Words.

I remember this phrase “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” so well as we were taught it in elementary school, a feel better phrase when you reported someone bullying you to your teacher, a phrase that is a brush off because you’re wasting their time and that is the best they could come up with.

Growing up Portuguese we were always a part of the joke, “Hey Nubian, why does your brother have a mustache? Because he wants to look like your mother” and the jokes went on. I was made to feel less than and that it was somehow a privelege when I was invited to a friends house. I was 17 when a friend’s father told me I was nothing and would be nothing. A man who beat his wife regularly and his children feared him, a bully.

I have always tried to deflect people’s unkind words, they do hurt, but I try and envision the water on a ducks back, I take a few deep breaths, and move on. Just a little thicker skinned.

I recently learned that someone I have known for a long time, made a terribly derogatory comment about me. It hurt. The comment implied that I was of loose morals. I cried. I cannot think why this person would say something so hurtful, and I guess I will never know what caused that venom to spout from their mouth.

I never understood the teachers who were cruel to us growing up, the friends who snickered and made jokes, the whispers in the village about ‘those Portuguese children’. I never understood why we were targeted, what had we done wrong? As I get older I have a better understanding as to why. How miserable someone has to be that they tear anyone down in order to make their little chests puff out and strut around letting everyone know of their self importance.

I truly am blessed to have a mother, one of the strongest women I know, who is incredibly wise, who has always kept the family bond tight and taught us to always hold our heads high.  My sisters and brother who are my rocks and are prepared to wrap me up in a blankie and take on my fight. My husband and son who softly talk to me to calm me down as my Portuguese blood starts to boil and my hands start moving as rapidly as my mouth.

As I sit here writing my blog and trying to think of why people are cruel I remembered something my mother always said to us growing up “We don’t have to keep up with the Joneses because we are the Joneses.”

I told you my mother was wise.

The Insanity.

Sea-Pink - Armeria Maritima 

I have just finished reading an article in the news today about 1,500 immigrant children that were taken from their parents and that the US Government has lost track of where they are. The president recently stated that immigrant children “are not so innocent.” And I cried.

When did the insanity begin? I feel as though I am spiraling down a rabbit hole unable to grab hold of the slick, oily sides. I find myself crying more when I think about the children, the children that come through the court system, the children that are left behind, the children that are taken from their parents crossing the US borders escaping for a better life.

I cannot even begin to imagine the fear that many people south of the border live knowing that the journey under darkness with only the clothes on their back, may get them imprisioned, but yet are willing to risk it all to provide a better life for their children.

I cannot fathom the pain the parents go through as they put their children onto trains to start the dangerous journey to cross the border, because if they stay they are forced to join gangs. And then when they finally reach the ‘promised land’ they are handed back to their government and face death from the gangs they refused to join.

When I heard that the GOP recently wanted to cut $23 billion from food assistance programs, I cried. How is that okay? My head is having a really hard time in trying to wrap around the fact that so many in the GOP who profess to be Christians but yet their inhumanity to those in need is far from what Christ preached.

How do people still justify voting for a person who showed his true colors, but was the lesser of two evils? I will read an article and then proceed to yell, rant and cry to both Bear and T and they just wait until I exhaust myself then we discuss, dissect and figure out what we can do to make a change.

I am surrounded by amazing, caring, compassionate people, and I know that I surround myself by people such as this because I was raised in a family who never turned anyone in need away. My Mother always instilled in us to find a little bit of Jesus in everyone. No matter how bad they were. (I have to admit though that I am still struggling to find Jesus in the current president though.)

Last weekend Bear and I went to harvest mussels at the beach and we came across flowers that were growing on the rocks. I was in awe of these beautiful, perfect, pink blooms growing in a less than ideal environment and it made me realize that beauty and hope can bloom from adverse conditions.

And I cried.