Bel Baca

almost Author

Birthday Massacre 2.0

by Leave a Comment

On my birthday over a hundred people were massacred. “For Christ’s sake. Come on, world!” I thought. “Can’t we all just get our shit together?” Events like that might have caused me greater disillusionment in the past, perhaps days feeling the blahs, but I’d listened to an inspirational talk on YouTube years ago and I’d heard, “No amount of you feeling bad will help someone else,” and it made complete sense to me. Not that unpleasant feelings shouldn’t be felt or even embraced with both arms, but in this case it was clear I didn’t need to chase them. The perpetrators had already done enough damage, and me being unhappy would help no one. So I didn’t read the news, or watch any more about the France event.

painted-globe
Image courtesy of morgueFile.com

And then I had the best Birthday ever. The end.

Except it wasn’t the end. Because it never really is the end till we’re dead, though those who’ve seen ghosts or believe in reincarnation might disagree, but that’s not the point of this blog. Anyway, I’m alive, and later saw a friend’s FB post. “To honor the victims of the recent world tragedies, I encourage all of my friends to perform one act of kindness every day.” It was my friend Noelle, a person who volunteers her time and effort to help children.

“That’s it!” I thought. The perfect short answer. She’d pointed out what many of us already know deep down, to be true. Even in the face of insanity, we have the power to change the world for the better.

Speaking of change, I went to sleep not entirely happy with yesterday’s blog, so of course I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and re-did it to what you just read. I feel it’s more streamlined this way (though I still like the other version).

 

Birthday Massacre

by Leave a Comment

On my birthday over a hundred people were massacred. “For Christ’s sake. Come on, world!” I thought. “Can’t we all just get our shit together?” Events like that might have caused me greater disillusionment in the past, perhaps days feeling the blahs, but I’d listened to an inspirational talk on YouTube years ago and I’d heard, “No amount of you feeling bad will help someone else,” and it made complete sense to me. Not that unpleasant feelings shouldn’t be felt or even embraced with both arms, but in this case it was clear I didn’t need to chase them. The perpetrators had already done enough damage, and me being unhappy would help no one. So I didn’t read the news, or watch any more about the France event.

DSCF1224
Bel at Morro Bay

What I did do, was enjoy the epic birthday surprise my husband had undoubtedly toiled on for weeks, a friend showing up at our door to drive me to our nearby library to find a card in the Sedaris section that led me to a friend at the flower shop, then breakfast nook. I squealed with excitement and embraced each friend as they handed me flowers, humbled and thankful they would do this for me, a mere human. This continued at the grocery store, Coffee Bean I like to write at, fast food joint, and we proceeded in a group, Wizard-of-Oz style, on foot, to Stan and my favorite (and wonderfully priced) sushi restaurant to encounter a whole bunch more people I love, friends who are on-purpose creative, funny, hard-working, and kind.

The next day we attended a friends’ beautiful wedding, then were off on our own wedding anniversary trip to San Francisco that involved a surprise Stan had planned for months, plus elephant seals, thousands of monarch butterflies, and gobbling goats. Not to mention picturesque beaches like the one you see here, both of us on paddleboards, staring into the waters to see stingrays swimming beneath us.

Yet the deaths were still somewhere within my awareness, and when I picked up my phone, a Facebook post caught my eye. “To honor the victims of the recent world tragedies, I encourage all of my friends to perform one act of kindness every day.” It was my friend Noelle, who’d been kind enough to take a ton of photos at the birthday treasure hunt. 

“That’s it!” I thought. The perfect short answer to good. The long answer of course involves more, and for those who can do more (or would like to post peaceful solutions to discontinue tragedies such as the France one), by all means, comment here. Yes, comment away. Or go and do. Or both. Or at least do what makes you happy and harms no one.

Connectedness

by Leave a Comment

“I could have never lived through what you have,” she told me, as we sat across from each other at a bustling LA eatery. “What? No, what you’ve been through is so much harder, and way worse,” I told her. I’d read her autobiography,* detailing how she’d survived a murder attempt that left her with a permanent scar across her upper lip, was beaten by her husband in public DSC_3856-2while people cheered on, and much worse, before she’d made it with her children, to the United States from Sri Lanka.

That was our lunch chit chat last month. Me, in the presence of this lovely woman named Teera, who I’d met at an IWOSC writers’ meeting, and was captivated by her kindness, humility, and cheerfulness.

We walked across the street to MacArthur park, a place where drug dealing, prostitution, and the like, has taken place over the years. “I wanted to to show you this,” Teera said at the lake, and we took in the beauty of The Spheres at MacArthur Park, gigantic balls (the picture doesn’t do justice to how tall each ball is), painted by over 7,000 children and youth participating in creative therapy and civic leadership sessions as part of a project to revitalize the park. We asked a man with a backpack to take our picture and he did, with a smile.

*Teera’s book Teera: A Life of Hope and Fullfilment, can be found on Amazon.com.