THIS IS THE MEANING OF MY LIFE

Although I always liked to read various literary genres, lately I became immersed exclusively in texts about the meaning of life. Perhaps the years that flow so fast induced me not to waste any more time and elaborate a meaning of life of my own. Almost all the texts that came my way reached a similar conclusion: be honest, have compassion, and be generous. It is true that there is not much more to conceive about the meaning of a life based on ethics and morality. Yet, for some reason, these well-known truths did not seem to be enough for me. Finally, last Sunday I had the opportunity to discover what the meaning of my life really Is. As every weekend I went down to the beach, and when I ran into the young Argentine guy in charge of beach chairs and umbrellas, these were his words:

"I am dying to watch the game against France! Unfortunately, I have to stay here and take care of the umbrellas."

Since I was also born in the country of soccer, it didn't take me too long to understand the young man's plight. For Argentines soccer is more than just a sport; it’s their identity as a country. So, I thought about it for a second and then I said:

"Just go. I’ll take care of your umbrellas while I read."

I will not waste time describing the reaction of deep amazement of the young man; what I will mention instead is how a simple encounter like this taught me a precious lesson about the meaning of my life. Let’s forget for a moment about the money we donate because we don’t really need it. For me living a life that makes sense means taking the time to become the refuge that those around us so desperately need. What about the meaning of your life?

HOY CAMINÉ HASTA LA PLAYA

 

Hoy caminé hasta la playa y en la orilla me detuve.

Cuando me senté la arena me acogió apacible,

y la espuma blanca de las olas se regocijaba

mientras a mi alrededor yo el mar contemplaba.

 

Hoy me alejé de lo cotidiano, del temor y del vacío

para acercarme al agua límpida que se me acercaba,

y en el silencio de esa resplandeciente mañana

bajo ese cielo frío solo un nombre me acompañaba.

 

Solo tu nombre abría las alas hacia las nubes vaporosas.

Un nombre que nunca se aleja, un nombre que no deja

de acariciar mis ojos antiguos, mis manos temblorosas,

ni de recordarme que para siempre estarás conmigo.

 

"And these losses are necessary because we grow by losing and leaving and letting go." Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst.

 

Growing and becoming wiser is the gain left by the estrangements and losses we suffer in life.  If we are able to tolerate with fortitude what leaves us, we become more human.  When I think about my own life, there were two events that made me grow up and understand that life is synonymous with deep loneliness: the first was the death of my father, and the second was my son’s going to the university for seven long years.  Both relationships, the deepest ones of my life, forced me to face the emptiness of absence. The difference between the two was that although the first was an absence with no return, the second faced me with the difficult task of letting go the one who for many years had been the center of my life. Then came the estrangement of those adult friends who no longer shared my same interests, and finally those friends whom death took away from my life forever.  So, as I said earlier, there is no doubt that life is about letting go what we love; and the gain we reap is learning how to face it. Without forgetting that our own death will be sublime or desperate depending on whether we have respected this law of life.

EL LLAVERO DE PLATA

 

Si ustedes son como yo e intuyen que detrás de la realidad que vemos existe otra realidad, más misteriosa y a la vez más coherente, este breve relato es para ustedes. Hace tiempo que, por alguna razón, empecé a recordar el llavero que usaba mi padre. Este era un semi círculo de plata trabajada en el que, desenroscando una de las extremidades, se deslizaban las llaves una a una. Al fallecer él le pedí a mi madre que me lo regalara para así recordar a su dueño a diario; me lo dio sin vacilar. Luego un día, cuando mi hijo era pequeño y yo lo estaba llevando al parque, él empezó a portarse mal en el coche y el añorado llavero desapareció. Lo busqué con afan por todos lados sin lograr encontrarlo; y tal fue mi pena que hasta me enfadé con el niño. Pasaron los años pero el tiempo nunca logró borrar el recuerdo de ese llavero de plata. Quiero agregar aquí que, a pesar de su irritable caracter, yo amaba a mi padre de la misma manera que él me amaba a mí; porque los hijos solo aman a padres y madres que los aman profundamente. Y así, querido lector, llegamos hasta un día de hace poco en que nuevamente y, por alguna razón, empecé a recordar el famoso llavero de plata y a desear tenerlo una vez más conmigo. Fue un domingo cualquiera cuando una vecina llamó para invitarme a ir a la feria de antigüedades de Lincoln Road, en Miami Beach. Hacía calor y al cabo de una hora de caminar yo ya sentía ganas de sentarme a tomar algo fresco; pero fue en ese instante en que mi amiga, parada frente a uno de los stands, quiso mostrarme un llavero de plata. Era un semi círculo de plata lisa de la que colgaba una medalla, también de plata, con la inicial M. ¿De Marina? A pesar de que su nombre también empezara con M, mi vecina no lo compró por tener uno parecido; y así fue como el llavero fue a parar a mis manos, que en realidad eran su verdadero destino. No voy a ponerle conclusión a este cuento; voy dejar que cada uno de mis lectores lo interprete a su manera. Para mí el significado es tan claro como el cielo cuando amaina el viento dejando entrever entre las nubes un más allá transparente.

ORDER IN OUR LIVES

 

One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was watching the way my father left his shoes next to his bed: both at the same height and in a perfect combination. I remember that this impeccable synchrony fascinated me, and that is how my love for order was born. Order was always my faithful companion because it helped me never lose my favorite books, my documents or the photos of my first love. Although in my youth order was limited to offering my family an orderly home and always finding what they were looking for, as time went by, I realized the deep meaning of the word order. Order not only provides us with an orderly archive, but also with an economy that protects us from sinister surprises.  At work, a tidy desk prevents us from wasting time looking for information we need to finish an urgent project.  However, the most important legacy of my love for order actually has to do with existence. It induced me, for instance, to review the years of my life, to identify my mistakes and try to correct them, to look for those whom I had offended and apologize, to let go those who were there only to fill lonely moments, and to remember and tell my son what I wanted him to know about my life.  Order means to rescue what is valuable and to let go what is not valuable anymore.

KARMA OR ETHICS?

 KARMA OR ETHICS?

Since I started reading books on Buddhism, I was attracted to the concept of karma because of the mystery it emanates. As per the Merriam Webster dictionary, karma has the following meaning:
“The force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence”.
In other words, the way we behave in our current life will determine what kind of life we will live in our next life, as well the number of lives we will need to live to attain Nirvana, Nirvana being the end of our spiritual journey. What happens after Nirvana, we don’t know.
The idea of karma as a vehicle to deserve a life of peace and serenity always called my attention; it seemed a perfectly natural reward for good behavior. After all, since childhood I was told that being good means getting a reward. However, as years went by and I became savvier about the meaning of existence, I realized that living ethically, and not the rewards of a better life, is what really fills our soul with peace and serenity. Living in the best possible way morally means to understand the meaning of life. But let’s not forget that living ethically is much more complicated than being a charitable and generous person, like most of us are. I believe that the term ethics has more to do with respecting others by seeing in them the soul they carry inside. It means, for instance, not lying to others, asking for forgiveness for having offended them, not making fun of them, not acting in our best interest if it will hurt them, not demeaning others so as to hurt their self-esteem, not censuring what about them we don’t understand, and of course, respecting all life and plants on the planet. When I understood this, I let go of my vision of a better life after death and started concentrating on a vision of a life well lived on this earth.

MEJOR SOLA QUE MAL ACOMPAŇADA

 

Así dice el proverbio que, al escucharlo o verlo escrito, ninguno de nosotros deja de afirmar que es profundamente cierto. Sin embargo, es necesario llegar a la tercera edad para comprender su verdadero significado. Estar en compañía de seres humanos envidiosos, mentirosos y faltos de afecto o respeto a la larga y a la corta nos llena de ira y rencor a cualquier edad, pero sobre todo cuando ya no somos tan jóvenes. Cuando somos jóvenes nos enfrentamos a la vida de otra manera; cada nuevo amanecer nos aporta diferentes opciones. Distinta es la situación cuando ya dejamos de serlo; cuando los años pasan el despertar de la mañana siguiente no nos trae demasiadas novedades, si es que nos trae alguna. Siempre fui sociable y nunca me costó hacerme de amigos, pero por alguna razón a esta edad constato que me cuesta abrirles los brazos a algunos de los que me rodean. Quizás sea porque en el país en el que vivo existe una marcada distancia entre generaciones, o quizás porque aquellos que he conocido desde que vivo sola no han sido lo que yo esperaba. Por eso a mi edad la casa deja de ser un lugar donde simplemente vivimos para convertirse en un refugio sagrado al que solo acceden unos pocos: aquellos que nos quieren de veras. Y a pesar de lo mucho que se ha escrito sobre el aislamiento que sufren los que viven solos, la soledad de nuestra casa es un bálsamo mágico que nos protege del desafecto. Cuando comprendemos esto entendemos que, a menudo, la soledad que nos rodea es la mejor compañía a la que podemos aspirar.