Observations from the Underground

This quote made me smile.

You know what I have been craving? Sort of stepping away from a lot of the noise of programs and courses and just doing handstands against the wall. I just want a 40-minute Pilates session and a candle lit. I am also craving autumn. Or maybe, I have depleted my electrolytes. I am done with summer. It’s exhausting.

NYC is trying to drown us again.

People have some weird t-shirts on underground. One man has a shirt that says “motherhood is female enslavement.” (I wanted a photo, but I couldn’t sneak one).

Another shirt from the commute:

Back to the drowning— Times Square is starting to leak, and there is water pouring onto the floor by one of the exits.

A man in one of those underground bodega stations with snacks is sitting in front of a fan, leaning back, blue shirt unbuttoned with his fuzzy white chest hair blowing. His eyes are closed. None of the people trying to pay can get his attention. The absurdity in a city where most think they are entitled to steal.

The MTA is a joke. Even the NY Post had a post about it. Should we write a letter to the Mayor? (And they keep raising prices).

Chaos is the rule, and calm the exception.

You know who is calm? This little dog wedged into his subway seat.

A man with one of the largest instruments I have ever seen just boarded.

Is there a person in there? It’s a definite maybe.

Off we go.

Mid-Week Update From AC

“An educated mind cannot be enslaved.” Candace Owens

By: Gabriela Yareliz

It’s one hundred and a gazillion degrees out. My train has AC, which is nice because my other trains this week felt like they were blowing hot air on us. I quite literally melted into my seat yesterday. This was after my employer shut off our AC during the day. It has been a sweaty July.

The world is chaotic. A conflict that should have ended years ago in the Middle East still rages on, barreling forward into an exacerbated humanitarian crisis. A tsunami in Russia, and the west coast and Hawaii under tsunami alert. A shooting on Park Avenue. Things feel heightened, and maybe, the heat makes it worse. Heat always makes things exasperating.

As we make delayed stops on this train, those with seats close their eyes and feign sleep. A woman dressed in white and wearing Coco Chanel Mademoiselle (I can sniff that out anywhere) yells into her Zoom call as we lose signal in the tunnel. Her sandal straps are undone, and it’s clear the back of her heels are bleeding. Another woman dressed in denim from head to toe parts the train crowd by yelling, “Excuse me, guys!” A lesson in assertiveness.

As the commute is one where I am precariously smashed between people with not much to hold onto, I decided to listen to a podcast. We roll along.

I can’t read my Kindle, but I am currently finishing a book on Ayurveda, and it’s excellent. If I snag a seat, I am going back to that.

*pause as we violently swing from side to side and almost collapse like dominoes*

We all have stern faces directed at the savage driver of this train. The driver can’t see us, though. The woman with bleeding heels looks angry. None of us wanted to be swinging from polls this early (or at all, but especially not this early).

As the world continues to rock us all, some more than others, I am reminded of gratitude for whatever peace we have, for the AC when we stumble upon it, for the freedom to access information and grow our minds. May we pray for one another and before we leave our front door’s door frame. You never know what awaits. Stay free.

The Relationship Compass

“How you were treated as a child is how you treat yourself as an adult.” Ida Santana

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I have been thinking a lot about this. It is a fact that can help you read the room, and it can also help you read the person staring back at you in the mirror.

Taking this one step forward, I also think that how we were treated as children impacts how we allow others to treat us. It’s an interesting chain reaction; one that stresses the importance of parenting and what you teach your child to accept.

Thank God that in life no one is locked into the past. In every moment, you can start something new. You can be reborn by pure sheer unilateral determination. It depends on no one. That is power.

As an adult, you can readjust the compass and figure out a new pattern and standards. One small adjustment on a compass can mark the difference between a path that leads somewhere and lost.

Responsibility

“After a lifetime of blaming others, it is exceedingly difficult for us to finally acknowledge that the only person who has consistently been in all the scenes of that long-running soap opera we call our life is us, and, as a necessary corollary, that we bear some large responsibility for how the drama is turning out.” James Hollis 

Do Hard Things

“You have to have a day on the calendar that scares the sh*t out of you.” Joe De Sena

I was enthralled by the conversation between Alex Ikonn and Joe De Sena. Listen to it here. Below, you will find a post from Alex Ikonn on the key take aways. I love De Sena’s school of thought. It’s short and worth the listen. There are applicable takeaways for work, relationships and parenting.

Noise, Despacito

“You need to build a mausoleum in your head with big iron doors so that nobody can get in there except you. You don’t let me in there, you don’t let June in there, you don’t let your manager in there, you don’t let the record company people in there. You have to decide for yourself what you want to do with your music and not let anyone else tell you.” Bob Johnson to Johnny Cash

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Picture it— I am walking through the Times Square subway station. There is a man with a full blown salsa band performing a salsa version of Despacito (trying to make this sexual song romantic) in the middle of the station. He is loud on the mic. The trumpet, drums and keyboard behind him are equally loud. The whole station is shaking. I look around as I try to get to my next train platform. The music is so loud locals are looking disoriented (you just know who the locals are; they are walking slower and wincing, looking at signs). Tourists are straight up covering their ears and some wander in circles, lost, and others are trying to yell arguments as to why they should take a certain train to the other members of their group. A young woman with a mask and plastic gloves takes her bag charm Labubu and stuffs it into a plastic ziplock. Looks like the charm is being put to bed and sanitation and is done for the day. She lifts her eyeglasses and looks around the station. The police stand in a corner and shake their heads as they witness the confusion and all the noise.

Noise.

Noise, in real life, has a way of making even someone who knows their way around disoriented. And if you are new to the route, then, you are really lost and out of focus. Noise can be so loud it rattles you to the core.

The same thing happens with mental noise. People’s opinions, our own thoughts, our harshness, our thoughts on loop that we can’t let go of. It can rattle and disorient us. It can make us shake.

Today, let’s think about where we are experiencing the most noise. Find your way, as Bob Johnson said, to a mausoleum or fortress inside. A place where it’s quiet. Where you can hear the voices that really matter. The voice of God. The moments when you don’t listen to yourself, but instead, you speak truth to yourself. Don’t let the man with the mic hollering Despacito take over. It’s just not worth it. And Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee are so much better at it. Cut off the noise. Original voices only.

Happy Birthday, Ma

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Ma, celebrating you today. Thank you for indulging my childhood obsessions. For listening to my personal (spoken) unsolicited book reports on all the books I read. For playing carritos or those mini Barbies from the McDonalds happy meals on the couch for hours. Thank you for the immense trust and independence you always granted me. Thank you for teaching us sacrificial love through your example. Thank you for always being there and not leaving us with anyone else. Thank you for teaching me to never be less or accept less.

Thank you for always holding onto faith no matter how dark it got. Thank you for sharing the hard and impossible so we could appreciate the miracles that came next. Thank you for being the one who always says, “You can always come home.” Thank you for teaching us to respect nature, plants and animals. Working outside (even when I didn’t want to) taught me a lot about life and God. Thank you for adopting Bunny (her love marked us all).

Thank you for always showing up to celebrate our successes. I always knew that when I walked across any stage, your face was in the crowd. Thank you for reading the stuff I write that no one else wants to read (lol). Thank you for always praying for us. I always feel God’s protection and shielding around me. It covers me even on the days I fail because of you.

Thank you for your encouragement when I have failed. I will never forget a difficult season where you told me not to give up and sent me a book you had read on growth mindset. It changed my life (and after several failures, there was a win). You have taught us grit, the honor owed to another life and hard work. You have taught us integrity matters.

They say motherhood means always worrying and checking in on your children because they are a piece of you out in the world. Not every mother cares or is like that, but you embody that. For that, we are grateful.

Thank you for your love. In a crazy world, love is not a given. But with you it is. And that is everything.

—But What is Your Dream?

Via Instagram

By: Gabriela Yareliz

It was a summer night, and the sun was still shining in the Upper West Side. I was impressed by how bright it was and how tired I felt. I had been looped into a late evening meeting at work and told I could take a car home (which I was grateful for).

Given the chaos and evening increase in population of the arts district, I decided I would call an Uber from a quieter location. I walked over to a local Mexican restaurant, away from the Opera and busy venues. I called my Uber from the bustling Mexican establishment, eyeing the tacos on the plates of the outdoor diners who were sweaty, inebriated and animated.

My Uber pulled up in two minutes, and I essentially pole vaulted myself in the back seat with my bags and large umbrella. I buckled up, and then, Mustapha made eye contact with me through the rear view mirror and said, “So you work at this restaurant, but what is your dream?”

I was startled by the assumption through my exhaustion. Maybe I looked like I had just worked a 12-hr shift? That aside— I smiled and asked him what his dream was. He told me my hesitation revealed to him that the job I had was not my dream. I tried to not react.

He never stopped talking in the whole ride. I am pretty extroverted, but let’s face it— I was wiped out and tired. I just wanted to stare at Manhattan in a blur out of my window.

That question did stay with me, though. When was the last time someone asked you what your dream was? And then nosily asked whether you are going after it hard?

When I asked him what his dream was, he told me “to make money.” I chuckled and told him, “that’s not a dream.” He laughed and said he wanted to own a restaurant. Maybe that’s why he assumed I worked at the restaurant?

As I stumbled out of the Uber with my bundles, I thanked him and said, “It was nice talking to you. I hope all your dreams come true.”

I hope your dreams come true, too.

What Abundance Tells Us

By: Gabriela Yareliz

If you are rushing around or trying to kill fifteen birds with one stone— this PSA is for you. And you are not alone. I get infinitely frustrated when things unfold inefficiently. I love change. I love speed. I love maximizing. Call it a syndrome from childhood.

Sometimes, we need to remember to think abundantly.

“Abundance tells us there is time. There is space. There are resources. That we will all get there. That we were never not going to get there. Abundance asks us to have faith even as we’re in the depths of figuring it out.” Amy Dong