Emotional Undercurrent

By: Gabriela Yareliz

This morning, I was speaking to friends of mine, in my home church in Florida. We send a text on Saturday mornings, when we pray for each other and our families. He and his wife are two of the most amazing people I know, who live their lives in full ministry— God’s love drips off everything they do.

Today, we were talking about the instability of these times and the unstable people who surround us. One thing we know to be certain is that God hasn’t disappointed us yet, and He won’t start now.

Sometimes, things look really different than we hoped or imagined. We discussed that sometimes in the Bible report of a person’s life, we miss the emotions in the story— the emotional undercurrent, if you will.

Imagine how Joseph felt after having all these dreams promising him a future, and then being sold as a slave by his brothers; doing what is right in his master’s house and ending up in a dungeon for it; feeling like his youth was wasting away in the dungeon— and yet, when pharaoh called on him, when he was troubled by a dream, the first thing Joseph does is express his faith in God and that God would reveal the deep mysteries.

Imagine David, after being anointed to be king; fighting Goliath and then working for King Saul, who was very mentally unstable and trying to kill him half the time. Imagine what David was thinking as he was playing his harp to calm King Saul’s episodes of insanity and rage. When faced with the opportunity for revenge, David never took it, but instead, he allowed God’s plan to unfold in His divine timing.

We sometimes gloss over these emotions that are buried in these stories we read. And one thing is certain, despite these emotions, we see the faith that was cultivated through a deeper relationship with God. We see it in their behavior and how they responded to adversity and opportunity.

Don’t miss the full picture. The Bible is not filled with fake stories that people lived that ended in rainbows. Scripture is there to remind us that we are not alone, and it is filled with promises that do not fail, even when the storm is upon us.

My friend sent me this verse, today. I needed it, and maybe you do, too.

“You only need to remain calm; the LORD will fight for you.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭14:14‬ ‭NCV‬‬

Emotions and circumstances go up and down, but one thing that never changes from story to story and passage to passage in Scripture is that He is with us. He fights for us. His plan is unfolding and nothing can stop it.

Studio Update 30

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Hello my friends—

Studio Update 30– wow. Perfect for someone who this week got a little closer to 30. Me.

It has been a while. I know. It has been an exhausting set of weeks, where I have worked long hours on weekdays and find myself with no energy to think or even repeat my own name. My weekends have been sunny days of bliss that I try to hoard to myself, meaning I try to touch technology (and sit) as little as possible.

The nights have been cool and bright. The moon has been an intruder in my bedroom these last nights. I love it when it peeks through the blinds. Isn’t it magical that no matter where you are in the world— you see the same moon as someone else on the opposite end? We all live under the same sun and sleep under the same moon. The nights have also been quiet, other than my weird neighbors upstairs, who by some miracle of God and the heavy footsteps have revealed they haven’t murdered each other.

My little girl singing neighbor was prancing in the pathetic strip people call a yard here, in her bright red dress. Singing of course. I sort of felt bad for her. It’s a literal dirt strip. I believe every child should climb a tree. No updates on that potential bunker. (I will be climbing a tree soon to find out what is happening down there…)

It was my birthday week! I had an amazing quarantine birthday filled with calls from family and friends and an EPIC and DELICIOUS indoor picnic complete with bright ginormous flowers from my boyfriend. He is the best. It was so lovely. Mexican food and his company— both my favorites.

I won’t bore you with a list of all I have learned in my almost-30 years. Instead, I figured I would make a list of the things I don’t understand or know. This may be more fun and less cliché.

The things I (still) don’t understand or know:

1. Why certain letters are silent in certain words. Why include them at all?

2. How the internet works.

3. Is there a headband that doesn’t give headaches? (I have yet to find one)

4. How to preserve dried flowers. (Gonna interrogate the woman at the farmers market)

5. Why the tomatoes at the supermarket don’t taste like the ones on the farm.

6. Where do all the socks go?

7. How certain women wear heels all day.

8. Why certain movies and TV shows are so popular.

9. The people who don’t like Taco Bell.

10. One-sided “friendships”.

11. How Richard Gere looked so good in the 80s.

12. People who don’t like corduroy.

13. Why Blockbuster doesn’t exist anymore (it could totally still be a thing).

14. What has happened to journalism.

15. What neighbors do to be so loud.

16. People who like to spend time with coworkers at the beach or drinking. No.

17. Fake brick wallpaper (hated it since I was 11 and will always hate it. Tacky.)

18. How people earn the income required to buy property in NYC. You basically had to get here decades ago or earn in the same bracket as Beyoncé.

19. People who do not wash their dishes.

20. People who lie.

21. Why my bladder never fully developed (Though not medically proven, I swear its growth was stunted).

22. Why people choose suffering instead of discipline when it comes to health.

23. Why it takes so long to wash and dry my hair.

24. People who have never laid down, full body, across a bench. It’s an amazing view of the sky.

25. People who finish terrible books or movies (is it the peer pressure or extended hope?).

26. How people pay thousands for a purse. Bizarre.

27. Why eyeliner fades sometimes and other times, it smudges (it’s the difference between looking sick and looking like a drug addict).

28. How humanity survived without eye drops in the past.

29. The power Pine Sol has to transport me to my childhood.

Here we are. Almost 30. Excited. Happy. Satisfied. And always looking forward because the best is yet to come.

Studio Update 29

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Guys, somehow, I survived the day without caffeine. Between the fighting upstairs, washing and blow drying my hair and finishing up Aisha (an entire Bollywood movie)— I went to bed at 2am. Yup. That movie started when I got in the shower and ended when my hair was fully dry. That just shows how long it takes to be a normal human when you have Rapunzel hair.

Stuff from my very productive day: I am excited to read this profile of Bobby Bones; I have had some random sitcom theme song stuck in my head for days, and I still don’t know what show it belongs to (driving me nuts); I listened to a doula talk about her work— and I smiled. No disrespect to doulas but I literally knew a Mexican woman with like 11 children who could practically pull them out of herself with assistance from her husband. Doula OG.

I am going to work out in a bit after my church Zoom call. Move your body!

Watching Aisha yesterday brought back memories. I expectedly found myself wanting to do a Dabur amla hair mask afterward— but watching this movie was different. It has been years since I last saw it, and I felt I saw it through different eyes. I finally understood the conversation between Aisha and her aunt. Aisha tells her aunt that she expects love to be a whirlwind and shake up all she knows, including herself. Then, her aunt wisely says that “love is not a tempest that will change worlds; it’s in the little touches of life.” I thought about how true that is. Love is evident in the small moments where you are shown that you are significant. The small moments where you share being fully present or become accomplices. The evidence of the greatest things is always found in what seems to be small. We become wise when we realize the small is the big.

Studio Update 28

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I have been here, guys. I am alive. It has been several surreal days. Standing in line on tape outside of grocery stores. Eating all my snacks in one week. Started watching The Office. Went outside after two weeks inside and got a migraine. (Am I allergic to fresh air, now?) I swear the only things keeping me sane are Jesus, my beloved and his letters and exercise. (Namaste). Still levitating, my friends. My arms are stronger than ever.

It’s almost Friday. My hair needs a good washing. Dry shampoo won’t cut it. Because I have some Zoom meetings tomorrow, I decided to be wild and wash my hair tonight, even though it’s so late. People have done wilder things. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I will be ok. Like I will bend over and grab something and hit myself on something and think, oh man was that an ovary? Meanwhile, there are literally women breaking chairs on each other in the WWE. These are the things that comfort me.

I will dry my hair while watching bits and pieces of Aisha. Gaaah I love that movie. I am like, ahh it’s 10, so late. Meanwhile, there are people out there who used to be getting the party started at 10. I need to be more like those people. (My annoying upstairs neighbors are those people). I think they are either angry at each other or drunk— or both. They are at it again. Sigh.

Gonna live on the wild side and bust out that hair dryer. How are you keeping it wild tonight? Will you be singing in Hindi into a blow dryer? Let’s do it.

Studio Update 27

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I stared down at the New Yorker page at the colorful painting. It looked so familiar. I then glanced over at my painting in my studio and then again at the page. I glanced again at the painting and then the page. Of course it was familiar. On the page was the same painting a kind widower had gifted to me after I had helped him with something. I never quite understood the painting, but now I understand what all the little men with their hats mean. The New Yorker published an entire piece about it. It was hilarious. Mystery solved.

Today was a strange day. The week is almost over, and as I watch some episodes of The Office for the first time, I realize more and more how much my work environments have resembled the tiny, bizarre Scranton office. Except the Steve Carell version is funny. You wouldn’t need a script for my life, just follow me around with a camera. We would be a highly rated show. There is suspense, absurdity and so much randomness.

I did laundry today because I decided that doing it tomorrow after my planned grocery shopping trip and the three hours it takes to clean and put everything away would be too much. I would need an ambulance to come and hook me up to an IV, and let’s face it, they aren’t coming. They have bigger problems.

Today, it has been exactly a month that I have been sheltering in place. NYC decided to commemorate the occasion by announcing another lockdown month is coming. When I got the text (yes, they still text me), my eyes filled with tears. I think I am just tired.

The weekend is coming. I am trying to focus on that and the beautiful card I got in the mail from my love, today. I am going to read a bit more Slightly South of Simple before bed. Whether it’s the weekend or a good book, we all need an escape.

As the lady who passed out Metro newspapers on Court St. used to say about Thursdays, It’s mini Friday, people! Smile!

Studio Update 26

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Find yourself someone who makes your face hurt from smiling and makes your heart so full.

Update: The ants are gone. They must all be partying in the orchid pot. Also, my accountant screwed up my taxes— so we are getting that fixed. Imagine you wake up and the IRS has taken half of what is in your checking account. That was me this morning. With this corona mess, it should be sorted out by December. (We love extended tax season drama— what else is happening? Seriously, what else is happening?) And trimming candle wicks is addictive. (Recent discovery).

I’ll be here, you know, trimming the candle wicks of the candles I am burning for my tax situation. Kidding. But at this point, I should.

Love and light, friends.

We have our health and life— nothing else matters.

Studio Update 25

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I am up like a kid, under the covers while the space heater hums in the background, waiting to get in trouble because I should be asleep. There is no one to berate me. My apartment still has a coolness to it from having the window open all day.

Yesterday’s rain reminded me of the brutal summer thunderstorms we would experience in Virginia. The red clay would turn into mud under our feet, and the humidity would make every piece of fabric stick to your skin. As a summer camp counselor, I remember the nights we would have to take our tent portion of the camp to drier grounds when the rains would pour. The lightning would light up the forest and snap the trees in half as we would race around in a frenzy taking campers to the cabins and/or sturdier buildings.

We counselors would finish the night drenched and talking to each other softly into the night in the room where we had taught cooking classes the day before. Blue skies always followed. Today was our blue sky here in NYC.

I woke up and the sky was blue. Not one cloud. I found a little line of tiny black ants marching into my orchid pot. No idea where they came from. After spending a good amount of the morning trying to murder ants and then when I failed convincing myself it was good to have company, I started my new book.

I miss walking outside. I did yoga because it felt like my back was going to break from so much sitting.

It was nice to come near the open window. To see the light pouring in. To smell the spring air. Places sometimes make you hyper aware of the smells, sounds and light. It’s like a memory is recorded in that moment. Those are the moments of presence we remember forever. I surely won’t forget yesterday’s howling winds.

Many of my memories revolve around rain. Moments like my father riding his bike through the rain past a patch of daffodils, with kindergarten me perched up on his bike with him. The late night downpours in rural Virginia or running through Paris in a summer hail storm. Moments record themselves in our memories. How does the brain know which ones to keep? I am not quite sure— but I am grateful for the beauty and warmth they bring us. The truth is, we never know which moments we will keep forever. So, stay alert. Breathe. Take a pause and look around. Remember it all.

Sometimes, it’s the most ordinary moments that we never forget. Sometimes, the storms are more memorable than the recovery. We usually remember the downpours and the euphoria we gained in them, when the sun starts to shine.

Sometimes, it takes a storm to remind us that we are alive.

Studio Update 24

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Today, we had the fiercest storm. It felt almost like a hurricane. The winds were bending the trees, tangling the wires and rattling everything in sight. At one point, I had to lock myself in my bathroom to take a call from my boss because I couldn’t hear her over the howling wind and loud sirens.

In these past few days, COVID-19 has hit closer to home base. I have been home in an effort to be smart, though part of it is fear. (If we are being honest). I check the mail once a week, so they know I am not dead. I still have to take the elevator to take down the trash. It makes me nervous. Everything takes ten times longer because you have to literally strip down when you come home.

I have learned to do more facial massage from the lovely French lady. I learned to do a Brigitte Bardot hairstyle, I watched Naseem cook Persian style eggs on IG live, I led a Bible study on Easter weekend, and I finally finished Giver of Stars. The ending was my favorite part.

I have been locked inside for more than a week. It feels safe, after today’s severe weather.

It was one of those days where you feel everything wants to destroy you— from the fierce winds to the shared surfaces in the apartment mailbox hall. But then the winds calm. And all is still.

Tomorrow is another day. The mailman will come. The sun will shine. And I will start another book.

That Nicholas Sparks Love

By: Gabriela Yareliz

He once said they had that Nicholas Sparks kind of love.

What makes a Nicholas Sparks kind of love story?

It’s not the meet cute. It’s not the passion. It’s not the affinity. All the stories are different.

You know you have a Nicholas Sparks love story when the love lasts forever.

If you aren’t healing, writing letters all the time, making someone else’s small dreams come true— if you aren’t there in sickness and in health and holding hands in old age— it’s not Nicholas Sparks. It’s another author, but not Sparks.

You don’t have a Sparks story when the story is legendary. No. You have a Sparks story when the love is legendary.

The Convenience of Religion

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I grew up in the churches where you could find half the church in a hospital room holding a prayer vigil, as someone held the sick person’s hand, while praying. It didn’t matter who walked by. The prayer was loud. Hell, we prayed for the nurses, doctors and whomever was sharing the room. We came so often they knew who we were and that we would be there as visitors as long as the patient was there.

They were churches where you could call the church at midnight and tell the pastor your brother went missing and that pastor would show up in a car at your house ready to start a search party into the dark hours of the morning.

Churches where we bought groceries for people, and we went camping together. They were churches where you would spend hours at people’s houses, and naturally invite them to every big event in your life, not as a formality but because you couldn’t imagine doing it without them.

Today, churches all over the world are striving to foster community. But I guess we should go back to the root of what community means.

Community— it requires being deeply inconvenienced. It requires love. Love always requires sacrifice.

We are proud of our stages, awesome billboards, digital announcements and marketing and our Zoom links. Churches are offering community, they feel. But community should go beyond our gatherings; even go beyond small community group gatherings.

Community is found in the darkest of nights. Community is the people around you at your hospital bed. Community is the person who shows you they care enough to be inconvenienced.

We can keep our Zoom links, if that’s what we think community is— if we think it’s singing worship songs together and discussing Bible passages, and making a list of prayer requests— we are so blinded. Community is the hand that holds yours when it’s too dark to see what is in front of you. We need to redefine community to what it truly means, and then maybe, we will find what we are so desperately trying to counterfeit.

Whose hand can you hold tonight? What perimeter can you walk and pray for with passion until your feet hurt? What can you lift up, even if your legs and arms are shaking? I want to go back to what I knew community to be. It was the knowledge that the beeping on the hospital monitor was scary but that the people who surrounded you made it less scary. Community— many stars coming together to light up a dark sky.