Four Seasons, minus one

In the land of 4 seasons, sometimes a season is lost.  When the winter winds push too far south it is not an easy thing for the spring's breezes to push them back to their arctic origin.

April is for rainfalls, not snowstorms.  Here in the land of 4 seasons it's been winter for most of April.

The start of May is also colder than normal.

Spring will be reclusive in its southern habitat.  Winter's cold will hold on, its frigid talons scaring the balminess of summer.

Last year spring was lost also, not because of cold but because it was very warm by February and March.

This year, just a few weeks ago, a late April blizzard slammed us.

Really?

A few days ago, the morning low was in the mid-thirties.

In May?  What?

To live in the northern woodland hills is to live through the cold and snow of winter, but enough is enough.

I'm California dreaming.

I see myself in Woodland Hills, or Calabasas, or looking across Simi Valley.  Agoura Hills, Santa Monica, Malibu, San Fernando Valley, beautiful Pacific Ocean—you are my west coast home and I miss you.

California warms me in the frigid wind.  I hope to one-day return to its amazing mountains and incredible valleys.

Finally, today, I felt the season turn.

It's not spring—it's summer.

There will be only three seasons again this year.  We lost a season.

I can hear the lamentations of Vivaldi.

Dad's Shadow

On 4/16, Rene and I celebrated Dad's birthday.  He's been dead for more than fourteen years and we still remember his birthday.

All of my life, I've lived in the shadow of a man so great that I never felt I could measure up.

Of all the things that people remember Dad for, it was his force and spirit for life that defined him.

It is how he lived that made him great.

Dad lived like forever.  He never got old; he just died one day.  He did the impossible and always stood for what was right.

Dad had a photographic mind.  A mathematical whiz, his calculations were always precise, managing to raise nine children and provide them with everything they needed to survive.

With a kind heart, he adopted a homeless kid and raised him as his own.

With equal precision, he virtually taught himself to read two languages.

His perfect math captured mom's heart; to his last breath, he loved her for over 50 years.

I am the son of Carlos Lerma Bolado.  I come from an old bloodline that fears God, loves family and friends, and overcomes obstacles to achieve great things.

I will never surrender my dreams.  I will dare to reach for greatness, and maintain my high standards.

I will love, to my last breath, the idea of true love.

And in the brightness of my unyielding hope—I will be great.

Amy in the Paradises

Amy was an astronaut in space.  Amy was a woman of such resolve, that death could not hold her.

She flew away on the light of a star.

How Amy loved life, how she clung to life with all her might.  She never gave up on life, and life never gave up on her.

In the end, to her final breath, she graced this world with her beauty and goodness.  I never heard her complain that her time had come to go.

Amy was my Mother.  A child like her never existed before.  She was the first and only.

Amy Ederee is Mom in a spacesuit, on a fling through the solar clouds.  The heavens never saw a woman the likes of my mother.  Every son, every daughter, should love their mother as much as I loved mine.

I can only wonder.  When I take my last breath, will someone, somewhere, love and miss me with the same utter conviction.

In my heart, I am of the persuasion that no finer woman ever walked the earth than my mother.

In my eyes, she was the epitome of a great Etruscan woman.  She was kind, but firm, never losing a chance to be human.  She was a logistical woman, yet always remembered that she was the love of my Dad’s life.  She was loyal… faithful—she was a good Mom.

I’m honored to be the son of Amelia Fuentes Bolado.

Buon Natale

I can remember when I was a kid, how Dad always made Christmas such a big event.

Dad was a big kid.  Because he never truly had a childhood, he lived childhood through us.

To get a good idea what Christmas was like for me as a kid, think the super bowl.

The super bowl has taken on a life of its own in our culture.  At times, the event of the super bowl is bigger and better than the actual game.

That’s the way Christmas was for me growing up as a child.  The only difference was that the event of Christmas and the actual day of Christmas were equal in quality, perfectly balanced between the anticipation and the experience of it.

Dad was great—he’d even leave the cookie crumbs and a few drinks of the milk so I could imagine Santa having a snack after dropping off my gifts.

Every kid should have a Dad like mine.

Every Christmas should be like the ones I experienced as a kid.

Merry Christmas, Dad.

I bet you have great Christmas mornings in heaven.

Give Mrs. Santa Claus a kiss and hug for me.

Frozen in Time

I live in a standstill, frozen in time.

November of 2010 was the worst month of my life.

As Mom fought for her life on her deathbed, my marriage died.  I saw it die before my eyes.

Mortality stripped me to my critical elements.

The critical mass unleashed is all that remains of me.

Now I live in a vacuum, resistant to anything but the truth.

The truth is, I saw my marriage end, knowing well how to save it.

I lost both Mrs. Bolados in the same month.

I loved my Mother…

I loved my wife…

The slow kill is the worst.

When I got married, I had it all figured out.  When the day came and I lost Mom, my wife would comfort me.

I’ve never dealt with betrayal well.

The problem isn’t the betrayal.

How do you reconcile the breaking of a marriage vow and still have a marriage?

Forgiveness was easy—I forgave her, even though she never asked me to.

I choose pain over reconcilement not because it is the easy way.

I filed because it was the right thing to do.

All of my life, I’ve stood for right.

I had a choice to make.

I could be right…

…or be married.

I chose right.

The Culture of Me

The toil of the wordsmith is to entice the muses in the hopes of gaining inspiration.  And if the muses be not enticed, than to hunt after inspiration into the guts and tissue.

In human braveries resides the writer.

The art of communication is more than words.  In our acts is formed our culture.  In our culture is found the ultimate form of communication: our legacy.

Culture (from the Latin origin: cultura) has improved in its meaning from “the tilling of land”.  To me, culture means to dig and prepare the soil of my character, thereby elevating my spirit.

Culture is the honesty of who I was, who I am, who I will be.

My culture is from the earth, is inherent to the ground—I live in the soil of my soul.  It is in the soil of my emotions where my thoughts, speech, actions, and artifacts exist.

From the richness of my soul’s dust, I transmit my culture to successors.

The heart of Love; the freedom of Truth; the eternity of Life—these are the precepts of the culture of me.

The culture of me is a culture of peace, where happiness is pursued and love is hoped for.  It is a place where communication is always welcome and ideas are exchanged.

At the center of my culture lives a garden in the glory of bloom.  Amongst the flora and young branch lives the poet and the dreamer, the beginning and the child, the creation and the yet to come.

Feel free to enter and speak from your culture.

My culture is serene and you are always welcome there.

Culture from Nothing

On November 23^rd, 2010, Mom died.

I loved that lady.

Every night, for the past two years, the last things I do are brush my teeth, wish Rene goodnight, and think about my Mom until I fall asleep.

Every night.

Cut me and I’ll bleed.  But no matter how deep the cut, I believe I won’t die, and eventually the bleeding will stop and I will live.

Mom’s death changed all that.

When my beloved Mother died it cut me so deep that I haven’t stopped bleeding.

The Higgs Boson is being confirmed.  Creation from nothing.

It is a small amount of matter that is created from nothing.  I suppose it is in the definition of small that the importance is lost.

A small amount of uranium 235 makes us reevaluate our perception of small.

I lost everything in 2010—I have nothing of my past life.

Yet, in the nothing of my life, every day I must create everything that I need to live.

The garden is my particle collider.  The dirt captures the Boson and from nothing a spark makes all things live.

I see her in the garden.  The breeze from the lake touches us, as she embraces me and heals my hurt.

In the summer light she stands before the weeping cherry and I feel near to her.  She calls to me and I am eager to answer her.

I seek a culture of life, a culture untouched by death or sickness.  I will not rest until my inspiration becomes truth.

Death comes for all—let it one day come for me.  It may get my body—but it will never gain my spirit.

I will fight for every breath.

To die is of no consequence.

Death will never defeat me.

Rene Culture

 Rene loves The Three Stooges.  Curly Howard makes her laugh.

And when Curly breaks the hammer or wrecks the saw with his head, she swoons in her chair.

Curly had his signature laugh and slapstick routines, so does Rene.  She invents things and doesn’t care if she gets credit for them or not.  She knows who she is and once she meets you, she knows who you are.

Rene was Dad’s girl.  The old man loved her—he was always helping her.

I know why: Because she reminded him of himself.

Like Dad, Rene has a big heart—that means she’s been used a lot by those who take advantage of people with big hearts.  That hasn’t made her stop helping people.

She’s helped me.

In all the ways a big heart can help someone, she’s helped me.

But of all the things she’s done for me, in all the ways she’s helped me, she’s helped me most with her laughter.

I swear when she laughs she makes the sun shine brighter and I have hope that everything’s going to be okay.

Through her laughter I can see a better tomorrow.

And in her laughter, I can hear my Dad laughing with us.

Voyager Culture

Voyagers, you’re my new protagonists; perhaps my truest central characters.

For thirty-five years you have quietly progressed toward a great discovery.

And you’ve done it with so little.

What you’ve seen, what you’ve heard, those of us—your devotees—have faithfully recorded.

In eight years you may run out of energy to continue, but then, in my heart, you will continue to voyage.

Like you, I will be relentless in my expedition to find the edge of my culture, breaking forth to explore new boundaries.

I’m a trekkie.  I loved how you were portrayed in the first movie of the series.

It was a fitting tribute.  Even in those early days of your voyage many of us were devoted to your inspiration.

I am occupied by the inspiration I am feeling.

While we have remained here on earth, you have crossed into the frontiers we have only dreamed about and written of in our imaginations.

You’ve accomplished this with 68 kilobytes of memory and an eight-track tape recorder.

Yeah, I think that deserves a salute and a tribute.

So, you will be the first series I will honor on my simple blog.

Keep voyaging Voyagers.

I’m right behind you.