In Mexico, the churches are full of painted statues of angels and saints... Almost every day of the year is patronized by a saint or an angel. Instead of asking, "when is your birthday?", some people ask you, cuando es tú santo? "when is your saint?" That way it is easier for the parents to name their baby... For instance, my brother-in-law José Francisco and José Montaña were born on or near the day of Saint Joseph, March 18th. Had I been born in Mexico, my name would be Silverio. How about that for a name? Silverio Goldstein! Actually, it has a ring to it. Maybe I'll finally change mine to something that makes more sense, instead of Ross, a male form of Rose if I am correct, a popular name given to American Jewish sons in the late 60s and the early 70s. Ross Goldstein, Ross Greenburg, Ross Golub, Ross Geller... Ross isn't Jewish, it's Swedish. As a last name it is Scottish... "Silvar" is to whistle "the whistler". But, it could be that Silver has Latin roots. Not all Spanish is closely tied to Latin... And English has a strong Latin base. Who would make a saint out of a whistler? Only neo-Feminists applauding whistle blowers revealing sexist corporate practices... Granted, that could be a fast track towards sainthood, since the saints tended to have been tortured and killed in horrific forms... I will never forget the Hillary Swank movie, Iron Jawed Angels. Believe it or not, I have seen it twice on Mexican television... In Mexican slang, you call a battie person "Chiflado". Chiflar is "to whistle". There will be points in my writing, if you haven't already discovered them, when I'm sure you will prefer substituting my Saint Silverio with Saint Chiflado... I accept that. After all, all the Greek Gods had their good and their bad sides; the lesson of life is that of balance. You can't have good without bad; you can't have logical and intelligent without chiflado and naive... But the question is, "how do you know when something is truly good or truly bad?"
Anya once told me, "Ross, I'm glad your father died..."
I'm glad too that my father died. We celebrate his death every December 31st. No, just kidding. I don't celebrate New Years Eve. Never have. I remember being at my cousins' house in Cranford when my mother appeared with the news. I remember that New Year's Party. As you must understand, my mother didn't celebrate New Years with us... It didn't become a custom in our house. It doesn't have sentido. Nor do I mourn my father's death on New Years. On New Years Eve I pass the day slightly confused, trying to feel what others feel and not encountering the celebrative mood. It's a gray day. Kind of like Christmas Day growing up one of the only Jews in a Christian community. I called those holidays, "No Days". During a snow day, all the children benefit by missing a day of class... A nice white gift from the skies... I would find my local friends and we would explore the woods below the snow flakes, fantasizing that we were characters in a Jack London novel. Or we would find the other kids at the local hill and sleigh ride. We would engage in Snowball fights, dig snow tunnels, build snow ramps for Olympic tobagonning fantasies, build snow fortresses, offer to shovel the neighbors' driveways for a buck and then return to one of our houses for hot chocolate hoping that the snow continued knocking off another school day, allowing us to continue our winter celebration. Who benefits from "No Days"? For me it was a vacuum. It was a day when I didn't exist within the world around me. Like the 2-year-old hide and seek, peek-a-boo game, If I cover my eyes, you can't see me... The joke was that the only businesses open on Christmas Day were Movie Theaters and Chinese Restaurants and that was where you would find the "Jewish Community" on Christmas Day.
I'm glad your father died... You can imagine my response. How can you be glad that my father died? And she said, "I know how that sounds... But had he not died, you would have had a whole different value system. You would have been a totally different person.You would have been spoiled. Probably would have become a doctor too, married young, had a comfortable life with your family living in the suburbs and you would never have batted an eye at me." She probably had a point. I learned humility. I learned that nothing was in the palm of my hand. I may have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. But quickly that spoon changed to pewter or lead... I learned that not everyone is fortunate; not everyone lives as is displayed in most Holliwood movies and television sitcoms. Ya know those wonderful New York City apartments rented by recent college graduates... How about that wonderful cafe in Friends... Spend each day of the year watching New York City movies and you will see 365 films showing lifestyles that just don't exist in everyday life. But someone is renting or owning those apartments and condos and gorgeous houses in the suburbs or the country... I can assure you that I am not that person. I need a miracle to see that American Dream come true.
I met Anya at the Art Student's League in Manhattan one Friday evening. I was sick and she was beautiful; straight out of "Fiddler On the Roof"... I was so sick that I had just left my human sketch "class" to lay down on a bench in the lobby. Anya came out and was looking at the postings on the bulletin boards... I don't know how the conversation began and how it happened that we exchanged numbers, but we had a bunch of things in common... What those things were I don't remember, other than we both went to College in Amherst, Massachusetts. I went to the alternative school for intellectual chiflados, Hampshire College and she went to Amherst, College...
Anya was a struggling computer programmer and a suffering artist. She had moved from Kiev, Ukraine with her parents at the age of 7 and was more Apple Pie than I imagined myself, yet she also was a wonderful Babka. How can you be the two at the same time? The beauty of the "American" Melting Pot and the "American" Dream. Many Mexican intellectuals would become angry with me for using the word American referring to people from the U.S. And they have a point... (Just explaining the quotation marks). Anya's parents fled the Soviet Union as political refugees. Her father David Miretsky was a classically trained painter who participated in a political protest in the forrest of Babi Yar, where the Nazi's began to experiment with mass killings of Jews. The Jews were forced to dig a mass grave and were lined up on the edge and machine gunned for 2 or 3 days... It's a falacy believing that the Nazi's planned on exterminating the Jews from the beginning. Their plans evolved, just as do our lives and my writing... Babi Yar marks the beginning of changed plans. Anya's art is a cross between Ukrainian folk art and Frida Kahlo. Had she not fled with her parents to the U.S... She probably would have become a successful ceramicist painting traditional folkloric motifs on her bowls and plates, although with very little money for the borscht... And she wouldn't be here to become the first and last person to tell me that it was a good thing my father died.
There is no Satan, Lucifer, Devil, Beelzebub... God is the God of Good and Bad. It's like the complaint by a person of African Descent, "No one has black skin!" And at what point of human shading do you determine when a person crossed the line from black to white? There are many Mexicans who look Asian. There are many Mexicans who look more acceptibly "American" than do I... If we stand next to each other on the other side of the border and they don't open their mouths, they will be treated with more respect than would I, especially if I open my mouth and speak what seems like English As A Second Language with my Gringo-Mexican accent... Granted, if I cross the border to Texas, La Migra will grab me by the scruff of the neck and throw my ass back! Back to José's Texan Daughter-in-law and the chapter "Neither Here Nor There." How do you know when you have crossed from the good to the bad or back? Why would God only participate in what seems good for us?
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| Gregorio, Diego, Margarita |
Back in 2005 we were invited with our cupcake business into a group of artisans from the Xalapa region. Fili, the organizer of the group passed by our cupcake stand in the lakes one of the days I wasn't baking and started a conversation with me. He was a lawyer and the organizer of the local Boy Scouts of Mexico. I believe he felt that I and my gourmet cupcakes would give him prestige... What he didn't expect was the invidia response of many of his artisans upon receiving me in their group. "Invidia" is a profoundly negative form of envy that leans towards jealousy. I don't believe the concept exists within the U.S. I knew. But it is a strong part of the Mexican culture. The bi-product of invidia is black magic and the evil eye; just an example. Invidia is real; the other two, fantasy. What's real is that the invidiosa sees you succeeding and wishes upon you failure. If you don't fail in their eyes, they may push the invidia up a level and try and sabotage your business or your relationship, your career... We all grew up with the prejudiced joke, "How many Polocks does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" In Mexico there is a joke (if you can call it that) and goes like this: A man walks into a shop and sees a room with well over a hundred boxes on the floor. All the boxes are labelled with the name of a country and all are covered and locked, with the exception of the box titled "Mexico". The man sees the shop keeper and asks, "Sir, why do you have all these boxes on the floor with names of countries and the box named Mexico is the only one without a top?" Well, the shop keeper replies, "Let me show you. As you will see, all my boxes are filled with crabs; crabs from all these different countries. But first I will begin with the German crabs. I must unlock the top before removing it because these guys are really capable. But they are small. Pay attention and you'll see why I top their box. At that moment a crab notices that the top of the box was removed and he starts jumping, trying to grab the top of the wall with his claws. But, he doesn't have the reach. Two crabs walk up to him, one pats him on the shoulder supportively, the other whispers in his ear and both of them kneel down and offer their "hands" for the first crab to put his feet. They raise him up until he grabs the top of the wall and hoists himself to the top. When he reaches the top, instead of jumping to his freedom, he turns around, braces himself, bends downward to his countrymen and offers a claw to pull them up. One by one the German crabs leave the box until it is empty. The shop keeper turns to the visitor and exclaims, "DID YOU SEE THAT?" and the visitor replies, "Yes, I sure did. What a strange behavior. You should have topped the box before they all escaped." The shop keeper walks to the other side of the floor towards the box labelled MEXICO and says, "now check out the Mexican crabs": In the box are crabs of all sizes, but for the most part too small to escape from the box. However, the visitor notices something strange occuring; there is a giant crab, tall enough to grab the top of the wall with a hop from his mighty legs. The other crabs notice that he is about to pull himself up the wall and in a panic they all run over to the giant crab, grab his legs and yank him back down. This repeats itself interminably...
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| With our first oven in 2004 |
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| Cutting one of our cakes |
While I was with Fili's artisan's group I was approached repeatedly by a few salesmen of traditional Mexican candy. Each time they approached me they talked about hooking me up with someone. They knew I was married to Margarita, since it wasn't a secret. Plus, Margarita and I always worked together. I repeatedly told them, "I have no desire to be hooked up with someone. I'm married with Margarita." They thought that was a joke and looked at me strangely. I got fed up with their disrespectful behavior and complained to Fili who explained to me, "Look, they don't understand how you, an American can be married to someone who isn't attractive." I looked at Fili with a sarcastic look in my face since these guys were far from being Prince Charmings and their wives (yes, they are married) have indigenous roots, far from the model of beauty portrayed her or there. Plus, I didn't qualify Margarita as unattractive. He continued, "You've gotta understand where they are coming from. They spend their lives thinking about going to the U.S. and obtaining 3 things: Dollars, American Trucks and the Blonde. They don't understand how a Gringo would come here and not want the 3 principles of their dream." Actually, they don't understand why anyone would come here if everyone goes there... I must be crazy... Not long after this, it became difficult to obtain decent spaces for our cupcakes with Fili until Fili stopped offering us space at all... At the same time (Margarita told me this a few weeks ago) a female vender of garapiñados (sugar glazed nuts) and spicy mixed nuts and seeds we knew in the lakes approached Margarita and asked, "Is it true that you are married to the Gringo?" Margarita said, "Yes" and then the woman said, "Ya know my son Ulysses. He's single. With us you could create franchises for your cupcakes."
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"Black & White" Choco/Vanilla |
I had absolutely no interest in the Angels in Maine. Truthfully, the idea bored me; like pink unicorns... Non-human, non-spirit human-like forms with wings... BAH! The host of that bed and breakfast really hoped we would return to New York City with one of her angels. I imagine that many of the people chose the bed & breakfast for it's theme. I doubt I will be able to even dig up from my memory the actual name of the establishment, it was the furthest from my mind at the time, pushed further away because I felt the idea really corney...
Sometime afterwards I saw the film City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan and became a believer. No, just kidding...
I have always believed that my success as a human being will always be in direct relationship with another person, with other people. I don't believe that a baby grows into a child who grows into a successful adult without the nurturance, guidance, support and aide of others... When the newspapers or television news channels mention someone who made it out of the ghetto "against all odds, they don't explain who was nearest that young adult when he or she was a child or adolescent (a teacher who took special interest in them, their local pasteur, an uncle...) Instead of understand the reality of the communities where these people grew up, they are used as examples "If they could do it, why not the rest? Why should we give to the others if they don't make the same effort as this guy?" They can also be used as negative examples, such as "at times there is a miracle in this community. Such as this person. We'll focus on this one. But, the rest... Forget about them..."
I do believe in "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" but only to a certain extent. First someone must show you the need for wearing boots, have the money for buying those boots for you and the means for getting to the boot store. And then that person must teach you how to lace and tie those boots. But, before hand, they must teach you to walk. You may have a wonderful potential. But if no one nurtures that potential and inspires you, it's kind of like the question about the tree falling in the woods, "if you didn't see and hear the tree fall, did it really fall?" The answer is philosophical. If I didn't put myself on facebook, am I in Mexico? Not in your life...
In the fall of 1988, after leaving the Carrier Clinic in Belle Mead, NJ, I worked in the women's shoes department of Sterns at the Bridgewater Mall. During one of my breaks I walked out onto the promanade where all the smaller stores are. I bumped into Dominic Babjac, the son of Czechoslovakian immigrants. In fact, his uncle, Mr. Spacek, was the janitor in my elementary school, Old York School, one mile down the road from where I grew up. When I saw Dominic and walked up to him, he turned white, as if he had seen a ghost and exclaimed "I thought you were dead!" I was that tree someone heard had fallen... Dominic wasn't in the forrest at the time... Now he is. Now he knows I'm still alive. Had I not known Dominic, I wouldn't have known that there were Czechoslovakian immigrants in our neighborhood. Had I not "met" Natalie last month on facebook, I wouldn't have known that there were Ukrainian immigrants who also spoke Brazilian Portuguese in our neighborhood. Had Natalie not "met" me, she wouldn't have known that I paint or draw things she believes belong in galleries in New York City... Had my father not died, I may be a doctor today. Had I not met Michael, I doubt I would be married to Margarita and living in Mexico...
What does all this have to do with angels, saints and pulling yourself up from your bootstraps?
The root of ignorance is "ignore". Ignorance is the state of ignoring. The ignorant doesn't understand. But maybe that person chooses against understanding. Maybe that person creates a culture of misunderstandings and ignorance, negating, denile... During the argument against social welfare in the 1990s, it became popular to ignore the reasons for the creation of social welfare in the 1930s that was expanded in the 1960s... What would you say if I told you that a study of families and education values during the 1930s showed that the families who kept their children in school the most days per year were of Jewish and African-American heritage? The Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s succeeded to a certain extent. But it also succeeded in separating the Black middle-class from the Black working-class. Changes from an industrial economy to a service economy removed from the cities the traditional employment offered to the black working-class. Decreases in importance placed upon the public school systems left these communities without the preparation for entering the service industries... At the same time the U.S. created within itself an incredible market for cocaine and heroine (today the #1 consumer in the world) and deregulated the sale of assault rifles, creating horrible violence in the inner cities... I'm sure the black middle-class says, "Thank God we were allowed to escape while we could!" However, they removed from those communities the socio-political and spiritual voices and the inspiration. They removed slower and more secure, less destructive models of success and the know how for obtaining that success and overcoming horrible obstacles... Today, the image of those communities is the Welfare Mom and the Crackhead dad... the adolescent gang member... "What do you expect to be when you grow up?" The answer, "If I grow up, I expect to be in the state penetentiary..." In 2010 the Cartel of Sinaloa controls 80% of drug trafficked WITHIN the U.S. and "employs" 90,000 gang members to carry out the dirty work. That same Cartel is the main buyer of unregulated assault rifle sales in Arizona; those assault rifles being transported to Mexico, reaping havoc on this side of the border...
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| Ross & Willy in Fresnillo July 2009 |
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| Wilfrido5, Benigno2, Nicolas7 |
I don't believe in winged angels. But I do believe in human angels, messengers. Messengers of God? Well, you tell me what is God... In childhood I had a dream that my father appeared as God and I never dreamed with my father again. I remember standing out towards the end of our gravel driveway, throwing stones at the large maple trees on the other side of the road, looking up at the sky and bargaining with God. I believe I had just learned the concept of "Dynamic Equilibrium" in biology class, about turger pressure and the physical need of cells to maintain a balance of salt and water within the cell as is found outside the cell. A cell with too much salt inside, will explode, since the cell will fill itself with fluid until the internal saline ratio is equal to that of the external ratio. If it is the reverse, the cell will implode. The optimal amount of fluid inside and outside the cell wall is what maintains the shape of the cell and the capacity of the cell walls to function as protectors with passageways for the movement of nutrients and waste... At the age of less than 13 I applied that concept to my life and said, "look God, I have suffered 13 horrible years. I believe this means that you owe me 13 wonderful years. Today until I turn 26. What do you think?" Well it seems that God didn't hear me. At the age of 18 it seemed that time and chances were passing me by. In turn, Dominic Babjak was given the opportunity to believe I had killed myself... in my apartment on Mercer Street, a block away from where I had gone to high school; a block away from where Francesca had gone to high school. In 1988 I was sleeping on a wood floor, on top of some sheets and a comforter lent me by a co-worker at Kirby Vacuum Cleaners... I had no furniture, no curtains, no nothing. Francesca was 3 weeks with her family in Long Beach Island. She stopped calling...
I can still hear playing in my head the part of the episode of an animated Christian children's preschool program about a human-like locomotive and his journeys. During this part of the episode the locomotive loses all his friends and family and finds himself in a dark tunnel, his choo choo sound being piped out the chimney stack of the coal oven, All A-lone, All A-lone, All A-lone...
The religious concept of the angels is that, no matter how bad the situation, God will send them to accompany you so you understand that you are not alone within your struggle. In my concept of angels, in the name of God, a person appears in your life with a message, with a tug of the arm, with an idea, with a conflict and spins you unexpectedly in a new direction... Over the years I had hoped to be that way for Willy. I hoped to distance him from his fixation on the devil and satanic or very violent music. I gave him some books I read, to help him focus on other possibilities, hoping he would be able to concentrate sufficiently to enjoy the reading process and relax his mind. The problem is that, at the time we were working 7 days per week, 18 hour days, almost 365 days per year. We had our own problems to focus upon. I had my own internal and external battle raging with the realities of living in Mexico. Today, at the age of 30, Willy pared up with Indez, an 18-year-old friend of the family. She became very endearing towards Willy. Has shown him that he can have a relationship with a woman and that someone truly cares about him other than his mother and his sisters. Forget about his brother-in-law. I don't care about anyone. Last Sunday Willy and Indez left for the state of Puebla to look for work and see if they can create a life together... Margarita and I pledged to help them financially and gave them a set of Kitchen Aid pots and pans. When they parted Willy and Indez hugged me. I told Willy I was proud of him and what he and Indez were doing together... What else can you ask of life?
At the simplest level, the angel or messenger can be a homeless person on the street in the East Village who approaches you and says something "out of the blue" that removes you out of your funk, like the man who approached me on Avenue A, I was walking towards East Houston, and said to me, "Don't worry. You're going to be a great man. You'll have children who will respect and revere you..." I call that a blessing. It's not about the words so much as it is about the intention. The message is found in what isn't literal... I was on the subway from the Lower East Side to Brighton Beach and noticed a beautiful women in her 60s, a lot of wrinkles on her face. She looked very sad. For some strange reason I walked up to her, looked her in the eyes and said, "you are really beautiful. One good reason for living another day" and I changed cars... When |
Los Lagos, |
What I noticed was that, with all the negativity we experienced during the day 12 pesos for a pastelito? It's too sweet! It's too rich. It's from a Gringo. Who gave this Gringo permission to put his tables here? someone always appeared and erased that negativity with a comment, with their positive energy:
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Strawberries with Cream |
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Reeses Peanut Butter... |
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Blackberry with Creamcheese |
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| Chocolate Coffee |
Monica, my girlfriend from Puerto Rico once asked me if I believe that people are born evil. And I said, "Absolutely not." Was my Uncle Stan a bad person? He beat me when my father was dying... Was my older sister Sheri a bad person for pinching me and wanting to see me cry as a baby and later on? Were the kids in elementary through High School bad people for picking on me incessantly? I must believe what Anya said about my father dying...
How do you know if something is truly good or truly bad? What if the good is truly bad and the bad is truly good? or something in between...
I live a journey from the day I was born until the day I die. Within that journey are multiple lessons and challenges. Before, after or when I die, what will I be able to say about myself? That I accumulated lots of money, fame and prestige? Or that I overcame what seems like unsurmountable obstacles and learned innumerable lessons and shared my experiences with others so that maybe they could also overcome their own personal obstacles and learn the difficult lessons placed in their lives and grow?
During my struggles I've been given the blessing of having to think about the things that happen and happened around me; the conflicts I've had with people and with myself.
My first premonition occurred in 1989 with Francesca. My second premonition occurred in 1999.
I was sitting under a large tree in Prospect Park, Brooklyn trying to draw and then trying to write... I was depressed and hoped that the drawing or the writing would remove me from my funk when I saw a group of young men crossing the lawn in my direction. They were throwing a football. Amongst them and also participating with the football was a young woman with long dark hair. I always loved Tomboys and found myself staring at her. A few thoughts entered my head. But I couldn't remove my eyes from her as she approached. They were coming in my direction. What luck. But, truthfully, what luck? There was no luck in this. She was just one of millions of young strangers living in New York City at the same moment I was sitting under that tree. At that moment I had a vision of her giving me a flower. I shook it off as a stupid fantasy and returned to my notebook as I heard the footfalls pass me in the grass. From the right side of the tree I sensed movement and the shadow of someone pass over my shoulder and I heard a young woman's voice say, "A flower for you" as she dropped a dandelion on the open notebook... I looked up at her. She smiled and disappeared. I was so surprised by the experience... Maybe the correct word is "shocked", that I didn't even say "thank you". I didn't even turn my head to watch her walk away, to see where she went. To see if she turned around to look at me. I just sat there, frozen, looking at the small yellow flower in my notebook. And I knew that God had just given me a sign. He sent ME an angel...
But what is God? I just said, "he"... But God doesn't have a beard, God doesn't have testicals... You may ask me, "how do you know that?" And yes, I will reply, "you've got a point. I didn't lift up her skirt to check." Sounds totally obsurd, doesn't it? If you were God or if you imagine yourself the inventor of God, would you give God balls? Can you imagine God having sex? Fucking? But who? And why? It must be for pleasure, because when you are omnipotent, you just have to look at the belly of a woman and 9 months later you have the son of your choice. Tall, blonde long hair, blue eyes, sweet smile... I'm getting off track and I'm offending good friends with my blasphemy. I'm sorry.
But, let's get real folks... If we're going to believe in God, the least we can have is some natural miracles and some real-life angels and stop the hypocracy.
One day in Xalapa, I believe it was in 2005, we were visited by two Jehovas Witnesses, in Spanish they are Testigos de Jehova. I had the misfortune of opening the door to them and allowing them to speak. I had the added misfortune of asking them a question and that question is this: "what if Jesus appears today and says, 'look guys, you got it all wrong, you never truly listened to me. I didn't wish for the dividing of the earth into religious groups; each one saying "in the name of Christ..." and that they are closer to the word of God than the others, killing the "non-believers" etc...' what would you do?" One of the women quickly responded "in the year 900 something, God sent word that there were to be no more prophesies, no more prophets, the bible is sealed..." With that I said, "thank you for your time, but truthfully, it's a mistake to receive Testiculos de Jehova with all their convenient responses..." The womens' mouths gaped and eyes opened wide. But I was sure they would tell themselves, "Foolish Gringo, doesn't speak Spanish well and confused Testiculo with Testigo (Testical with Witness)..." and I shut the door in their faces. I receive Witnesses from time to time, depending upon my mood. I believe that, in the beginning, each person is human with each person's uniqueness. It's possible we could have a good conversation. You never know.. However, most of the time I send someone else to the door or I ignore their knocking when I know they are in the neighborhood. Force feed me something edible... please. I find bibles and "Watch Towers" lacking seasoning and moisture... I think I'm full of enough shit to be made to swallow more...
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