Category: Ramblings

Blog, Health, Ramblings

Birthday Blues, or Singulair Side-Effect?

Alexandra Alessandri

I’ve been feeling rather blue for the last two days. (I find that term so funny. Why blue? Why not maroon or green or yellow? The colors we associate with moods are interesting, for sure.)

Yesterday was a real doozy without a big reason. I felt odd, out of it. I couldn’t make a decision and just felt lifeless. Sad. Overwhelmed. As if pressure were squeezing me slowly. My poor husband. It was my birthday weekend and Saturday we’d had a nice, small dinner at my mom’s. I was okay then, only tired. Yesterday, we were supposed to go to a wedding in the afternoon and I was looking forward to dressing up, going out (sans kids) and dancing. It didn’t happen. Earlier in the day, my husband tried cheering me up by forcing me to get a manicure and pedicure, which I hadn’t gotten in several months, and it was okay. But it didn’t cheer me up. All of this was minor and consciously, I knew it. I knew I had no reason to feel the way I did, but I just couldn’t shake the sadness off. I felt like a dog wanting to shake herself after a bath but no matter how hard I shook, the water still clung on. I cried myself to sleep last night.

Of course, my son woke up several times last night, which means I didn’t get a good night’s rest. I woke up feeling better but the veil was still over me. I felt just like I did a few years back when I went through depression. There was no rhyme or reason; it just was. I wondered if I was feeling the birthday blues since tomorrow’s my birthday, though that’s new for me, too, because I love my birthdays. I love celebrating. I don’t mind being another year older if I get to celebrate!

At work, I wasn’t my usual cheerful self. I dragged through the day though I did start to feel progressively better towards the latter part. By the time I got home, I felt livelier. I didn’t feel the pressure. I wasn’t suffocating. I was aggravated and irritated by some things, but within my normal self. I was relieved. And then I thought – wait, I didn’t take Singulair today. Click. My allergies were bothering me. They didn’t bother me the last two days when I took them. Click. Oh crap – what are the side effects for Singulair? Click. So I looked it up, and here’s what it says (online):

SINGULAIR may cause serious side effects.
Behavior and mood-related changes have been reported. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you or your child have any of these symptoms while taking SINGULAIR: 
  • agitation including aggressive behavior or hostility
  • bad or vivid dreams
  • depression
  • disorientation (confusion)
  • feeling anxious
  • hallucination (seeing or hearing things that are not really there)
  • irritability
  • restlessness
  • sleep walking
  • suicidal thoughts and actions (including suicide)
  • tremor
  • trouble sleeping

Great. That’s the problem with any type of synthetic medications – side effects. Loads of them, too! Of course, I’m not feeling most of these, just a mild case of the blues (and maybe some agitation and irritability and anxiety), but still, maybe I’m going to skip the Singulair tomorrow and put a call in to my doctor. Just in case. Of course, I researched this after I took it this afternoon because my allergies were driving me crazy. Eh, we’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I’m just happy to know that maybe this is just a side effect of the medication and I’m not depressed about turning older! 😉

Blog, Ramblings

Miami Skyline

Alexandra Alessandri

I never get tired of seeing the Miami skyline. Or maybe it’s because I don’t see it that often that every time I have to drive towards Downtown and enter the highway, either from US1 or from 836), I suck my breath in and hold it for a few seconds. Awe washes over me and I feel poetic. You’d never think concrete buildings, glass, and towering structures could do that, but they do. As much as I feel I belong in the country (because, really, I’m a country, mountain girl at heart), the city sights really do it for me.

Today was one of those days. After rushing out of a doctor’s appointment, and needing to head up north for a meeting, I decided to take a different route, one that took me by the city’s center. As soon as my car entered the lanes of I95, I felt the change. The towers of white, gray and green rose from the side of the bridges and I inhaled sharply. It’s beautiful. On either side of me, the buildings grew. Blues and yellows came in focus, adding to the palate. The glass window panels of the buildings reflected the sun; we had no rain today, so the clouds couldn’t take away from the beauty.

The most striking part about this scenery is the contrast of wealth and poverty. I guess it’s like this in many centers, but on that drive on I95, the differences are sharp. The roads need work, the cement sides are peeling, with graffiti in some corners. New buildings are erected everywhere, next to dilapidated towers, some barely standing. Camillus House stands next to the highway, reminding travelers of the reality of the homeless that, in this plummeting economy, have grown in number.

The pictures of the skyline are abundant. It’s fed into advertisements for tourism precisely because of its beauty. It’s undeniably impressive. But just looking at the buildings, really looking, gives us a glimpse beyond the facade.

Blog, Ramblings

My Love Affair: Starbucks

Alexandra Alessandri

I admit it, rather candidly at first, my eyes downcast, my cheeks flushed: I have a love affair with Starbucks. Or, rather, with coffee shops with writing-inducing, relaxing atmospheres. There’s just something about walking into a Starbucks (or the like), and inhaling deeply the rich scent of brewing coffee, that sets me right. It’s my happy place. I can get a quick fix and just drop by to get my usual: a tall Caramel Macchiato; or, as I prefer, I can claim a table, bring out my laptop, set up my station, and just lean back and dive into my world, my memories. This is my time.

Not all coffee shops are created equal, not even all Starbucks’s. The ideal ones have a few things in common: friendly baristas, good music that’s not too loud (and I have no specifics for good music; I have an eclectic taste), and a collection of customers that come and go, leaving whispers of their days behind. That, for me, is perfection. Is that such a bad thing? Perhaps for my wallet and my waist line, though I do have my rewards card (so I can indulge in free coffee periodically) and I do limit myself (to one or two treats a day, depending on how hectic the day is).

So there. My confession for today.

Blog, Ramblings, Writing

Lost Treasures

Alexandra Alessandri

Today I relished in a day off from having to drive up to work. No thirty-six-mile commute for me. Instead, after dropping my son off at school, I drove three minutes to the nearest Starbucks, where everyone knows my name (I have the melody from Cheers in my mind…) I parked myself there, with a venti Caramel Macchiato, and proceeded to rewrite the scene of my father’s death. I had decided that would be the scene I wanted to benefit from the manuscript consultation at Sanibel Island Writer’s Conference because it’s been one of the hardest to write. It will more than likely be one of the last chapters in my book, and one that is still raw. It’s been two and a half-years since he died, but I still remember every second of that day (though some parts have begun to fade along the edges and time has warped a little.)

I sat for almost four hours. I had a six-page “draft” I had churned out about a year and a half-ago. But it was all telling. It was a synopsis of what happened, but not real writing. So I put it aside and started fresh from memory, choosing a starting point that wasn’t the beginning, and worked it. I ended with ten pages, the limit I needed for the manuscript consultation. I know I can expand it more, though I don’t know if I need to. We’ll see how the consultation goes. It’s a deeply personal piece, one that I hope can stand on its own (in narrative) and that will be a part of the bigger picture (the book.)

After I finished, I had a quick bite at Subway (the usual – six-inch turkey and provolone cheese with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper – I don’t stray from that either.) Then I  returned a pair of shoes, and sat in my car, not sure where to next. I had at least another hour before I could go pick up my little one, since he was napping at school, and then it hit me: Go to mom’s house. I had to go anyway, because she’d made some Abui yogurt and soup, so it was the perfect excuse to go and esculcarle for the music sheets my dad had written me.

It’s always the same when I go to my mom’s house: I expect to see my dad. Even though a chair now sits at the head of the dining table, which was his place, and since he was in a wheelchair, didn’t need a chair, there was a glass of water on the table and a small prescription drug bottle on that side. My mom’s taken it over, but it reminds me of him.

(Note: I keep saying house, but it’s an apartment. We just always called it la casita when referring to it among ourselves.)

Anyway, my first greeting was a large roach on its back, dying. I sprayed some Raid on it, which caused it to start wiggling, causing me to itch. I despise roaches. I emptied out a small, white trashcan my mom had and placed it over the roach, giving it privacy while it died and giving me comfort that it wouldn’t suddenly spring back to life and chase me. Ha!

I went into my old bedroom, where I last knew the music sheets were, and I started searching. I looked around, moved books and boxes, removed bags, and found nothing. I prayed – Lord, illuminate me, give me an inclination where these things may be – and then I looked up. On the uppermost shelf of the closet where things, only I couldn’t tell exactly what those things were. So I moved a chair, climbed up, and moved some more. Sure enough, all the way to the back and right was a stack of folders and a white box. I got them and saw what I’d been looking for and so much more: awards, certificates, letters, music sheets, pictures, my baby book, school years memories, and old stories and poems I’d written! There was also a folder with information, schedule, etc. of when I played the bells for the superintendent of schools back in 1990 representing Everglades Elementary. Cool!

I came home with my treasure, eager to sift through it. I discovered (and somehow, I’d forgotten) that I wrote short stories when I was in high school, the early years. I remember writing poetry (really cliched, love-struck, rhyming poetry) because poems plagued my journals. But in a notebook, there they were: typed short stories with character development on a side sheet, typed in the first computer I owned: a hand-me-down dot-matrix computer! Insane. They were better than the poems I wrote (though that doesn’t necessarily say much about my writing back then)!

The best part, by far, has been the letters written to my mom and me by my dad, back in early 1990 when he went through a health crisis. He went to Colombia to get better, believing more in the doctors there than those here. These letters now give me a glimpse into his desperation, frustration and, more importantly, love. His love for us. His affection. I don’t remember that, and I wish I did. I wish I remember his telling me he loved me and he was proud of me. I wish I remember that affection. I don’t, but I now have these letters as proof they were real.

What prompted the search, though, and which I found, was the song he wrote for me when I turned nine. He played the piano, and he wanted me to learn. He also wrote music and lyrics, mostly religious ones when he was a priest. (I have recently found his collection of sheet music with church songs.) Well, he wrote two songs for me, that I remember: when I turned nine and when I went to Colombia by myself (I was also nine, almost ten.)

Here are the words to my daddy’s song (in Spanish, of course):

Mujercita eres ya
nueve son tus añitos. (Repeat)
El señor, que es tu Padre,
no te fallará jamás.
Siempre fiel a su amor.
Conducir te sabrá
por senderos oscuros
y llevarte a la gloria
de la ciencia y la virtud.

So yep, that was it. Short, but sweet and spiritual.

Blog, Ramblings

Memories

Alexandra Alessandri

My mother and I used to play Parques, much like the American Parcheesi, but the Colombian version. Mom and I would sit cross legged on our sofa and begin the game. This is back when I wasn’t a teenage yet and my mom still had energy and hadn’t been dragged down by my dad’s illnesses. We were happy then, and we laughed.

The games would happen sometimes during the week nights, but more often than not, our Parques game night happened on Saturday nights, after dinner, and while we watched Sabado Gigante back when it was still somewhat decent and women were three-quarters clothes (as opposed to the now three-quarters naked women pushing their Latin sexuality on the audiences). Dad never played; this was Mom’s and my game. I would go to the closet and bring out the box with the vibrant greens, yellows, reds and blues. Mom would sit on the sofa, trimming her cuticles while she waited. I’d set up the game and chose the color – Mom would always let me choose the color – and then we’d start. I won often, and sometimes I think she’d let me win. We would talk and laugh and enjoy that time.

Then Dad stopped sleeping and started taking some sleeping pills sent from Colombia. Our games stopped around then. We were in the 2-bedroom apartment with the den. My godparents had died in the 1990 plane crash in New York, and we had left Westchester for good. I was a new face, with glasses and braces, in a new school, secluded to my studies. That’s when Dad started breaking more glasses, and when the screaming became ordinary. My mom and I would go walking now; no more Parques games because something would set my dad off and the board would fly, the game pieces would get lost, and my mom would cry.

I miss those games.

Blog, Ramblings

Finding purpose in ramblings

Alexandra Alessandri

I finally have the time to write. I’ve been sitting here at Starbucks, after dropping off L at daycare, sipping my Caramel Macchiato, and listening to the arrangement of 80’s and 90’s hip hop that’s reverberating from the two speakers. I had told myself that today was my day to write; instead, though, I’ve been arranging my online classes, replying to emails, grading the first few essays: in other words, doing anything but creative work. I feel somewhat useless, actually. I don’t know where to start, or how or why. What’s the purpose?

Then I remember – the purpose. To write. Just to get this crazy, mixed-up world out in writing so that I can make sense of it, and of myself. So I don’t wallow in grief when the news of a child found murdered or molested comes. So I don’t succumb to the nasty switch of PMS. So I can speak out, even if my audience is a corner of nowhere, a back-lit screen, or a lined paper. I don’t care. I have things to say, even if I’m not sure what those things are.

I think things happen for a reason (cliche, yes, I know). I wasn’t meant to get into the MFA program. It’s been hard enough combining motherhood with work and writing. I’m not there yet. I don’t have the leisure many MFA students have. I can’t just pick up and form a part of this secret society where only those who belong can become successful novelists, essayists, poets, etc. I am a mom, wife, daughter, teacher. I have multiple responsibilities, and while I need to write, and I need a good writer’s group to help me improve, I am limited right now. This is just a reality I need to come to terms with, and as I do, I will be much healthier.

So in the meantime, I’m reading and, yes, writing, too; only I’m writing without pressure. No deadlines, no stress. I’m just writing. I do want to submit a few things, but we’ll see how that goes. I don’t know how much I actually want to do. I am also looking at possibilities of online writing courses. UCLA Writer’s Extension seems to have a fabulous certificate program and the best part is that it’s online! It’s help. Another thing I’m considering is forming an online critique group of writers who are facing the same constraints I am. And I’m writing about being a mother to an energetic almost-three-year-old who swears he can do everything himself. I see the same defiance and yearning for independence in him that I have. And I love it.

So for now, I sit here at Starbucks and, in between writing, I watch people and, unwillingly eavesdrop. The three Census workers have left. They were loud, but their conversation interested me. Somewhere in this insane county, some lady snatched the paperwork from a Census worker, slammed the door shut, only to later reopen it and throw it, crumpled, back at them. They were instructed by the boss man -a fifty-something-year-old man, balding save some peaks of white strands- to call the police immediately should something like that happen. This same man was here yesterday with two women, Colombian – I conversed briefly with them when I heard the beloved singing of the Paisa accent. I’m now assuming they were Census workers, too.

But they’ve left. Starbucks is empty. Only the employees, counting change, and I, half-hidden in my corner below the speaker, are here.

Blog, Ramblings

Life’s a Box of Disappointments

Alexandra Alessandri

But then really, is that something new? C’est la vie. I received today my second rejection letter; this time it was for the MFA program. Realistically, I know that if I would’ve gotten in, it would’ve been tough. It’s hard enough juggling work with motherhood, but juggling work, motherhood and school – whew! Still, I can’t say it doesn’t hurt and even chip away even more at my confidence. I know I write well; I’ve been commended on several occasions. I’ve even told that I had the hardest part out of the way: finding my own voice. But still, when rejection after rejection come, it’s easy to falter and think it’s not good enough.

But I will keep writing – even if for a fraction of a second I think to hang my coat up and just put it all away. I can’t stop. I really started when my dad died, and I can’t stop. I won’t. I refuse to give up. These rejections will, someday, turn into acceptance letters!

Blog, Ramblings

Success by any other name

Alexandra Alessandri

I was reading through some blogs, trying to despejar my mind of the clutter that’s accumulated when I came across this post. I felt as if I could’ve written the exact same thing, only I didn’t. And in reading the comments, I came across this magnificent quote:

“At the end of my life, would I rather be someone who’s won a Pulitzer and has a string of bestsellers…or would I rather be surrounded by people I love and who love me, and who believe I made their lives just a bit better by being there? Not saying you can’t have both, but I know which achievement(s) would matter more to me in the end.”

This really puts our goals into perspective. All of our lives we’re taught to “be somebody” and that usually means being successful, having a career, making money, and becoming something that society would approve. But by whose standards are we gauging success? As her quote implies, there’s an order of importance when it comes to the goals we have. In my life, there are many things I want to accomplish, at various levels, and with this quote, it’s easy for me to see what’s the most important: my family. Simple as that. Now hopefully I can remember that when I get my stories going and I aspire to be the next bestseller….

Blog, Ramblings, Writing

(IM)mortality

Alexandra Alessandri

Lately it seems as if I’ve been consumed with thoughts of mortality, and not just my own. I’ve come to the conclusion that part of being indoctrinated into adulthood comes with experiencing deaths. Sometimes, that indoctrination comes earlier, but regardless of when it happens, it’s impacting.

My first experience of loss came by way of my godparents when I was about ten years old, but I don’t remember much about what I felt. I remember I cried, and I remember the facts. They died in an airplane crash in 1990, returning from a trip to Colombia. Their plane ran out of fuel over New York and crashed by Long Island. One of them died instantly; the other died in the hospital. I also remember my father sitting me down at our dining table to tell me what happened. But I don’t remember feeling the gut-wrenching pain that comes with loss. Or the sleepless nights pondering what happens when you die. Or the feeling helplessness because I, too, would be gone from this earth some day. At ten, death was merely an abstract notion for me. I knew of heaven and hell thanks to the Bible stories and weekly preachings at the Catholic church we went to, and because my father also took it upon himself to educate me on those important facts. I remember hearing a little bit of purgatory, but mostly I remember heaven and hell. I knew I wanted to go to heaven, but even that was an abstraction.

Then, years before my grandmother died (she passed away in 2007), she had a near-death experience. She suffered heart ailments; all her family had. She had been orphaned at a young age, left to the care of her older siblings because her parents had both died of heart attacks. Her siblings also had weak hearts, so it was no surprise that she did, too. It must have been 2002. She had been taken to the hospital because she was suffering a series of heart attacks. My cousins, aunts, and uncle crowded the waiting room of the intensive care unit. We brought sleeping bags and camped out on the cold floor. My aunt, a devout Catholic, and my husband’s uncle, a pastor, engaged in friendly discussion about the true meaning behind the Eucharist: does the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Christ, or is it simply metaphorically speaking. It was then that we nearly lost her, twice. Twice, she flat-lined, her limp body lying on the hospital bed, her children, nearly all eleven of them, gathered around her holding hands, chanting a prayer – I don’t remember which one. I think it was Psalm 23. Behind the closed door with the small window, we cousins peaked, eyes wide open, tears collecting, ready to react for when we heard the final news. But twice, she came back. The doctors told her children not to touch her, to leave her. She couldn’t let go, they said. And she didn’t.

Later, she told us, in confidence, what she saw. She said she saw a tunnel, and a light. And alongside of that walkway towards uncertainty was every single person she loved and had loved. Her children were there, but not the adults they were now. They were children. And we were there, her grandchildren. Age didn’t matter. We were all children. And then she said she was afraid. She saw beasts come to her. Horrid-looking beasts. I can’t remember her exact description, but I remember her stressing they were horrid. They didn’t look as angels should, beautiful, angelic, glowing, but when they spoke to her, they did so in a soothing voice and said, “Be not afraid.” And she said she wasn’t. But she didn’t want grandpa to know, so we didn’t tell him. Instead, we muttered amongst ourselves trying to figure out what that meant. Did that mean the “light at the end of the tunnel” was real? It made death a little more tangible, but not less fearful.

Then my father died and that threw me into another realm of death. I thought I was ready for his death; I had been so many times. And yet the permanence of this death really struck me. I wondered again what it must have felt the moments before he left. He, who had been a priest and had believed in all the mysticism of the Church, and he who had preferred to never again set foot inside a church or take communion or follow any of the church mandates. He who had loved and hated and pained. He who had caused pain and admiration. He who had told me to always check myself every night to see if I’d been a good person that day. Did he do that when he died? Did he get a chance to repent and to make peace with his life? Did he have regrets? Or was I the one left with regrets? Those that are left behind on this earth, are we the ones that feel regrets and guilt?

I think about this every day. The fact that I am not immortal, something that we tend to forget in our younger years (unless we’ve been one of those who’ve had a youth too closely intertwined with death), has become a glowering reality. Maybe it’s because I have a son now. Maybe it’s because I haven’t finished all that I’ve set out to do. Maybe it’s because I still feel like a work in progress. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid. Maybe it’s because I’m starting to feel decay. I’m young, and yet, at the same time, I’m not.

I’m not in a hurry to find out what happens in those moments right before death. I can wait, really. But still, they fascinate and frighten me all the same.

Blog, Ramblings

Celebrating Love

Alexandra Alessandri

Valentine’s Day just passed. It’s been a bittersweet holiday for me for the last two years. My dad passed away on V-day in 2008, but at the same time, J and I started officially dating on V-day in 2001. I know the focus of V-day is romantic love – the love that Hollywood and romance novels portray as knee-shaking, stomach-churning love. The romantic love you see connected intricately to infatuation, happily-ever-after, and fairytales. So those that aren’t in said relationships pooh-pooh the holiday. After all, there’s no point in celebrating a holiday on love if you don’t have “love,” right?

Actually, one thing about this holiday that I’ve come to understand is that the celebration isn’t about just romantic love. It’s about celebrating life, and those people in our life who we love. I’m talking about mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents (those who are lucky enough to have actually met their greats). I’m talking about friends, best friends, friends who’ve been there for you. Friends you love and friends who love you. I’m talking about extended family. Family you’ve married into. I’m talking about anyone and everyone in your life that you love. That’s what this holiday is about. It’s about reaching out to those people NOW, before it’s too late, before they’re sick or worse, gone. It’s about saying I love you. It’s about sharing why you love them and how much you love them. It’s about family and friends and loved ones. It’s about love in the grandest form of the word.

Romantic love is nice, sure. But it’s only a tiny bead in the weaving of relationships.

We were supposed to start V-day with a mass for my dad, but it was too cold, and at my mother’s suggestion, we stayed home in the morning making heart-shaped pancakes for L. Then, when it warmed up a little, we went to my mom’s and spent the afternoon there. Me and my mom, J and his mom, and L. Little L who sometimes reminds me so much of my dad. We had my mom’s famous chicken and meat lasagna, and we had wonderful conversations. We laughed. We walked. We drove around. But most importantly, we spent it together. The five of us. It was nice. We often get lost in all the “have-to’s” of day-to-day life that we forget all the “need-to’s.” There’s a difference.