Fear is the cause of so much disease.

Stress (aka, worry), anger, anxiety, are all faces of fear.

Fear is a killer.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

He lifted his head from his pack. The black garbage bag, holding aluminum cans to exchange, set in front of him. He had been sleeping on the cold cement of the store entryway, far back, near the door, in order to hide from everyone, especially cops. Anyone walking by would think there was a bag of garbage near the door. The smell had woken him up. He’d been smelling it around 2 a.m. every morning for the last two weeks. A sort of chlorine smell tinged with rotten egg. It started when the new fracking facility was built at the edge of town. The town had protesters for a few weeks but that had died down. He wondered what it was they did there since it wasn’t only the smell that woke him up but the dull ache between his eyes that came with it. He laid his head down again and covered his nose with his coat sleeve. The ratty coat smelled better than the air and helped filter the stink from reaching his nose. He breathed through the coat fabric and fell into a light sleep, the dull ache a painful monotony.

Four blocks away from the storefront, were neighborhoods of houses. He sat with his can of beer that was quickly warming up from his large hand. That dull ache was back. It pounded between his eyes and he couldn’t get rid of it. Over the last two weeks, he’d tried aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen; nothing worked. He drank more these last few days, trying to take the edge off the pain enough to sleep. Not that sleep was necessary. As a retired cop, he no longer needed to keep a schedule but his wife, sleeping in the bedroom, would like to enjoy the time they now had. He’d like that, too, except, this damned headache kept him awake. He pushed the chair into the reclining position and closed his eyes, setting the almost empty can on the side table. His mind couldn’t ignore the pain enough to sleep. A half hour went by and the dull pain was almost a banging in his head. He got up and walked through the kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom. His wife was laying on her side, asleep. In the closet, on the side shelf, was the lock box. He pulled it down and opened it. He should keep it locked but never did. Inside, his companion for thirty years, five days a week, his old revolver, was sitting on top of the cloth he regularly used to clean it. He pulled out the gun, turned around, looked at her sleeping and shot her in the head. He aimed the barrel under his chin, and pulled the trigger.

Across town, in another residential neighborhood, not as nice as a retired cop could afford, he paced the living room. He and his wife had just bought this house six months ago. His son loved the neighborhood and already had several friends. The job was a town over at the state penitentiary; a short 15 minutes away. He worked four ten hour days and was now on his three day weekend. He paced, his mind racing, the dull ache between his eyes seeming to get worse. Two weeks of this. He was coming to the end of his ability to ignore it or work through it. One of the COs he worked with noted that he seemed like he needed his weekend since everyone had noticed how short tempered he’d become. He paced. He hadn’t even taken off his holster much less his uniform. His wife came out of the bedroom, down the hall, her eyes squinting as she reached the doorway into the living room. His son was asleep in his bedroom that was next to theirs. The living room windows had shades rolled down and thick curtains that were kept closed. He’d recently demanded that. His wife looked at him, half hidden in the hall doorway and quietly asked him to come to bed. He smirked. If he could do that, would he be pacing? He paced. She waited a few minutes and moved to go back down the hall. She stopped, turned back, her mouth open as she started to say something and he looked at her. In one smoothly practiced move, he pulled his gun out, shot her directly between the eyes, then put the barrel in his mouth. The pain was gone.

©2019 E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

A family member forgot to set up a weekly visit with me. I got angry (an expression of pain).

I could just as easily have accepted that they forgot, didn't and won't apologize, decide that I'm worthy in my eyes (no matter what), release that they won't meet my expectation and know that it is not my burden. In other words, I could just as easily choose contentment through acceptance.

I am still choosing anger, aka, my pain.

We can take any experience we have and choose the pain or accept that it is and then it was. Acceptance of the 'what is', is key for it to become 'then it was'.

We can decide how we feel about it, what we will focus on in the experience (pain or understanding self/others) and whether we will continue to review it, reverberating the pain with repetition or accept 'the what is'.

We can decide to take responsibility for the parts that are ours and release the part that is the other person's. We can also decide to confront but will have to know our expectations will need managing as we are almost surely to be disappointed.

In the end, we can choose to ensure, that no matter what we decide (pain or release), we are kind to ourselves. It's part of the processing and healing.

This is what it means to choose joy. This is what it means to focus on contentment. Acceptance is not a denial but a choice--a method of dealing with whatever unpleasantness is presented at our feet at any given moment and leaving it there.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Busy doing nothing but picking lint off the blanket across her knees. She had tried calling her niece earlier, but, like the last twenty times she had called, her niece didn't pick up. The phone just rang and didn’t kick over to voice mail. It was so damned odd.

Her life had become pretty small. Occasional calls to her niece, less occasional calls to her son, and quick exchanges with other carriers made up her social interactions. She delivered bundles of newspapers to stores in the area. The only job she could find at her age.

She had tried searching for over a year. She’d quickly gotten used to walking in and seeing the glances at the sagging neck, the beginning of jowls and the gray hair. After only six interviews over that year, she had given up. She had started the delivery route over two and a half years ago. She was fine with it; it would do.

She had moved all her things out of storage soon after starting the route. The boxes, accommodated along walls and filling the corners of rooms, created a good base for a hoarder’s paradise. She was always so tired after lifting, throwing bundles and driving, that organizing, cleaning and letting go of memories was beyond her physical or emotional capability. She, continually, ached all over.

Her days were wake up at midnight, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, pick up and deliver the bundles, come home, shower, smoke cigarettes, then sleep to start the cycle again upon awakening. She tried to ignore her feeling a bit lost, a bit depressed, a bit dead inside.

He entered the apartment. The front door opened only so far and the air was stuffy. The cats were gone. The local humane society had two new residents. The litter boxes were there, full and odorous. He walked into the hallway. It was filled with furniture, boxes and a solid layer of dust. There was a table loaded with two bird cages and various planting pots. Next to that was an old desk, worn boxes piled three high and two across. He walked into the living room from the entry hallway to the only visual rest, a small bookcase filled with books, two deep on some shelves. Although filled, there was order to the bookcase, unlike the rest of the apartment.

As he stepped into the room further, he stopped. His eyes and mind became overwhelmed. Every corner had boxes, things piled on top of boxes, papers on top of things, boxes on tables, things under tables. There were narrow areas where she could walk from the well worn spot on the sofa, to the alarm clock near the window across the room and to the kitchen on the opposite side.

He wandered through the apartment. He wondered how she had let it get so bad. He wondered how he had let his life become something that he didn’t share with her. How had he let her life become something she didn’t share with him. He walked through and wondered.

Tears came to his eyes as he remembered how funny she could be. The bittersweetness of each tear also captured the days that would become weeks of almost catatonic depression for her. They captured the pain, the fear and the walking on eggshells that had been his younger years with her. She worked but it had taken everything out of her and she would come home to sit, smoke cigarettes and sit. She would barely speak. When she did, it was usually yelling and criticism followed up with apologies. It was tragically pathetic for the both of them.

He breathed deeply of the dusty, stale smoke air, lost in his memories, and stared at the depression on the couch. It looked almost as if she’d just gotten up and walked into the kitchen.

There was that draft again. There had been these odd drafts going through the apartment, lately. Ignoring the chill, she walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She stared at the hard edged chunk of cheese, the half-eaten apple, the floppy carrots in the vegetable bin, swung the fridge door closed and went to sit again.

She wondered if this would be the way she would spend the rest of her life. Quietly, barely speaking to anyone, working the route to eventually retire. She guessed that would be alright. It had been her life for almost three years, now. Made sense to continue.

As she sat, she wondered why everything seemed so quiet over the last few days. She lived near a farm and would hear the trucks go by on the narrow road, throughout the day. She hadn’t heard the trucks in over a week. She rarely looked out her windows but when she did, the road was always empty.

He looked around one more time and saw the fridge was open. He didn’t remember it being opened when he arrived. He opened it further to find desiccated cheese, a shriveled apple and wrinkled carrots. He firmly shut the fridge door. He decided he would not go through all the boxes, papers, things. He had no time to deal with all of it. He had two days before he had to fly back for meetings that couldn’t be rescheduled. He decided it was all going to the dump.

He had finalized all the arrangements: junk removers would be in to clear out all of the boxes, the accumulation of a life, and a cleaning service had been hired to remove the odors. In two weeks, he would fly back for her funeral.

©2018 E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Education can get you only so far if you don't have the intelligence to practice it.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Critical thinking has become an art (how fucking crazy is that?)

and it's being lost (behold our downfall).

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

If a compromise requires subservience, it is no longer a compromise but enslavement.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Loosely true story dressed as a fable:

The grandfather sat in his armchair, looking out the window. Sometimes, when the fog was just right, his mind would wander back to those worn brick streets. The hiding, the danger, the resistance to complete insanity. The resistance to the Nazis. His grandson, walking in and plopping himself in the armchair opposite, brought him back to the present.

"Gramps, I am confused about something."

"Tell me what's going on."

"You know I'm active with a lot of activist and equal rights groups, right?" Gramps nodded.

"I invited my friend from my poli sci class to the Women's March and he said no. He told me that he's in complete support of this president and he's not going to march against him."

Gramps looked down at the floor and asked, "How do you feel about that?"

His grandson looked down at the same spot on the floor, "I'm confused. In many ways, he is really great to hang with. I just don't know if I can be around him, now that I know he's okay with someone who has shown he's racist."

Gramps looked across at his grandson's face. He was about the same age as his grandson is now when he entered the resistance.

"This president has not spoken out against several of these hate groups. These groups do not like Jews. They also don't like any Brown, Black or Native people. I don't care what your gay friend does in his bedroom but they don't like the gay people, either. I fought in the resistance. I, in your situation, would not think it's good to have such a friend."

His grandson met his grandfather's gaze. "Integrity is always a choice, isn't it, Gramps."

Gramps smiled.

Separation from nature through belief, expressed in lifestyle

has produced our current state.

How's that working for us?

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Things had been really happening in his life! He couldn’t believe how it had all fallen into place. He graduated, moved to New York City a little over a year ago and had been working for one of the major political parties for the last four months. He had finally gotten off his friend, Derek's, couch after six months of crashing there and six months of sofa surfing before that.

How had it all gotten so screwed up? He didn’t want to be in this place. He wanted his moments of wonder and excitement from when he first started the job.

He had a long walk home through mostly well lit but some dark streets. He’d been drinking with Derek and another friend, discussing the general situation and what he would do.

A 45 minute walk home should help clear his mind and put their opinions into the mix. He walked purposefully, right hand in his pocket, left hand fingering this phone mindlessly as he walked.

He was unaware of the footsteps till they came rushing up behind him. The man was taller than him—6’6” or so. He didn’t have much of a minute to really see the guy. He flung out his left arm at the guy’s face and it connected. He felt the watch face on his wrist break against the man’s cheekbone.

At that second, he saw the quick flash. His body jerked violently as he, simultaneously, felt the burn in his chest. Holy fucking shit! This asshole just shot him. His face nakedly showed his disbelief as he crumpled to the ground. He was dying and no one knew. The street was a dark one. No one would know for a while.

No one would also know what he knew. He hadn’t thought it would be a murdering offense but too late to know that now. He had decided he was going to blow it. He had decided he was going to let the attorney generals of New York and the United States know that voters had been systematically wiped off the rolls on a regular basis over the previous two years in order to skew the results of the primaries and the election coming up in a few months. He had held that information for three months and had finally decided to come forward.

How had they known? He would never know.

 ©2017 E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

She flipped through the channels, dissatisfied with everything she watched in the three seconds she took to assess the screen. It was sticky hot and it was 10 p.m. She had two fans going and her bedroom window was open about five inches. It was all it could go. She had hammered nails into all the window sashes to ensure that they could only be opened so far by an intruder. Even so, it still made her uneasy, sometimes, to have the window open.

She heard the rustle outside again. Odd, since there was absolutely no wind and hadn’t been any for the last two days. Maybe it was a neighbor’s pet going through the bushes. Again, odd, she thought, as it was 10 p.m. and she knew her neighbors to have their animals in well before then. It was a coyote neighborhood. Pets weren’t safe outside any time and especially at night.

She ignored the rustle and continued flipping through the channels.

“For God’s Sake! Just watch anything!!”

Her breath caught for a second then she let out a scream heard across two streets. Lights went on.

“Oh jeez! Now ya done it!”

She screamed again.

“OH MY GOD! SHUT THE FUCK UP! ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS WATCH TV!”

With this, her mind jumbled. Seriously, what the fuck?

“SERIOUSLY!!!! WHAT THE FUCK???” she yelled. 

“Dude! I’m homeless! I just wanted to pretend I have a TV for a little while. I was just hanging out, leaning on this bush. Why did you have to fuck it up? Shit! The cops are gonna come! Half the neighborhood is awake, now!”

“I’m sorry!” It flitted through her thoughts how ridiculous it was she was apologizing to him, when he was the TV peeping tom.

A minute of quiet and then, “Naw. I’m sorry. I scared the crap out of you. I sort of forgot myself.”

“It’s okay.” Again, the ridiculousness of comforting the offender made her thinking feel a bit wonky.

The phone rang and it was her neighbor. She assured them she was okay and had been startled by a movie. She apologized several times for scaring them. Their lights went off and, soon, the lights at a couple of other houses did, too.

“I suppose it’s okay if you stay, BUT, I’m not watching just anything. You shut up or move on.”

Another minute of quiet and then, “Deal! Thanks!” She ignored the slurp of liquid that followed.

©2017 E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Strength is forged by the fires of struggle.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

This is what it looks like to me:

I, being of brown skin with the ability to speak a second language, am not welcome in what has been, for at least part of my heritage, the only home I've known (Indigenous).

I, being of brown skin with the ability to speak a second language, am not welcome in what has been, for at least part of my heritage, the home I've known since 1500. Yuppers, England and the rest of Europe were scrambling to get to the 'new world' while the Spaniards were already invading.

Everything happens for a reason. It's called our thought processes.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed,

but nature does not depend on us.

We are not the only experiment.

R. Buckminster Fuller

What backstories do we tell ourselves daily? Let's mind our backstories. They produce our future front line.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Blessed and astute are those who can find art and joy in the menial, thereby transforming it into the extraordinary.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

My breasts do not diminish my natural intelligence nor my self-inflicted education, unlike how viewing said breasts seems to diminish the male psyche.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself,

in your way of thinking.

Marcus Aurelius

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers.

In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest

in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there.

Hermann Hesse

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,

anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

Carl Bard

Collective consciousness: we are capable of

turning any tide.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going

but I'm on my way.

Carl Sandburg

Live, so you do not have to look back and say: 'God, how I have wasted my life.'

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones,

and good in everything.

William Shakespeare

We can remember that thought is controllable. We can learn to consciously view time as the only real currency we own.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Never put off till tomorrow, the book you can read today.

Holbrook Jackson

Emotions are not predicated by others' actions but by perception. Choose your perception and illicit your emotion.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Within our minutes, days, years, lives, we can choose to focus on what is missing or what is available. We can then choose how to feel about either one. If there is a perception of something missing, we can be hopeful that there is something to fill the gap or frustrated that the component is not there. If the perception is of having something available, we can choose to feel grateful about the abundance or frustrated that it's not enough. We choose

all the levels of sentience and attitude about our

minutes, days, years, lives.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

I have found that if you love life, life will

love you back.

Arthur Rubinstein

Thought is deed. It has ramifications, a reaction, a result. Affirm thought through physical deed but do not underestimate

the power of thought.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

E. B. White

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy

for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

Sholom Aleichem