2Latino.net

Como te miro tu voca,
Como si nunca la e tocado
Y como admiro tus ojos
Sin una mirada darte
Como tu sonrisa y vos
Me ensienden mi pecho
Y adentro de un crystal te veo
Sin tocarte y ya estas echo

Como mis palabras quieren conocer
Las cosas mas intimas de tu vida
Apprendo sin apprender tu forma
Y como en tu voca te toco
Se me calienta mi corrazon
Mi sangre tan roja como los rojos
Y solo en tu mirada sera la ves que es y no es

Quiero conoser contigo las cosas mas extraordinarias
Y el sielo tocar a tu lado soriendonos
Pero tu tiempo se esta acavando
Ya veo que te vas
Un dia mas, te lo pido
Deja que sea – lo que sera, sera

As I left work yesterday I received call from an old friend who I had not spoken to in quite some time.  As we began to talk, I stopped in the middle of it and smile, knowing that while I did not speak to this person in over 4 months – here we were having a conversation as if I had spoken to them yesterday.  When I hung up, I got to wondering about friendships and how different friends fit into your life.

If you measure a “strong friendship” by how many times a week you call someone or how often you speak and/or see them, then I am by far the worst friend you will ever have.   I have a tendency to not use my phone a lot nor do I “text”.   Call me old fashioned but to me texting someone is not a way of communicating nor does is substitute a phone call or going out for a cup of coffee.

As the years pass and different people come into my life I have learned to separate where they come from and where they’ll fit.   Some people you will know for a lifetime, while others will only come into your life for a given time and then leave.  Some come with good intentions, while others are there to bring you down.   I ask myself all the time – how does this person make me feel?  Do they encourage me?  Are they just here to talk about themselves and have they even heard a single word that I said?  After speaking to them, do I feel better or worse?

I think about when I was younger and all the bullshit people use to bring around me and how sometimes I allowed myself to get involved into it.  The same people, with the same story  – all going about their lives so insignificantly.  Same mindless chatter,  same story, same script just different characters.   While sometimes you cant change those around you, you can change those YOU’RE around.  Now a few years older, I want to become someone who seeks more than the norm.  I seek truth, respect, love, growth, and above all quality over quantity.

If someone where to write a book on my life, who would they choose to be those around me?  Who will fit into my story?  Who will shape the pages of my life? How will they fit into my life?  In my final show when the curtains close and I am gone, who will mourn me?  Who will even be there at all?  And where will they sit in the audience during my final farewell show.  Where will my friends now sit?  Not everyone deserves front row seats.

As time passes and friends come and go  -I have learned to choose my audience carefully.

If you have not already heard in the news – listen up.   One of the most amazing scientific research is going on right now that will change the way physics see things.   See link below:

Large Hadron Collider

Pretty mazing stuff huh?

I saw it yesterday, as the sun was bright
I thought of you and what you were doing
It brought a smile upon my face
Your secret place

A place where times just stops
Where water falls down like rain drops
I saw the angel and it touched my soul
Ur secret place of privacy from all

In my mind this is where you live
Smiling, with your art and hat

Ill sit here, in my dream state
“In a matter of speaking” – this is where I ll wait

???? –  A question I began to wonder on my way to work as I overheard a mother tell her daughter that she was not acting like a proper “Hispanic” girl.  The term sounded strange to me.

I can recall countless times back in Florida when I would use the term Hispanic interchangeably with my friends.  I never wondered where it came from or whom made it up.  I heard it in school and so I just accepted it.  Funny how youth can you just accept without even asking.  My mind began to wonder.

My research has found that the term “Hispanic” was created back in the 80s by the Reagan Administration to categorize those of non white or black decent.  But did those given the term really want it?  Why did they make it up?  and why call it such a term?  Would a person from mexico be categorized under the same label as someone from Puerto Rico?  Are they really just the same?  Some would argue that the “dominant culture” imposed this label on Latinos as a way of erasing their indentiy and their past.  My hypothesis? – mission accomplished.

Through the years I have met many who have come to call themselves Americans even though it is quite apperant that they are Latino.  I have seen Latinos worked hard to change their indentity to fit the cultural norms.  I have even met some who would look down upon those of their same culture, act snobbish because they are from a different city, speak a different dialect, and even gone as far as to change their name to completely erase any strand of “Latino” in them.

I must admit there have been times were I would question my cultures’ actions, felt ashamed about my name, and through time focused on diminishing my accent.  But time has a funny way of changing things and, to be quite honest, I never felt like a “minority” when I lived in Florida.  As life has taken me to different places around the world I have come to realize that maybe I dont want to answer this question.  Maybe neither label defines whom I am.

I am a proud, educated, intelligent – LATINO man

So ask yourself the question – are you hispanic or latino?  You will find that the answer is not quite as simple as the question.