July in NY

I haven't been here for about two weeks. It's just that I've been all too absorbed by family, friends and, more so, unfortunately, work. However, all in all, it's been one hell of a summer in NY, especially on the weekends that I spent with my three sisters and the last one with Imani and my friends in NYC. It's so invigorating. I feel full of warmth and love. I wish I could feel this way more often back home. Is it maybe that I work much too much there? I don't know... or maybe I do... or can figure it out.
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A simple explanation is that weekends here have been just extraordinary. The reasons:

a) It´s my sisters' -Dudy's and Lola's- first visit to the US, so I was a blessed witness of their excitement at their constant discovery in our outings. I'm sure I've shared moments with them and Lilia that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

b) I only see NYC/Packer friends once a year, which makes the event so special. I think that if I saw my people from Tucumán one weekend a year only, it would also become a monumental event. Besides, I feel listened to, supported and comforted by my close and now also long-time friends here. Apart from the solace I find in talking with Imani, there have been other special moments, like my intense conversation with Noah and Rachel, my get-together after soooo long with Jan Schmidt - we had quite a bit of catching up to do. And of course also in the category of close friends is Lilia. Related to her, my communication with Nick, Anibal and Liann has been so smooth and easy. They've made me feel so comfortable in my skin! I felt they were more open to me as well... (sigh) You don't always have the luxury of finding so many pairs of ears eager to listen to you.

c) The experience I have with my students here is really intense - I see them everyday for two weeks for five hours each day, the progress they make is amazing, they are incrediby motivated, and a nice part of American culture is that they express their appreciation when they are pleased with your work. This part I guess I don't always get at home unfortunately... Don't know - it may be a cultural thing...

These three factors make my stay here really special. Now it seems that all the fun is over. For the next eight days I'll be in a marathon of work: teaching the ESL weekend, the last week of the Spanish program, and that last Friday with the workshop for ESL teachers. To say I'll be tired when I get back home is an understatement. However, the way this summer's been so far... I'll have my heart filled with good vibes and positive energy...

I thank you, God, for the days you've blessed me with this Northern summer...

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Pic 1 with Adnan photoshopped in it by Imani - we missed you Adnan!!!

Pic 2 Joanie, Noah, Rachel, Imani

Pic 3 On Guzzi with Alyssa - ain't them both cool?

Pic 4 With Dudy in Grand Central Station

Pic 5 Up: Sam, Sharon, el burro al medio, Laura. Sitting: Lea, Evelyn, Lola, Lili, & Dudy. Taken by Art(uro)

Pic 6 Dudy and Lilia under instead of in the poncho on the double decker bus touring NYC


Pic 7 Lola & Lili

Pic 8 The siblings in the limo on their way to 'da pa:ty'
Pic 9 Lola & Dudy in Rockefeller Center garden.

My Shrink Says ... Blog!

Why do people write confessional blogs? It's a creative outlet. It's a forum to vent. It's an exercise in exhibitionism. To mental-health experts, though, it's more than that: a blog is medicine. Psychiatrists are starting to tout the therapeutic power of blogging, and many have begun incorporating it into patient treatment. A forthcoming study in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior even suggests that bloggers might be happier than nonbloggers.

Mental-health experts say blogs are a step up from plain old diaries, chiefly because of the built-in audience. As kids, we learn that if we air our problems, we get help. We associate communication with consolation, particularly when the going gets tough. Blogging fulfills that primal need for sympathy. "Writing is an effort of the brain to communicate for comfort," says Harvard neurologist Alice Flaherty. "Diaries are a form of that communication, but removed. Blogging gets you closer to that sympathetic audience, and that's what makes it therapeutic." According to psychologist John Suler, the anonymity of blogging provides another therapeutic boost: it's high intimacy with low vulnerability. But blogger beware. "Revealing too much," says Suler, "can cause shame or guilt." So blog to your heart's content, but leave some things to the imagination.
Written by Jessica Bennett NEWSWEEK
Jun 30, 2008 Issue

This brief commentary appeared in Newsweek and I was happy to see that my hunch was right. It is therapeutic after all. There is something comforting about the possible audience. One writes for oneself but is aware that anyone may read this any time. This has that liberating feeling, like being comforted, understood, and above all one gets the soothing feeling of communicating with others, even if we have the faintest idea of who that might be.

It is really YOU, yes, you who are reading these lines at this moment. Most times I avoid addressing you, and it really feels strange to overtly establish a dialogue with you. You are usually the anonymous witness of my life, you become an intimate yet unknown observer of my thoughts and feelings. Suddenly, within the last week or so, I got a message or comment of a student of mine from LM. She came across my blog and left a couple of nice lines about discovering a different person from her formal language teacher. It is true that I don't think of that when I write, but the fact that people that know me have had access to my reflections and crazy virtual doodling without me even knowing their name is an extraordinary event. It's the virtual alter ego, or the virtual sibling, or whatever one may wish to call the reader of one's blog - who are sometimes accidental or occasional visitors and other times frequent sharers of my life. I guess, the phenomenon does give me a sense of liberation, of open self-disclosure, and of comfort. We do not always have a chance to reach out to many people we see all the time, and maybe wish we shared more with. This is a way of becoming more transparent, even when I may be totally unaware of who some of them are, or as in the case of my student, I know there is one of them in a group of about forty or fifty people. And there may be some others whom I'll never know ever passed by here.

You see, I'm no longer addressing you, even if for this once I AM doing so. It's just that I keep digressing more within the labrynth of my mind and easily forget you're there. And that's ok - that's what this is all about. Without knowing it, you see, you are also part of my therapy.

I do my best to avoid revealing too much, like the article says, that may give me shame or guilt later on. However, to the careful observer, these lines here show much of my heart and soul, and definitely shed a light on the rest that remains unsaid. There, again, lies the beauty of this habit of blogging, at least for me. I display in detail the tip of the iceberg, but the seven eighths that go unseen are thus under pristine clear water. And if I ever go beyond the sensible point, I hope you'll be sympathetic, understanding, and forgiving, as you would with a friend, right?

Independence

Fourth of July in the US - excellent holiday, just in time for a homecoming feeling. My sister is home with the traditional barbecue that cannot be more special today. She's making it for her two sisters and me. It's weird to be back on Pocatello Rd just like every month of July for the last several years but so special with the company of Dudy and Lolita. The four siblings together in a distant land, with occasional fireworks interrupting the quiet suburban landscape of strong green hills. Pop Latino music in the background, weird, so weird. Their visit in the US, a dream come true for one, the investment of a lifetime for the other, and for me so much family warmth. The spacious yard, the old barn by the pond across the road, the hills in the background, and now the neighbors' fireworks. All Americans seem to celebrate the get-together of the Lizarragas. We have a lot to share, the bliss of shared laughter, the memory of childhood anecdotes, old trials and tribulations, and the loss of mom and dad, each gone with a twenty-six-year hiatus in between. Tomorrow we'll be walking along NYC streets and I'll see the city through their eyes. It'll sure look different, special... Maybe we'll reach our own independence of our intimate grief and will bring the memory of our parents to a place of celebration...