GABRIELA YARELIZ

Looking Around the Salon

By: Gabriela Yareliz

“Did I tell you about the drugs?” the elderly woman under the hair heat lamp asked her stylist after a long period of silence. Her stylist, an older Italian gentleman, moved the cart with the foils and bowl of creamy goop he had just placed on her head.

“Drugs?” He asked as he continued pushing the cart. I raised my eyebrows wondering where this was going.

“For the pancreatic cancer and melanoma,” she said.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said shaking his head grabbing his comb to clean it.

“I’ll tell you later,” she said flicking her wrist and waving him off.

In another corner, a girl that looked about twelve was being held down by her older sister and mother (a regular) for what looked to be her first eyebrow wax. “Sit still. The unibrow is coming off!” the mom declared triumphantly. The twelve year old squirmed. “I want a haircut,” she said emphatically, hoping someone would take her up on a change of plans.

“It’s pouring out, baby, take this,” one of the stylists said while she offered a plastic shower cap to a client whose blow out was threatened by the insane outdoor deluge.

There is something comforting about a neighborhood salon filled with faces you recognize, but few names, on a rainy afternoon.

River Water

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says that we should see ourselves like a river.

We shouldn’t overwhelm ourselves with shame over what has happened when we were ignorant, but accept that if we reflect and learn, we are like moving water. We become new.

The person we are today is different from the person we were yesterday. And tomorrow, we will be different yet again.

If we renew our minds each day, we get to start anew. We can reset in a moment. I find this comforting. God has granted us the ability to grow, renew, and change. What a gift to be able to start again.

Our inner and outer worlds shift like seasons. New water pushes through our river of consciousness. We renew.

Dolly, the Legend

“I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world.”

Dolly Parton

Rest in peace, queen.

Image via the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Burns a Hole

“Can you have one without the other?

Unpublished work that’s really important to me burns a hole in my chest from the inside and the outside at the same time.

I need to speak it and I need it to be heard.” Bertie Brandes

For the Dandelions

By: Gabriela Yareliz

My favorite flower as a kid was a daisy. I loved a wild daisy. They were sunny and bright. I never discriminated against a sunny and bright dandelion, though. If there is a flower I touched a lot in life, it was that one.

I have memories of playing house or wedding with childhood friends, and we would gather the dandelions, which were abundant in Michigan, and make bouquets out of them.

At recess, just as I sat chewing on honeysuckle flowers and picking clovers in a patch, I also spent time blowing dandelions into the wind a million times.

There is something special about a dandelion. They can grow through a crack in concrete and thrive. They go from sunny yellow to fluffy white bulbs of confetti magic.

Apparently, psychologists even call some children “dandelion children.”

From Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett, Ph.D.:

A University of California-San Fransisco study split children into categories to see how:

“‘sensitive’ children (re-ferred to as “orchids”) respond to environmental changes compared with how ‘resilient’ children (who they call ‘dandelions’) react.

Dandelion children may thrive in most any condition, whereas orchid children tend to be more fearful and overwhelmed in uncertain social situations. Whether an orchid or a dandelion child does better or worse likely has to do with how families, teachers, and peers support their emotional development. If neglected, orchid children promptly wither—but if they are raised in supportive conditions, they not only survive but flourish compared with dandelion children. Emotion skills are likely the antecedent to building resilience.”

I was a dandelion child, and maybe you were, too.

When I read this, I thought of the Ella Langley song— couldn’t help myself:

Dandelion born to live free, ridin’ on a breeze
On a summer night
Tucked back in the weeds, guess that’s just me
In a bed of red roses, I’m the one growin’ up on the wilder side
So if you’re tired of thorns, I’m a little more dandelion

No stranger to a dirt road or a country muddy river bank
If you’re pickin’ me, you oughta know
I wasn’t made for a fancy crystal vase
A mason jar and old blue jeans, from my roots to my boots, I’ll always be

Stay resilient. This one goes out to all my fellow dandelions. ✨

The Setup

“Chronic stress management is not optional — it is hormonal maintenance.” Rich Girl Academy

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I was reading a piece on declining fertility the other day, and it made a point to highlight that hormonal imbalances in women today don’t just belong to the woman in the present, but we are set up by our parents’ health at the time of conception (and whatever they got from their parents). Affecting you in the womb was what your mother inherited from her mother and grandmother, every processed food, environmental toxins exposure, every box dye, every perm, every cigarette or second-hand smoke, drugs, the trauma— all of it, plus whatever impacted your father’s genes.

I bring this up because whatever we do today impacts generations after us. The generational thing is so real and held in the ovaries. My future child (hopefully) will be impacted by my parents but also my choices, my husband’s choices— and my grandchildren, too.

It’s a wild web and chain reaction. It makes us think every time we have a choice. To stress or not to stress, excess sugar or skip the sugar, where we live, pollution, the chemical option vs the more wholesome option. Choices add up and make a difference. And eventually they set up generations to come.

While a lot of today’s problems can be exacerbated by the present, they were set up by the past. May we think of that every day. Today will be the past someday.

Set up wisely.

This Week’s Favorites 08.21.26

I saw parents dropping off their kids to some of their last 9 am taekwondo classes before classes start up here. (Classes start so late here—) You could feel the end of summer hanging in the cool 68F air after yesterday’s rainstorm, flooding and apparently, Long Island tornado.

Back to school reminds me of the nostalgic college football “beat” t-shirts.

Another week is in the books.

This week, I started reading Permission to Feel, and I have really been enjoying it. I whip it out on my kindle when the trains decide to be assholes, and that has been often, lately.

I spent the day cleaning and listening to podcasts in the background. Feeling all the early fall vibes. Also, I went for round 1 of the Function Health blood draw. Excited (and terrified) to see what comes out of that. Now, I am taking a breather. I wanted to share my favorites from the week before I do some light stretching and Pvolve.

Let’s do this—

“A writer—and, I believe, generally all persons—must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.” Jorge Luis Borges

The Creative Power of Invisibility.

“You’re a product of your environment. Live somewhere that inspires you.” Juliet Allen

“Learning another language gives you access to joints your native language doesn’t have. It makes you a more supple thinker. It makes the world feel larger and more interesting than it did before.” Rich Girl Academy

This trio of brothers:

“Find your people. Be someone’s battle buddy. Cheer someone on. And when you need it, let someone cheer for you, too.” Susan B.

“We have lost our damn minds. I really think that Covid fried people’s brains, and they’ve simply never recovered. We were gaslit to hell, of course.” Spencer Pratt