Did I ever tell you how I ran a coffee shop in a Jewish Nursing Home in Spanish Harlem for like a month? The writers told me it would make for good material. It definitely made for a good headache.
First of all I look Hispanic so it didn’t help that I don’t speak a word of Spanish. People would have long conversations with me as I was walking to work. I think they thought I was a snob or an uncultured Hispanic woman. I don’t just look Mexican, I also look Middle Eastern and Indian…etc.
Sometimes people can’t place me. (Why don’t I have a photo up so you can see for yourself? Because I look like a FREAK OF NATURE in photographs. I mean I don’t know what happens to my face, the camera totally distorts it. It’s true…I’m too vain to take pictures anymore).
Maybe I’ll put up an artist’s rendition of me. Any artists out there interested? I would have nothing to pay you but my gratitude. I’ve always wanted to have a HUGE ASS portrait of myself painted before I got old. Or get old. Whichever one suits you. (I was carded last night, YAY!)
I really fit in the Jewish Nursing Home though. I have respect for the elderly but these people were bitter. Some of them were flat out mean. They were tough though, they had seen the world and I was an annoying waitress to them that wouldn’t give the Diabetics sugar in their coffee when they asked for it as they rolled in with their wheel chairs.
One old man loved me, another hated me. Some of the women looked as though they weren’t scared of anything and didn’t trust anyone.
The man who I was working for was a recovering drug addict. I judged him for that back then. Now I judge myself for judging him. I’ve never had a drug problem but I have this feeling it’s like other problems, half of it’s your own damn fault and the other half is someone else’s fault. Like maybe a world that makes you want to hide from pain by getting high. A spiritually devoid world where you don’t know how to get naturally high.
Someone once told me a there is a book about Hippies in the sixties who stopped doing LSD for the obvious reasons and started meditating. They claimed they reached the same high as LSD. I know a guy who is a recovering addict as well who started doing meditation and was cured of his withdrawal symptoms. If you want to see some scary withdrawal symptoms, god what’s the name of that movie about Heroine addicts, um…damn…it’s with that guy from Star Wars. Anyone? Google, I guess, here I come…Trainspotting. Google is my new Mantra. Maybe Google is God.
Anyways, this guy that I was telling you about, he did what Sikh’s call NAAM SIMRAN. Or repeating a mantra WA_HE_GU_RU. Waheguru is the name of God as well as a breathing technique. When repeated over and over again it is rumored to lead to bliss because of the concentration and breathing and connection to the oneness of the universe. Although Sikhs believe you can recite any name of God.
I’ve tried it. It works for me. I could be imaging the bliss though. Imaginary happiness can be just as good as the real thing though, perhaps though, like wealth and beauty, are imaginary happy things. Maybe oneness with the universe is real happiness…I’m sorry if this sounds hokey or preachy.
Anyway…You’ve heard of the pleasure principal, there is now a Pistachio Principle for dieting… I don’t…
Look I’m not the poster girl for Sikhs, I’m not a good Sikh. But I like Sikhism’s spirituality or Sikhi as it is properly called. That’s all I have to say about that right now.
As for Introspective writing: The thing is, get over it. If you are going to write you have to put yourself out there. It’s a really cathartic and beautiful experience; I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it. If you want, write fiction…then you are not directly putting yourself out there. I never write in a diary because someone will read it, I could die tomorrow. There are many thoughts that I keep to myself.
A reader said writing is good for your soul. I think she is right; it is a meditation I think it makes me happy. One last comment I must respond to. A woman named Nina asked me why I thought I was such a bad person. If I had a ‘Secret.’ I do in fact have many secrets. I don’t in fact hate myself.
Irony is funny thing ain’t it?
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