Musings

Sitting on the floor at Birmingham International Airport waiting for boarding time to return to California from a pilgrimage to Fort Benning, Georgia, to protest the continued operation of the School of the Americas or School of Assassins. Exhausted and yet invigorated by all that happened. Need to sleep for a couple of days...

My already sixty year-old body if you count the time in my mother's womb is not happy with long hours or with activism. It protests violently, the feet swelling and blisters appearing, and I feWEeling as if any second, if I don''get sleep now, i will drop to the floor and throw a temper tantrum. I am sooo tired, and angry to an extent at my own body's betrayal.

the other thing is that my eyes fail me; my glasses are not bifocals, so the writing is blurry. new glasses will cost about 250, and so for now, that will have to wait, I STILL HAVE the ugnly lined bifocals I BOUGHT when CAterina had her accident with her eyes.

I feel as though if i start writing about this event I WILL begin to cry again, as I did so often in the past three days. Saturday we started at 9 in the morning and went on through the day, from the Conventon CENTER TO THE stage in front of the gages and badk to ghe COVNEnetion center. the stories, each of them, were gruesome and dreqdful and unb erlievable, and even more nbelievable the fact thaqt these folks were coming to speak the truth and might return to be killed or tortued of both once they returned to their counttries. for it has happened before...

ATHERE wqs mARY eLENA BUSTAMANTE who brother, a young beterinarian in GUAQTEMALA who was denouncing the practices of the military, was 'disappared, torturned, killed. HOW TERRIble to have a yong brother who disappears and about whose death you can only make assumptions, all bad.

NERYS gonzles was tortured when she was 8 months pregnant with her son DANIEL eRNESTO IN san VICENTE, her crime being that of teaching the peasants to read and write. SHE had worked with PQDRE Rutlio GRAND, who was tortured and killed by the military, and whosse example nspired OSCAR romero, who was in turn killed. SHE WEORKEd sice by side with RUTILO AND then with RONMERO. she was thus a marked woman from then on.,

SHE was tortured until, between the terrible pain, and watching and hearing the tortured screams of the campesinos of SAN vicente, ALL OF WHOM were massaxxred, she fainted, and was dumpled into a pile of dead bodies. She was laster found and taken to a hopsital, and ws in a coma for 4wisx monthsw. HER BABY duedm but she said she woke up after six months asking about him, and touchinger her stomack, where she could still feel a pull from her now dead child,

NOE is a unionist whose brother was torutred and shot, in GUATEMALA. He said that although he knows he maqy be targeted, the labor struggle is in his blood. HE IS an organizer for the banana workers in GUATEMALA. HE SAQID that whe we eqt CHIQUITE b annas, each of ghem come with a drop of blood attached.

I interpreted twixe for Geardo C ajamarca.hE CLOSED the event; he screamed, andasked me to do the same, ANO VEMINOS A ROGAR JUSTICIA, VENIMOSA EXCIGIR JUSTICIA.

Why the year of Silvia? Has she finally flipped?

As if there had ever been a question of having flipped, as if I hadn't flipped early in life, and have spent the rest of the time pretending to be 'normal,' whatever that means...

So on the 10th of February I turned 59; I have no idea where the time has gone, but the next really huge zero-ending birthday will be here before you know it, and I thought I would make up a necessary list of everything I always wanted to do before... well, you know. I mean, I went a bit nuts on my 50th; had a lot of fun, lovers, topless sunbathing in a beach in Barcelona, tango dancing... and then it was all right, and I spent the last seven years, practically, in all sorts of political unrest, ha ha, including arrests for civil disobedience (which was not all that civil... although I have tried very hard to embrace the concept of peaceful protest... but my Cuban genes frequently get the best of me... more training for that one!)

Earlier in January I had gone to a regular MD, found out that I was the heaviest I had been in a very looong time, and was confirmed as having high blood pressure (actually, the scale scared me into the hbp!), and so I went looking for a chiropractor and an acupuncturist. The acupuncturist is a wonderful Chinese practitioner, who gave me perhaps the best treatment (acupuncture, accupressure, electrical stimulation) I have had, combining the best of many disciplines, and talked me into a nasty 'cleansing diet' which involved drinking lots of Aloe Vera... The taste was so putrid I decided I might kill myself and then I would have no more hbp or weight problems... but I persevered! Here it is a month later, and on the 13th day of the Year of Silvia I have, quite fittingly, lost my first 13 1/2 pounds and I am walking! I don't just mean walking up and down the stairs, but walking around a beautiful park around Lake Chabot... The last day, before it started raining again, I walked six miles...

I am feeling much healthier... I had medical insurance for a very very brief period, it was a poor excuse for medical insurance and it is cancelled effective the end of the month, but it did inspire me to find these various medical experts. I go to the chiropractor and to the acupuncturist every two weeks, and pay for the services, insurance be damned.

The loss of the first 9 lbs. on week 2 gave me impetus to start walking (hard at first!) and exercising.
I can certainly afford $110 every couple of weeks (he charges $65, she $45 cash price for people
without insurance...

The first day I went to the park I walked like a very old person and had no lung power... I now take
any excuse to walk; walk to the library, the store... walk home from interpreting for a client... a mile here,
a mile there... 

So here is the 'list of must-do things before I reach 60.'

skydiving
learning Mandarin and/or Farsi
painting lessons
learning Tai Chi/ Qi Gong (also and/or)
taking piano lessons
recording my first CD
going back to tango and dancing professionally (senior competition?)
getting Laser surgery for my vision (a very big MAYBE...I am not sure about this...),
going to France to live for a month
going to China/Japan/India/Africa (all and/or depending on finances...)
learning to ride a motorcycle...
publishing my first novel...
moving somewhere, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Cuba...

Any suggestions, anyone?

(One which is not up there is losing seventy or so pounds... even if it takes a year)

Love ya!