self care

Perspective

/ Marlo / Leave a comment
Adoni enjoying Grand Canyon.

It has been a year since we traveled to Arizona, a birthday wish of mine. I said “mine”. My family wanted to go. They were super excited about doing something we have never done before. But truth and reality certainly out way my romanticized view of this beautiful place. A photographer and artist at heart, even a naturalist, I have lived through an artist’s perspective of this place. However, I want to talk about my son’s experience.

Adoni’s notes after we returned from Arizona.
He did have a good time but chose to focus on the hard parts for him to digest. I did the little sketch. That is his handwriting.
May, 2019.

This week, when I asked Adoni to remember our trip and some of his favorite parts he said he didn’t have any good memories. His most profound memory was about the pain he felt. We were told by the tour guide about the number of people who died in the previous of months. It was shocking. This statement put the fear of God in all of us but mostly my husband. I will not throw my husband under the bus right now and blame him. However, I will say his love and desire to keep our wildest child safe hindered Adoni’s experience in Adoni’s mind. Adoni still can’t formulate a full intellectual response, but he said “you guys wouldn’t let me see anything, you embarrassed me”. He can detail the exact moment and movements that lead up to Luis’ fight or flight response to Adoni’s actions.

Last day of our trip, Sedona, Arizona

As I am the one homeschooling the kids and Luis is out bringing in the income, I am the one who is adventurous, leading the kids out in nature. What I don’t get about Luis’ fears and concerns with Adoni is that Luis grew up a free and wild child himself. My guess is that he had the village always looking out. We don’t have the village. Either way I have allowed Adoni to explore in a way that pushed me, heightening my own fears. This gave him freedom to grow emotionally and physically, to learn boundaries. That trust was missing while we were in Arizona. Factor in the fact that we haven’t traveled as a family to unknown places. This was a huge learning experience for Luis- HUGE.

I put these pictures together to show Adoni. There were moments of joy for Adoni. I don’t have many photos of him with the group as he choose to stay solo.

I shared his notes with him. He smiled and thought about these moments. He had forgotten and he said so. He admitted that his best memories were being with his cousins.

Thank You

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A room with a view. It was my view inside looking out in June 2015. I was recovering from a surgery, one that thankfully saved my life. I had a colon resection in order to see if the cancer that was found during a colonoscopy had metastasized. It had not. My recovery room had a view of my house, the back of my house. I live a 5 minute walk from Bristol Hospital, where I had my surgery.

I can’t really explain in words, the feeling and comfort I felt knowing I could see my house from my hospital room. I also was on heavy duty pain meds, so my feelings were a bit intense. I swore I had taken a photograph of that view but after skimming back through I regretfully didn’t. I do have a photograph of the plants and flowers from friends and family, in that window, but not the “view”.

Fast forward to the present moment. My view, from my house, from my back porch, from my garden, is of Bristol Hospital. Occasionally, I have a fleeting memory of my time in the hospital but always I am thankful. The building is always there to remind me.

Fernandez Family

This current stay home, stay safe has me seeing the hospital a lot. And my thoughts are full of hope and sadness. I am thinking about all the folks working at the hospital and the folks who have been admitted to the hospital, and everyone all over our country, Dominican Republic and the world. Wow, that is overwhelming.

My family helping out.

On my end of the street there are 4 medical people and several essential people who live here. Once upon a time in my former art life I made several public art pieces, including a banner that was done without permission and I hung it from a building in downtown Hartford. I am still not sure how I really pulled that off. Those were the days when I was more passionate about all things art. This week I felt inspired to make a banner to hang on the backside of our house for all the people at Bristol Hospital and our town of Bristol, CT.

My view.
Another view.

From Marlo and the boys, Thank you. Thank you to everyone who is doing the hard work. ❤️

The cheese touch…

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If only it could be as simple as the cheese touch. Thanks Diary of the Wimpy Kid, for some comic relief in such a difficult time. If only it was as simple as crossing my fingers and the virus wouldn’t come my way, anybody’s way. I want it to go away. Yesterday, Wednesday was a breaking point for some friends and family. I found myself reading this book to my husband late last night, little did I know the book I grabbed in the dark would reflect something similar to what is really going on around us. Only thing different is this virus is real and changing the world as we know it.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

My husband was having a hard time last night, too much information and too many things out of his/our control. We have family here in Connecticut, in various parts of New York, where it currently is most affected, Florida and Dominican Republic and other areas too. I know we are reflecting every other family out there. But that doesn’t make it any easier to not feel out of control. The unknown, not knowing if we will ever see our moms, dad, brothers, sisters, extended family and friends at the end of this.

Our family has been watching a series on Netflix called All American, amazing show on so many levels. My take away from this Novela, as my husband calls it, is communication. And with that communication comes men, and their boys or children who are talking about their feelings. There are women and girls too but I am raising boys who will become men who need to know how to communicate, speak up for themselves and share their story. The timing of this viewing couldn’t be more perfect given the circumstances we are living in. Earlier this week, although not Corona virus related but my younger son felt compelled to share something with me that was bothering him. This is a huge win in uncertain times, I am happy that he felt he could talk to me.

Thursday March 26, 2020. Adoni eating grapefruit and enjoying the sun.

Thankful for a new day and the sun. Although it was still chilly at noon, 50ish degrees, my husband and I started painting the front of our house. Since we own a painting business the painting of our own house had been put on the back burner for 2 years straight as paying jobs took precedent. Not this year though, to help my husband feel in control of something we prepared last week and ordered the paint. Even though business is not at all normal, he, with my help, can maintain some sense of dignity by staying busy painting our own home.

This link I found helpful. A friend shared with me- thank you.

https://vimeo.com/399733860

And Poof… It Is Over

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It is not a magic thing, but it all happened so fast it felt like magic. Will there be a grand ending? We know the answer will not have any magic. I am writing this post to officially say goodbye to the people we didn’t have a real chance to say goodbye to. We just up and left- like radical. Although most of the boys will never even see the post I am writing it anyway for closure.

We left the Dominican 6 days ago and I feel like I have a hole inside. Rio maybe feels something but he is so 14, in his mind, he is elsewhere. Me, I am stuck with all these faces and relationships that we were building with coaches, trainers, trainees, baseball loving youth, apartment mates, new friends and some family who live in the city of Santo Domingo.

Rio catching.

In the photo above, Ramon Delgado, the trainer and Pedro his assistant along with the boys watch Rio. So about 25 days with these guys, one can’t deny a relationship forming. We intended to be in DR for 3 months or more.

Genaro, an American Dominican kid training like Rio and Rio.

Remember when I had said Rio hadn’t even seen the ocean. That weekend with Genaro he had gone to a dance party for kids, then next day they went to a private club by the ocean. So yes he did in fact see the ocean before we left.

Rio as catcher and Pedro giving advice.

Our roommates, Katy and her helper Altagracia, helped us figure out the city. Katy helped me learn how to be on my toes and be safe. Our cousin Mariel helped us too. I was looking forward to being able to say that I lived in the city, and we survived! It has been many years since I had a roommate and certainly a new experience for Rio.

Alta and Katy.

And with this I say goodbye, con Dios. I really hope that we will see everyone again. The latest I have read about COVID-19 is that we will be looking at months-many months before we even see something called normal again. There is no magic in that.

Rio arriving at practice with a kid who shows up every morning just to hang out and get things for people if needed. Sweet kid.

Corona 2020

/ Marlo / 2 Comments

Not sure if you believe in signs but this morning I woke and the last sign arrived in a message to Rio’s phone via WhatsApp. With in an hour I purchased tickets for us to fly home to be with Luis and Adoni. On one hand I had romanticized our experience here in DR. I truly believed we would be fine in DR, Rio doing his baseball and me making sure we were all set. I too was working out at the gym with a trainer. We were going 3 times a week. Although I thought we would be able to do much more during our days here in DR. At best all we could muster was his practice and the gym during the week, movies once a week and maybe going away on the weekend. And Corona virus is not really on the island, after all there are only 5 cases, so they say.

  • My hair, I washed it yesterday and there was a clump of hair in my hand. Oh, something isn’t right.
  • We had plans this weekend to go to our house in the mountains, our nephew who lives in the house is sick, like really sick, I learned this last night. Also our ride fell through. Side note, I felt that if we need to go to our house in the mountains in case the virus took over we would be safe there. I was not feeling that after learning about these details.
  • The ominous message that came on the phone from unknown person. It said get ready, buy a water, candles and food, after the elections on Sunday, on Monday everything is going to close down.

You know when you just don’t feel complete or right, also Rio commenting that he really wanted to go home. At first listen, I thought he was feeling that way as the baseball thing is HARD. But think about it, we are a homeschooling family, we are together all the time. Now granted, my kids need to have growing pains and experience tough things. But maybe in a time of crisis it is not necessary. And lastly and maybe most important, Adoni is a healthy kid, but he is also my allergy kid who has asthma. My son is immuno-compromised. I want to be home with him. Our town and state are closing things left and right. The USA is also banning certain countries from flying into the country. I decided I don’t want to be stuck here in DR, living the dream.

Please stay safe and hope the curve flattens.

Who goes to the salon once a week? Dominicans do.

/ Marlo / 2 Comments

Today is international women’s day and although this post has been in the works for a while now I thought it appropriate to publish it today.

When I first experienced this idea of the “salon” in DR, I honestly didn’t understand why. Why would I go through so much trouble to straighten my hair when in no short time it would be back wild and frizzy. That was my understanding of the salon-putting rolos-curlers in the hair- an addiction to have straight hair. Well I am partially wrong. I missed the part called family and women doing things together. Let’s think about the salon as a woman’s world and woman’s work and most importantly companionship.

My grandmother Rena and her sisters.

My grandmother and her sisters set their hair with curlers, slept with those damn things, and this happened regularly. I thought of it as quaint, something from the past, but I missed the point. What an ass I am/was. In my defense, my mother never did her own hair in curlers and certainly never taught me to do mine. I was also a teenager in the 80’s when everyone who had straight hair got a perm to make big hair. My perspective has been about the art of it- the finish, not necessarily the process – and companionships. My grandmother, the one not looking in the picture, had 5 sisters and they had a beautiful bond and one that lasted. Maybe I am romanticizing it by saying that they confirmed those bonds over and over by doing each other’s hair. My great aunt Freda is still alive! She will be 94 this year, beautiful soul, she is the one pictured far right.

1987 high school yearbook

Here in DR, it seems to be a right of passage of women to learn how to put hair en rolos, one female member of the family passes it onto the next. I totally understand there is the immense history of hair straightening here and Dominicans are the best at it. The roots aren’t necessarily from a good place, and I really can’t bring up rollos with out mentioning the roots. See the link below, a trusted friend Ruth, shared this link with me.

Natural Hair Is Still Under Attack in the Dominican Republic

My salon experiences over the last couple of months here in DR. They were Joyful and full of family and companionship even if I didn’t understand every word.

At this moment I would prefer to think of the salon as self care and comfort. So I will announce that I have had an awakening about self care and salons since the summer of 2019 when my cousin did my hair for the first time. Thank you Andrea. It has only taken me 18 years to figure it out, or my entire adult life?! I say 18 years because I have been traveling to DR since 2002. As my friends know, I am not a regular attendee of salons, nor do I do my nails at salons. How regular of me, or boring or conservative with my money, call it what you want but it hasn’t been my thing.

Me volunteering in the Bodyshop at Wasteland 2019, California.

I am an artist and I think it is time that I allow myself to enjoy self care experiences versus thinking about the art of it all. I worked at Miss Porter’s School, an all girls boarding school. I was the photography teacher there for 14 years, I loved my job. It is interesting to know that the other part of my job was heading the costume, hair and make up crew. I was in the position of doer, not receiver- 14 years!!! Don’t get me wrong, I always saw what I was doing as art, start to finish and I was proud of my work. So to bring this post full circle, I have always been in the position of companionship but not always receiving the care or allowing myself to take it in fully. And for some reason, this year, family is what brought it up for me in a way I hadn’t noticed before.