Ideas from beyond my ears The thing about original ideas is that they are easy to confuse with other original ideas. One's greatest achievement in creative writing is someone Else's pile of discarded mediocre doodling.Still, the merciless Internet will also allow me to take the plunge and die in a ball of fire as many, many others have! (At the end life ends not with a bang but with a whimper. T.S. Elliot)My name is Inigo Montoya, you kill my father, prepare to die. (The Princess Bride)Fab, since I'm not sure what response, if any, i will get lets live it at that for now.I am a 43 years old, married for 14 years, with two daughters 7 and 13, a little dog and a guinea pig.A registered nurse by trade and a former paramedic (still one at heart).It all began in a little town call Santa Tecla in the middle of Central America; it was as must little towns, beautiful if you live there and hellish if you were only visit. It offered enough for a child to explore and get in trouble whit his band of urchins and enough to bathe us all whit the drama of civil war when it came about. The name of the country is El Salvador, only relevant if you are from El Salvador, and yet even to me it sounds big even though the entire country is the size of Rhode island. It sounds big because it had more that i could walk and had more pain that a child should face and more dreams shattered that life should spread about. But it is not fair, life that is, so there i was, making due, stiling empty bottles of soda to sell and buy candy, playing soccer in the middle of the street with a plastic ball, enjoying the floods of every heavy rain in our poor neighborhood. (they were not dangerous floods, but the streets were still from the colonial times and the designers had made them so that the waste of the horses and oxen pulled carts will drain to the middle where they can be easily swept away) there were no horses now. Only a few every now and then, but the street still had that marvelous tilt that made drivers mad and us children, during raining season, quite happy. There were numerous the afternoons when racing Popsicles sticks down the current of rain water, we enjoy and fought among each other claiming the winning stick! (none of us ever had the idea of panting them or mark on them...) must of us wore shoes, some of us did not, but we all got wet and i cant remember for the life of me if any one of us ever got a cold! That is how puberty found us, playing marbles, racing thru the streets, hide and seek, fighting, and exploring places as far as 20 miles from home! Then came girls and of course the games changed, we were not as dirty anymore but also not as pure. The "rich" neighbours got a tv set and we all congregated at their door step so they can see us watch it inside. (if we were too noisy, they would close the door, so it was pretty civilized, or as much as we can be at that age.) the door was close on us a lot. School for must of us was a social event were incidentally we learned a thing or two, but we did not talk much about that, and as we were changing, so was our country and our cities and even our little town. Political turmoil tun into civil unrest and that turn into a repressive government and that in turn begot violence from all sides involved, some justified, some brutal and uncivilized but all of it changing and devastating for everyone who was in its way, which meant in my tiny country, everyone. With time, it only grew and grew like the hungry plant for the little shop of horrors and with an appetite for blood just as bad. It was sad, friends i knew were dying, people i knew were killing them, and in the mist of all that, there was still romance and playing and games..."it was the worse of times, it was the best of times" maybe not, but the country continue its race towards destruction, the weak ones lost, the rich ones triumph, and people began fleeing. Wanting to stay alive is a great motivation that takes away any of your silly notions of dignity or equality, hence many of us came to the USA. My mother came first and stayed as an illegal alien for several years until she was able to send for me and that is how i ended up in the land of opportunities where very soon I was made aware of the part of the story that does not get translated as you watch "the Beaver" in black and white. That of the old saying...“I came to New York because in the old country I heard that New York streets were paved with gold. When I got there I discovered three things: the streets were not paved with gold; the streets were not paved at all, and; I was the one who was going to have to pave them.” And so, i did. Work relatively hard and made relative success. "don't quit school work Bart, go, and do a half ass job. That's the American Way" H. Simpson. I became a paramedic then a little more work, i became a registered nurse. The End!.....or is it?Now with this blog, you are invited into my mediocre life and I will attemp to to live a mark! someone said that at the end of ones life, there are three things you should have accomplish:plant a tree, have a child and write a book. I have planted several trees whose health its at best coincidental or Providential, i have two children, that was easy and their growth, well, just read the tree bit and anything really good about them, which i thin is plenty is their mothers doing, and the writing a book part, just give me a break! i can barely speak English and my "dominion" of these language has cause you to giggle or really turn you even more toward anti immigration laws!...in the profound vernacular of our youths...Whatever!So, welcome to my midlife crisis and enjoy the ride, it promises to be as plain as any other midlife crisis with a small difference, it is mine damn it!
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by Fab
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