying to explain our obsession with a piece of furniture... 

Our taste buds take second place. Fruits and vegetables are genetically engineered to satisfy our visual appetites, regardless of the sacrifice in flavor and nutrition. Poisons of every kind assault our biochemistry. Electromagnetic radiation zaps our natural bioelectrical fields that shape us.

Air pollution and synthetic fragrances dominate our sense of smell. Traffic, loud radios, and congested population over stimulate our hearing. In watching television, our right-brain hemispheres have to assemble the dots into a picture. As a result, we haven’t sufficient energy needed for left-brain discrimination. In actuality, heavy viewers literally become heavy; something in the habit of watching television slows down the metabolism.

“Natural flavors” are natural in name only, extracted from organic chemicals through harsh chemical processing. The multinational corporations that sell us these toxins call it “clean labeling” and the Food and Drug Administration co-signs it.

Our senses have become the pawns in a foolish game. Only when we awaken to our deepest, genuine sense will our intelligence flourish. I’m speaking here of a deep-seated common sense that chooses to remember, to know, to open up all the sensory channels and explore our intuitive common sense, what we call our imagination. Instead of asking, “Will we make it?” we should be asking, “What should we be doing now?”

As the historian Howard Zinn noted, neutrality on a moving train is not an option and we’re moving all the time, whether we want to or not. The wise among us are gathering their clues and direction from everywhere, even the knowledge of children and eccentrics, and those with whom they disagree.

The ability to question will be our saving grace. Our questions will be our liberators. When a large enough question has been asked, the lesson plan will appear. Years ago, a leader challenged the nation by asserting that in ten years a human would land on the moon. There is no such leadership available today (if there ever really was). Today we must take on the mantle of our own leadership, asking the questions needing asking and facing with creativity and innovation the challenges such questions pose.

It we are to thrive as individuals and as a society, the solution is the same: the deepest good sense to take leadership for ourselves. True visionaries identify with a cause that transcends personal ego, family, and friends. Causes and principles that transcend something larger than a mere grasp for personal success. And we can get there from here. We are a problem-solving species. When we finally make the decision to call upon our resources we make the impossible possible, and the possible inevitable.

I realize that during these challenging times that this might be hard to accept but the good news is that we’re living in a moment in time where we have the advantage of the fruits of the cross-fertilization of art and science, of spirituality and science, of analysis and intuitive flashes. By pulling together the scattered threads of our collective wisdom, we can consciously learn to tap into our deepest common sense. The next evolutionary leap demands that we, in fact, become the people we were always meant to be or become extinct.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

[un]Common Sense

Hola mi Gente,

I am busy preparing a presentation for an organization and writing piece that may be published on an internet site. So, here’s something that spurred me several years ago to write a blog.

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[un]Common Sense

Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and in lending oneself to the universal delusion without becoming its dupe.

-- Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)

This should have been my first blog post. With the exception of being largely absent for about two-three years, I’ve been posting on this blog for some years. But when I first began something else always came up: some issue or topic I perceived as more important. The result being that I’ve never finished nor posted this blog’s raison d’être. Question, have any of here noticed the blog’s title – “[un]Common Sense”?

Maybe we can start there… if this is the “[un]Common Sense Blog,” then what is its opposite, common sense?

On January 10, 1776, an English immigrant published a pamphlet urging American colonists to question their assumption about something everybody took for granted n that era: the divine right of the monarchy. According to published reports of the day, many committed Royalists (those who favored the monarchy) were converted by a single reading of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Paine’s argument must have been powerful: half a million copies were sold over the next year. Think about this for a moment: the population of the colonies at the time was probably just over 2 million; this man’s pamphlet sold a half a million in one year! And it was not an Oprah Winfrey Book Club pick.

Because Paine donated the royalties from his two-shilling pamphlet to the revolution, the United States Congress granted him a small pension and a farm in upstate New York after the war. Yet only a few years later, Paine was branded a traitor for attempting to further expand the meaning of democracy (remember, initially, the land of the free was only free for white, propertied men). Ahhhh… the fickle fate of celebrity: one moment the “father of reason,” the next, an outcast. The more things change the more they seem to stay the same (or go through a spiral dialectic. LOL)… 

So, what is this thing called common sense? We hear people say it all the time: “Common sense should’ve told her… ” as a response to what we perceive as idiotic behavior, for example, but it eludes definition. The term implies that there is a body of information (“sense”) somewhere that everyone (“common”) knows, but we all would agree that common sense is as rare as an original thought in our current Donald Trump’s head.

We like to speak of common sense as if it were something immutable -- something that never changes, something static. However, common sense evolves all the time. For example, 18^th and 19^th century Europeans considered bathing unhealthy (perhaps this is why Native Americans could “see” them coming a mile away?).

Common sense, right?

Another example of common sense: tomatoes were considered poisonous until the 18^th century when an intrepid soul ate one on the courthouse steps in Salem, New Jersey (he probably bathed regularly too).

The upshot being that common sense has more to do with the common part than with the sense part. As seen in the case of the Royalists of colonist America, common sense is often a mass of unquestioned assumptions dictated by culture and sub-cultures, than by reason.

Still, the prevalent question of the day seems to be, “What ever happened to common sense?” It’s more often than not a rhetorical question, not needing an answer -- it’s more of a complaint. We sense that something is missing. Maybe we can say that common sense is a way of being rather than a body of knowledge. We say someone has common sense when they possess an attitude, not simply thoughts or knowledge, but an ability to think creatively and with purpose. Perhaps, as author Marilyn Ferguson noted, common sense is not what we know but how we know it.

Which brings us back to this blog… but I must first digress yet again. In Emile Zola’s Beast of Man, an engineer and a fireman are quarrelling in the locomotive of a passenger train. In his rage, the fireman has stoked the engine’s fire into an inferno. They grapple at each other’s throats, each trying to force the other through the open door. Losing their balance, both fall out and perish. The train rumbles on at breakneck speed. The passengers, soldiers en route to the war front, are sleeping or drunkenly unaware of the impending disaster.

Zola’s story has been seen as a parable of modern runaway societies. Those supposedly in charge, embroiled in their own personal dramas, paralyzed with performance anxiety, or caught up in their ambitions, have left the driver’s seat. Meanwhile we, their oblivious passengers, are about to pay the price.

Unless we wake up… and perhaps it is here where we can begin to find our innate [un]common sense as a social movement, rather than a body of knowledge (to be continued).

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…