Our personalities in social media

Social Media is about Relationship Social Media is about People Based on #1 International Best Selling Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

For the sake of public knowledge I am as guilty of and equally suspect as any and all suggested characterizations that I illustrate in my social media personalities virtual chronicles.

Before all the domains in the virtual landscape of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, LinkedIn , Blogger, just to name a few,were live, connected, and instantaneously accessible tools of communication, we were much like the tortoise enclosed in protective worlds and moseying along to our safe place of habitat and protected dwellings.

I was especially disdainful to the growing advances of internet technology. It was to me a further separation of societies and a defining division of those with available access and those without.

But I straddled tenuously into the territory of my virtual explorations and with comrades of all ages, locations, interests, perspectives, have found wisdom, insights. amusement and a most colorful assortment of interests and idiosyncrasies from the likes of fellow traversers in virtual reality.

The characters below are based on my own distorted concepts. It is no direct intention to "out" any identity. So if you are inclined to think its you and are honored by mention, please take a bow. If the humor of my musings makes you suspect an offense to you, please take a more salutary bow.

I delight in sharing pictures. Pictures from whence to now. Pictures of me, my immediate family, loved ones friends. Until I understood that everyone is not interested in every picture or video or last place visited, and whether it was sunny cold, or my dog is a pitbull or a "chiwawa" that I enthusiastically share, I began to build my online repository of content.with personal enjoyment.

Some of the most laughable moments online are shared in honest humor and brutal rancor by friends having children episodes, or discussing their weight gain/ loss and describing some of the side effects of digestive malfunctions.  Sometimes private voyeurism is embarrassingly posted,  hmmmnn!! quite accidentally??

What happens on Facebook does not stay on Facebook. Just by an investigating curiosity of some perverted postings, you, me and all who have no need to know about our social proclivities have shared incriminating evidence of our no longer secret follies. Busted!!

Tweens and the under 30 generations are best found Twittering and Instagramming since they have discovered that most of their parents and friends are just discovering social media. While we are having daily postings, sharing jokes, and chatting, tweens and 30 somethingers have migrated to the next techno frontier.

Occasionally they might share a posting to get a Like.  Birthday wishes or events that are neutral and get Likes are their miserly facebook offerings.
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We have all become marketers. If we can get enough people to Like our pages we can grow our business. If we need to solicit clientele for funding and we need a new audience to buy our services or products we post, we pin and we link.

Some people use the medium as a sounding board to intellectually cuss out their leadership. Some people post their bigotry, their insensitivity , their political posturing and their biased judgements.

For a former diplomat at an international convention in Geneva whose most illustrious career speech detailing her "wining" prowess as part of her official dossier, went viral on social media, it was her unplanned best exit strategy. She was quickly relieved of her post and returned to her home country.

Some people play games and use their work hours for beating the ratings challenges. And after their idle googlings and doodlings, most of all their connections see their games activity on public share. And they invite others to join.  Unknowingly..I suppose.

People with their clandestine agendas are usually unfriended. One friend was quick to exit friend status when seeing activities that the "friend's" nocturnal interests were more exclusive to others.

When I first saw my son's Facebook page under his page pseudonym I quickly sent an inbox note with motherly warning. Please remember public is not private and the wall of information you share can help you or hurt you.!!!!

I follow Atheist, Agnostic, Buddhist and Christian, Judaic, Islamic postings. The most militant subscribers in their doctrines are also those whose fervor for contention is their greatest passion.

I have found new friends, I have discovered people and places. There are the  sharers, posters and those who are quiet choristers. And there are also the ignorers.

Many also share their reasons for not being on social media.

They typically argue that they prefer to maintain a professional persona on sites like LinkedIn . They usually seem to have concerns about private information being public. This is an example of too much info (TMI).   An ex partner is lurking on facebook and  discovers what happened in Vegas is now public info.  This is cause for the claim that 1 of 5 divorces occur because of facebook.

Some of us indulge the adventure of social media to enjoy the magic of virtual exploration. For me discoveries are exciting, amusing, illuminating, and engrossing as I survey this human constellation in the social media virtual space galaxy.

Within this landscape we are all the artists. We are a colony of thoughts, ideas, dreams and fantasies. We are posting and sharing and nonetheless entertaining with our palette of varied substance.

So delicious are the tastings, that there is always plentiful and bountiful artistry to relish and savor.

How to welcome Fear and Turbulence

The emptiness that feels overwhelming, the bottomless agony of despair are immediate thoughts that emotionally describe the insecurities of fear and turbulence.

In reading the book Dying to be Me by +Anita Moorjani , the most provoking theme is that death is indescribably timeless and limitless. The most cathartic revelation of her near death experience is the welcome assurance, that in the death experience there is absolute peaceful bliss, rather than drowning fears.

Using the Anita Moorjani story as a contradictory reference there is a new prism to the dimension of fear for thought review.

When confronted with the fangs of fear,  we become emotionally psychologically and physically paralyzed. It is crippling, it is destructive and we feel helpless.  This state of mental and emotional torment and imprisonment is as if there is no release or escape and we are trapped in the bondage of thought and shackled inertia.

In faith, fear has been  the discriminating divide. From a prophet named Jesus,  whose life story is etched in the practice of love of, to and for all, christians have created  the niche religion mentality to suit their preferred denominations.  From Judaism to Islamic practices, the fear of God mantra, is intentionally imposed on worshipers and non worshipers alike, with equal disdain.   (Disclosure: I am not knocking anyone's  faith practices, traditions, beliefs.  I have a very fundamental core religion based faith. I know the intimacy of experiencing faith and the comfort and solace in tradition and ritual).

The fear and turbulence that we are constantly striving to overcome are uncomfortably habitual.  They are there at all times and are always feeding in our most vulnerable and weakest moments.  As we encounter situations which ignite fear, such as  the fear of dying, the fear of loss, the fear that is ever present in our daily struggles, the need for the extraordinary is most desired. The trouble is however, that the onset of fear, and the turbulence in its wake, create alarming despair and hopelessness.  The state of despair is despotic and ruthless.   The energy of fatedness is not in any state of mind to enjoy the extraordinary.

For example the need for money when the reality of bills is overwhelming and circumstance, situation, lack of, relation issues, sickness, ( .. we can fill in our very own blanks in this script) ,  the stranglehold of fear creeps up and we begin to acknowledge our phobias and disappointments.  When there are no answers that can actualize immediate and needed results to a despairing situation, fear wraps its groping arms around our withering shells. Fear is not an abstract and is as potent and as the poison of a serpent's sting.

Because fear and turbulence are constant...they surface without invitation and wreak unwelcome havoc on the sentiment of being.  The opportunity to court our fears, to find an elixir of comfort, to marry the experience of anxiety with the sensation of awareness is the internal opposing discourse of mind and matter.

Is it therefore logical, that we have the wherewithal to resist the fear that dwells and already inhabits the dimensions of our spirit and mind?    I admit, it is too difficult a theme that can be articulated by a "me" sermon .  My thoughts are shaped by my experience. So are those of each and everyone else. My attempt  to discuss fear and turbulence is a mere shadow of the proportional gravity of this topic.  I do not presume to know methodologies and philosophies and theologies that are cures for any of us ailed by the symptoms of fear.

Here is the much of the little that I can say.  Although the fears that are lurking in the many shadows of my life show up and cause me deliberate disorientation and insolent distress, they also cause me to get into survival mode.  They cause me to become purpose filled and purpose driven. In the throes of the opportunistic meltdown moments I irrationally seek reasoning and interior growth.  With each blow of despondency, my spirit responds with a rationale that defies circumstance. I find the sorrow in my weakness to be the bounty in my resolve.  My answers are never immediate to my needs. But there is one thing that fear will never capture, and it is my history. I look back, and in spite of, the unseemly odds, I have not become captive to fear.

In synopsis, my intimate experience of spiritual kinship with the Christ  narrative is scriptured by the Apostle Matthew, Chapter 4 verse 1-11 where the psychosis of fear is provokingly established.  While in a place of destitution and hunger fear suggests one is incompetent.  Fear suggests that succumbing to the perils of brokenness will alleviate suffering.  Fear feasts on the fragility of the mind, and begs to inhabit and claim dominance of the will to be strong, at our weakest.

Fear and turbulence are the precursors to unborn potential and possibilities. Sometimes in the snatch of disquiet, the imagination is propelled and we birth and crystallize the unfathomable. And fear becomes a welcome comrade.

Abundance manifests

All of beauty in its natural splendor and bounteous harvest is fervent with abundance.
Not to keep, but share. In.generosity. Always. ...Grace

The very concept of abundance is a shift to a new thought paradigm. The mindset to attract abundance , after the experience of the absence of the respect for what it means to have abundance, is metamorphosis. A shift is occurring. An awareness is birthing. It is the awakening and the welcoming of the invisible unknown to become manifest with potent and vivid deliverance. As with the birthing of a desired expectancy it comes after labored and prolonged perplexities.

Abundance manifests.

With mindful thought and action, and in rythymn with the universe, the intention of the mind, heart, soul and spirit finds the path that leads to alignment with the gift, Abundance. My history as scrolled in the pages of my thoughts is scoured in perception of unmet expectations. The reality is, I have been in receipt of constant abundance amidst the prevailing distractions.

In childhood, I lost my father at age 9 and automatically developed the symptomatic orphan mentality. My sense of dreams, aspirations, ambitions were foiled in the actuality of poverty circumstance against the backdrop of limitation and disempowerment. The illusion of limitation seeped into my psyche and I was not aware.

Whitney Houston rendered these lyrics, "I didn't know my own strength "and from her voice to my heart, I sucked in the meaning of each word as it filtered through each pore of my being and my soul responded. As the process of catharsis unfolds, the discovery of innermost radiance and abundance ensues.

From birth to now, I have been always shrouded in the legacy of abundance.  Being  cared for, nurtured and richly nourished by a powerfully prescient mother figure, along with siblings who empowered and engendered stability, perseverance, endurance, fortitude, dignity, nobility, and ostensibly abundant grace were not occasional sharings of generosity but perpetual gifts of overflowing deliverance.

As a developing teen, my perception of self was fraught with inner turmoil and discomfort. Not uncommon to adolescent dispositions, the need to be likeable is the disease of youthful arrogance and insecurity. Unless, you discover your niche, it is a constant interplay of desire vs need. For some the desired self idealization is entertained in the glorification of  sportsmanship, beauty,  talents, wealth, and scholarship. For me, the subtlety of the desired was to embrace a need for belonging. The gravity of the emotional loss of a devoted and adoring parent left a dulling void. So in order to compensate and find comfort, it was folly appeal to be self effacing and self diminishing. Numbed were the gifts of self mastery and self abundance. Serial exploits in limitation become the norm.

At pivotal markers of adult years, the fleeting grasp of abundance was courted with momentary savor. The romance of abundance was short lived and left a  path of devastation in its wake. In awakening to the gift of discomfort one is kept aroused in mystery and aching for fulfillment. In the chasm of challenge, and seeking, there emerges the appeal of yearning for understanding. It is in this struggle to manifest, that the mystery of abundance is the discovery of majesty that does not equate with seeking possessions, wealth and luxury.

Abundance and wealth are not synonymous. Wealth and the value associated with quantity is the least of the harvest and the treasury of abundance.Poverty does not describe being. With generous and wholesome desire, money and the exchange of goods,  services, benefits are fixtures of economic measure. Simple exquisite abundance is to discover awakened clarity of generous abundance.

In order to validate abundance it is opportune to validate loss. Without abandonment, emotional security is an abstract.  Without the experience of brokenness, emptiness, barrenness the idea of manifesting abundance is an aimless ploy of self flagellation.

The riches of abundant grace are the mistakes,  mishaps and missteps that come in the illusion of disgrace.

The principles of  abundant stewardship are :-  to be humble in adversity, to be kind without measure, to trust with infinite conviction and to persevere against all odds.  These are not testimonials of worldly endowments, it is the unquenchable, insatiable, amazingly radiant, grace of abundance.

For me, and perhaps the many, our struggle, strife, barriers and roadblocks are the strengths and victories we overcome to welcome our destiny,our Abundance.

Many Faces of Grace

Lately I have heard the noises in the silence. They are those of family, friends acquaintances who are mostly puzzled or unnerved or feel disquieted with my public openness.

The most recent of remarks comes from an individual who I have known for over 25 yrs. The most unique description I ascribe to this person is "the absence of being."

A self professed scholar, and worldly voyager. By his own account a qualified medical professional.   In two and a half decades, there has been no concrete evidence that the very existence of this individual is verifiable.

 In hearing my deliberate truth of my life circumstance, I was told that his remark  was, "Poor Grace!!

During my divorced 30s I was involved with a Mohamed from. Somalia. He professed to be of royal lineage and in addition to attending Georgetown University Law School, and driving a cab for a living, he was able to afford the best Italian made suits for his weekend clubbing devotions.

Masked under the guise of pseudo debonair and as good looking as my deceased father
was , he possessed the sadistic chauvinism of a militant and abusive con artist.

This discovery was made after a over indulgent alcohol induced sleep, while snoring obnoxiously on my sofa and the wallet on his person happened to reveal a name and identity of someone other than who I was told I knew. Because of his dastardly abusive behaviors earlier, I came close to conceiving the slaughter of a rabid creature.

The, Mohamed, like every other asylum seeking Muslim refugee from East Africa as I pejoratively reference, and cohorts like my "absence of being" individual were the regulars of the weekend clubbing establishments when we first became acquainted.

The other synonym mired in the bosoms of concerned relations is Public Grace.

I don't know about you. But these are the shoes I've been fitted with. I am walking a very jagged road strewn with calamitous pitfalls that begs for scrutiny and abject reasoning.

We're I a medieval character I would be flogging myself to a blistered pulp, because lest I am destined for some kind of sainthood, I must be chosen for the, woe is me,challenges of the cross.

In modern day era of economic wellness and comparative necessities, I am bereft of tangible evidence of what matters and my lack of virtuous silence is not saintly

There is the ego seeking to carve a niche. By reading my blogs or viewing my 57 th birthday video there is a plethora of public information to garner bias, prejudice, pity or applause.Becoming Grace @ 57

In December 2012, the public Grace without apology elicited funding for assistance in a distressed SoS appeal to family and friends. Dressed stylishly elegant and presenting a picture of poised glamor, my truths may have looked suspiciously dubious.

My intimate family members and friends were the most critical, the most cynical and the most generous in thoughts, words and deeds.

Of all the mix of emotions and concerns, there was levity and humor. One family member shared.."to be so bold is most admirable, but if you plan to invite alms giving, at least look the part."

Ultimately, I am Abundant Grace. I do not know if, why, how, what.

In recent months I have ached in symbiotic synergy in the perils of broken trusts as a witness in the journey of my own son's choices, chances, mysteries.

We are sharing parallel experiences. The most constructive advice is given with the best intention. I am also guilty of volunteering my thoughts through negative vibrations. The most repeated recommendations are to stop being a mother. Though not in the exact words, but with the intended sentiment.

As I have been told, when I adopt a villain persona and presume that I can perpetrate a heinous act against an enemy, my son quickly reminds me, that it is not my nature.

When I look at the trees through each season, I am filled with awe and amazement. Trees that were dead twigs blossom in the Spring. Until they are no longer, they are cared for. Somehow, Mother Nature knows. And trees innately know they are never abandoned.

As I trod through all of my preambles, my sojourns are laden with many trials, hardships, fears and unknowns. The part of me that is innermost , that has no public appeal, persona or embodiment , lives, thrives, breathes only because I know, who is Abundant Grace. Without Abundant Grace, I will be shattered.

Therefore, but for Divine Grace, I am.

The exit zone ... A tale of Beans and Rice

My body chemistry is really so much more fine tuned than I give credit to.

I can eat 2 meals a day and am filled. If I eat more butter, bread, fries, cake, I automatically bloat. The poundage just plasters itself and seals any means of shrinkage to a throbbing fat cell, with gluttonous satiation.

In my mind I know the extra fifty pounds I carry is just a continuous rivalry between my Monroesque proportions and the big girl hiding in comfort flab.

Big girl Phoebe is chronically selfish and a ruthlessly jealous of her alter persona Marilynesque. So I cater to both.

Today, with hunger for the second meal of the day around 6p, the Popeyes wing and breast, with red beans and rice was clearly an invitation to warfare.

With a triple glasses of cold and refreshing juice "extract" mango pineapple orange beverage, my body automatically started into a hastened lethargic sleep needy comatose stupor.

The effects of the beans and rice were highly toxic and combustible.

And under Mimzy's, - introducing my Granma pseudonym - watch is my ever ready battery adrenalin fueled 5 yr old Rayl.

Slipping quickly into a food induced catatonic lazy, I pleaded with Rayl to delight in her Disney channel amusements and hoped her Daddy would soon be home to the rescue.

I declined her requests to have video dance presentations where she would delight me with her choreography and I would be jest fully videoing her frenzied moves.

By Daddy's arrival I was sailing on my magic carpet ride.

Five hours after and the effects of beans and rice are wearing off. Phoebe is languishing in her foray with the food that makes her palette salivate. The same delights that would send her digestive system into septic shock.

Monroesque infatuations of fitting that size 14 dress and wishing it looked like a 12 are in the immediate forecast.

Phoebe, Marilyn, Mimzy, these wanton pleasures would paralyze any youthful momentum lurking within the 57 year body you work so hard to cherish and maintain

My body has spoken... Pay attention. Beans and rice, fried chicken and juice cocktails are in the exit zone.

Dream On

We dreamers have our way, of facing rainy days and sometimes we survive
We keep our feelings warm, protect them from the storm, until our time arrives
Then one day the sun appears, and we come shining through those lonely years....

lyrics from I made it through the rain sung by Barry Manilow

What medicine can be prescribed to hope, to trust and to adorn  "belief" that allows one to dream on?    I am really stretching my quotient of fortitude to herald the possibility of  life purpose.  I am struggling in this incarnation to actualize my dream and embrace my life purpose

In my likeness of being, I am very aware, understanding, sympathetic and emotionally cognizant of why I am and whose I am.  I do not underestimate gratitude for the blessings.   The maladies of poor health- crises of unbearable proportions  -disease - disasters - unconscionable pain that we as a community of living share are the mirrors of my own self indulgence.  But, the "I" is ever in struggle and I want to taste and imbibe that euphemistic sense of accomplishment and completion.

From the many rags to riches, the "once was blind and now I see", the spiritual journey to faith, the victories from the desert of despair, the world is engorged with lofty profusion in stories of all who have walked their life paths and reached their worldly nexus.  The worldly distribution of all that can be amassed is still most disproportionately imbalanced and I find that the struggle to be most burdensome. 

Our generation of the post baby bloomers, the generation Xs, the millennials are inundated with maps for charting our lives to purpose, to prosperity, posterity, and social definition.  The philosophy of being is commerced with possibility. We dream to be.

Marilyn Monroe,  a figment of being,  lived her life shadowed by the farce of beauty and hypersensitive sensuality.   Michael Jackson, caricatured his artistry of being, to be masked under the veils of fantasy.  Steve Jobs, supreme guru of ibeing, masterfully proliferated world reachability with touch and sound.  Martin Luther King Jr. prophetically rendered the I have a Dream speech, and in witness to his dream, a President Barack Obama emerged.

What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. The cornucopia of related beingness is ever accessible and readily available. From Ebay to Amazon any purchaseable item is within seconds of ownership,  subject to one's disposable income. The creation of billionaires have increased exponentially. From AOL, the now almost extinct dinosaur of internet entre to Google the playground of virtual connectivity, we are constantly talking, and wooing, and exchanging, and garnering information for more dissemination. And our minds are constantly wanting and dreaming of the indefatigable more.

With Facebook and other social media platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, we invite ourselves to discuss and relate with family, friends strangers, the public,  about every nuance that shapes our beingness.  At my discretion, just like managing my palette for food, I can be aggressively consumptive in my utilization of virtual engagement.  Apart from my own meanderings, public pronunciations, confessions, demonstrations of poetic license,  it is also my desire for understanding more of the whole, that keeps me curiously engaged.

Oprah shows the majestic being of what could be.  Her treasury is overflowing. Her wealth, her achievement, her accomplishments are testimonials of grandiose empowerment.  She dreamed that she would be bigger than the circumstance that she was born into. From the outside looking in, I heartfully and earnestly salute the richness of her demonstrations of being.

Tyler Perry uses the myriad of challenging circumstances that would have undeniably stalled even the most daring of dream seekers to demonstrate the power of what can be. He merchandises the "If" factor....He presents the gift of his being cloaked in humor, and bathed in welcome prosperity

When T D Jakes describes the beginnings of his journey to becoming one of  the most successful leaders in the realm of ministry, it resonates the Dream and belief potency.

Wayne Dyer, Caroline Myss, Marianne Williamson and a burgeoning army of spiritual intuitives all resounding eschew the mental firmament of self awakening, self ascension, self resurrection.  For the flock of the faithful, believing is the spiritual serum of salvation.  The litany of quotes from the Secret is touted with philanthropic spewings.  Every speaker, writer, blogger has become the pundit on matters of what one desires to become.

Innumerable volumes of works and theories are expounded on what the passion to dream entails. From the most scholarly and literary sciences our dream patent is encrypted with exploratory details and flourishing disguises.

With my posts, I am in a constant state of  wonder. In my state of wonder, I am writing my life examination.  The tests are plagued with refining and modifying the given circumstance with the desired result.  What I have wished could have been, hasn't.  The gift of understanding the dilemma of my existence is trapped in the shackles of disappointment.

As the blueprint of life unravels without the success roadmap in approachable reach, it  makes the inspiration and the aspiration to live the dream seem unrealistic.

Nonetheless, there is a drama unfolding and the script is being perfected.  I am wrestling  the burden of embracing all that is not mine to have. Without the measure of wealth, success, and all the things that I continue to dream will unleash my inexhaustible potentiality, without the  tangible expressions of the realization of security, without the diminished returns for all my life experiences, I would not be me.

Even in eyes of misfortune, I celebrate that I am yet unfinished. In the dearth of the unexplainable, the darkness of the soul, as described by Caroline Myss in her book Spiritual Madness, I passionately desire to be more.

As with all who are conflicted, and torn, and even demented by the ongoing dream to experience their earthly " I am more than any of the limitations of my awareness" I continue my quest with unquenchable  passion and I and you, we must Dream On.


This song is what I am saying...We Dreamers have our way  Of facing rainy days, and sometimes we surviveWe dreamers have our way


 

Beyond the housing industry crisis who gets the profits

I spent my Sunday selectively enjoying the choices of TV viewing that would be most uplifting, ...Oprah's Soul Sunday and my take away was" A partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth". as defined by Gary Zukav describes the spiritual relationship ..a soulmate.    And then I also wanted to be intelligently entertained.

I locked in to the Showtime series House of Lies and watched all twelve episodes of the first season.

Oh boy!!! Entertainment kudos!!!!

Between the under the cover, in the boardroom, under the desk and ever constant sextilating encounters, the management consulting stories are vivid truisms of art imitating life.

As a former Deloitte Project Coordinator, who experienced the "beached" effect,   the character Marty, played provocatively by Don Cheadle courses you through the management consulting culture language interpretations. The terminology "beached" means- you are about to be dumped or thrown to the sharks.

I was gleefully amused by Episode 4.

The Principal of Marty's sons' school explains unambiguously that she was a former Project Manager at Deloitte and knew the tactics that Marty was using to manipulate his cause.

Gosh,,!!! I felt so kindred to the story because it was no longer art.  I was the story.
And just like in the show, when the management pod was sent in to eliminate the existing team, I was told to sail on.

But it was even more extraordinary.

Episode 1 House of Lies essentially deals with the foreclosure crisis. Starkly truthful were the realities of who benefitted most from the Obama Administrations efforts to quell the housing industry meltdown.

This was not art and theatre and characters.

I lost my home.  The bank that first declared their insolvency Indy Mac; one of the many benefactors of bailout protection; now operates as Onewest;  has not agreed to participate in the February 2013 payout settlement .  OneWest continues to bonus its shareholders, retain high paying legal and management consulting companies.  For myself and others, we have yet to be given a means of due process and restitution.

I purchased the house Rockville Md 20853 in October 1998. I completed over $100000 in renovations over the years. I lost the home October 2009.

As I viewed this episode of House of Lies, I felt the truth of what and who have profited from the mortgage crisis to be a very personal and familiar wound.


Again, the takeaway from the Showtime episode, (barring all the excesses, sex drugs etc..) is that profits were squandered and corporate greed prevailed.

And I have yet to recover.

http://www.sho.com/sho/house-of-lies/season/1/episode/1

Through Thick and Thin

My Sisters and Me

l2r: Valerie Williams, Gemma Walker, Grace Walker, Maggie Gonzales, Monica Walker, and Vicky Martinez sitting

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega

As the last of my six sisters and the tallest, I have had the distinct honor and privilege to be nurtured, schooled, advised, instructed, sheltered and most always comforted in the warmth of my family brood.

There were actually a total of 11 siblings. 

 Of the five brothers, Anthony died at 2, Brian at 51 and Michael at 57. So we are now a sibling family of eight, as both our parents Andrew and Rose Walker are deceased.

On January 26 2013, we celebrated my sister Margaret Roses aka Maggie's  73rd birthday.  (Shown here in the picture in the middle).  We have a favorite saying in our family, "You want to make God laugh, well tell Him your plans".  On Sunday January 27, with offsite coordination from Rayanne, Maggie's daughter,  we  decided to have a surprise toast for Maggie's birthday at  home in Maryland. Shall we just say.. plans went awry.  Both the original hostess, my niece Tonya , and also  Maggie's grand daughter, were stricken with sickness.  And thus our guest of honor and her husband Raymond and son Colin and grand daughter Paloma, were a no show.  Harumph!!!

We decided to celebrate with important guest of honor in absentia.  For the occasion, my oldest sister Vicky shared her macaroni pie;   Monica, made green bean salad.   My oldest brother Andre's son Greg,  cooked the fried rice and chicken,and he was accompanied  by  his wife Andrea and three daughters, Danielle, Samantha and lil baby Emma.   Michelle and her brother Brad (daughter and son of my deceased brother Michael)  brought a freshly home made pot of corn soup,  and my brother Derek, his wife Colleen, along with their son Daylan and daughter Collice,  fixed a salt fish buljol with hard boiled eggs and avocados, with scrumptious fresh baked bread selections.  My son, Daryean,  his two daughters Deana and Raylynn and I shared my complement to the food - curried chicken and rice, and fruit punch.

We had a hearty pot luck and feasted with cheers of celebrations to Mags.  We tried to get a Skype hookup to Mags in Dale City, Va. but our techno savvy efforts were not cooperating.  But there was a choral rendition of "Happy Birthday to you", sang by everyone with joyful and rambunctious glee to Mags on speaker via phone call.

Andre my first brother and his wife Grace, reside in Trinidad and Tobago.  My sister Gemma, was also visiting Trinidad for the funeral services of a dearly beloved family friend Fr. Henry Charles, who died suddenly from a massive heart attack.  My sister Val and her family, live in Garden Grove California. They celebrated remotely and in spirit.

For Maggie, I share a special toast:    Maggie, you are the founding member of the Walker, Gonzales, Martinez family who migrated to the United States of America from Trinidad and Tobago in the early sixties.  With your generosity of spirit, each and every member of our family has been able to share a slice of being and living the American dream. For each of us you have been the hallmark of stewardship, through you dedication and unswerving love.  You have always ministered and shared your home, your family, your bounteous hospitality, and your cherished caring.  I have witnessed and been the recipient of such unconditional love.  If  there is a such a way to describe the beauty of your magnanimity, to me it is no less than sacred.  I am always and ever humbled and overjoyed to be your sister.

The treasure of sisters like mine is immeasurable.  I was nine, when our father died in 1965.   My older sisters and brothers each took on the roles of supporting guardians and protectors to ensure my mother and other younger siblings were cared for.  I learned that family is about caring and supporting one another.

From my sisters, I learned to be enjoy the follies of beauty and fashion.  As a matter of fact, on the day of Daddy's funeral, while everyone was swept up in the busyness of preparation, solemnity, and protocol for corteging, (yes grammatically excessive), I was trying on my sister's eyebrow pencil and smudging the reddest lipstick on my lips, in my prep effects. I think the only red showing after my cosmetic experimentation, was my burning ears, after the clean up was performed by my sister Val.

As we have begun our post AARP years, my sisters have allowed me to experience friendship and loyalty.  Through many twists and turns, life hardships, relationship, faith journeying, mothering, marriage, divorce, death, disease, financial loss, social challenges, we have been an army of perseverance, strength and fortitude.  I have learned dignity, pride, self awareness, self respect and repentance. 

Maggie shared her thanks with everyone who celebrated her birthday with this email and prayer: 

Dear Family,
Thank you, thank you so much. It was a total surprise to me to know that you were all gathered to observe my birthday. What an honor! So sorry I could not be there in person to enjoy every moment of it, but was glad that even briefly we could connect. A special thank you to all the primary planners and preparers, I heard from Vickytoria about all the wonderful dishes prepared for the occasion
This is my birthday prayer for you -
Lord, help our family for their continued caring and giving, let our differences blend in the joy of our living. Keep our hearts open in true communication, with patience and kindness without reservation.
May our harmony unite us and strengthen our love, with your grace and mercy and the blessings you send from above.
God bless and stay well. I love you all!
{{{HugUps}}}Maggie And, that's what its all about