PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THE EXPRESSION ANTS IN YOUR PANTS...DO YOU HAVE ANTS IN YOUR PANTS...SIT STILL...WELL ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE STORY OF MY LIFE I ACTUALLY DID HAVE ANTS IN MY PANTS...I WOKE UP WITH THIS MEMORY FROM A LONG TIME AGO WHEN I WAS A YOUNG KID...SO...WE WERE AT THE CEMETERY VISITING MY DAD'S PARENTS...OUR GRANDPARENTS WHO WE WERE TOO LITTLE TO REMEMBER OR HAD NEVER MET. I HAD SEEN A PICTURE AND  FAMILY MOVIE OF MY DAD'S MOM GRANDMA HOLDING ME IN HER ARMS WHEN I WAS A BABY BUT I DON'T REMEMBER HER. SHE DIED WHEN I WAS ONLY A YEAR OLD AND  MY DAD'S DAD GRANDFATHER DIED WHEN HE GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL SO I NEVER MET HIM...HE WAS GONE BEFORE I WAS BORN...ANYWAY WE  WERE ALWAYS WANDERING OFF PLAYING IN THE CEMETERY WHILE MY PARENTS WERE WEEDING OR PUTTING IN FLOWERS. I REMEMBER WE WERE PLAYING WITH SOME ANTS. THERE WERE A WHOLE BUNCH OF THEM CRAWLING AROUND BY A GRAVESTONE. WE WERE DOWN ON THE GROUND WATCHING THEM. I DON'T REMEMBER EXACTLY HOW WE WERE PLAYING WITH THEM BUT WE WERE DISTRACTED THERE FOR QUITE AWHILE. OUR PARENTS CAME AND SAID IT WAS TIME TO GO SO WE RELUCTANTLY LEFT THE ANTS AND HEADED TO THE CAR. I WAS IN THE BACK SEAT AND SQUIRMING AROUND. I FELT SOMETHING IN MY PANTS AND WAS TRYING TO GET IT OUT. MY MOM WAS YELLING SIT STILL. QUIT DIGGING IN YOUR PANTS....SOMETHING WAS PINCHING ME SO I KEPT DIGGING TRYING TO GET IT OUT. MY MOM WAS LIKE WHAT'S THE MATTER...YOU GOT ANTS IN YOUR PANTS...I FINALLY GOT A HOLD OF SOMETHING AND PULLED IT OUT...I WAS LIKE YA MOM I DID HAVE ANTS IN MY PANTS...SEE...I WONDER HOW MANY OTHER PEOPLE HAVE ACTUALLY HAD ANTS IN THEIR PANTS OR WAS IT JUST ME...WHERE DID THAT EXPRESSION COME FROM ANYWAY...THERE MUST BE SOME TRUTH TO IT...THERE WAS WITH ME ANYWAY...HAVE YOU EVER HAD ANTS IN YOUR PANTS...

TIME APPROXIMATELY  ELEVEN TWENTY P.M. PLACE CHICAGO THURSDAY NIGHT JULY TWENTY EIGHT...FIRST THE LOUD SOUND OF A WHOLE BUNCH  OF MOTORCYCLES DRIVING FAST WENT ON AND ON AND SEEMED LIKE A NEVER ENDING AMOUNT OF THEM THEN AN EVER SO SLIGHT PAUSE THEN A BUNCH OF SIRENS SCREECHING THEN A WHOLE BUNCH OF BIRDS SQUACKING SOUNDED LIKE SEAGULLS THEN SILENCE...ALL I COULD THINK WAS I SHOULD HAVE BEEN RECORDING THESE SOUNDS ON MY DIGITAL RECORDER...IT WAS LIKE THE SOUNDTRACK OF A MOVIE OR SOMETHING...SURREAL...I HAD A BUNCH OF WINDOWS OPEN AND DECIDED TO CLOSE THEM JUST INCASE THERE WAS A REPEAT PERFORMANCE...SURREAL...

As the downpour splattered and splashed back on the black sampietrini or cobblestones, she immediately stepped her heels, tapping towards the nearest glass door of the usual trattoria or restaurant in that corner. Her beige trenchcoat got some water stain by the shoulders, creating obvious patches and her well-coiffed hair, in an up-do bun, got drenched. Some strands even loosed their way down her face.

 She went straight to the powder room and fixed herself.

When she was done, she examined the intensity of the rain through the clean, transparent wall. It is still too strong to brave through. She thought. And, it looks like it will not stop yet in any minute. She sat in one of the empty wooden stools near the door.  There were six of which, surrounding the small service ledge in white marble where two have been used by two grizzled males who are babbling about the last week’s Brazil and Italy FIFA match. The latter won and the frenzy took over each Italian, from every trattoria or osteria she knows. She noticed the service crew, who is a teenage male lanky, walked towards her and before he could come near her, she exclaimed, “Un cappuccino per favore!” Her standing index finger emphasized an amount of one.

                She surveyed the display at the back of the countertop while her coffee was being prepared. The tiny and red stacks of brick wall was adorned by five old pictures, flat framed in wood. They appear as the trattoria’s centrefold to where any new eyes will hold a long stare because of the tiny string lights hanging horizontally above, accentuating the cosy presentation. The photos vary in sizes and one of which features the service crew in a denim romper to some place that looks like a stock farm. She beamed warmly. That fetch a memory of Carmen’s Eatery. There are also copies of smiling faces hanging on the back of its counter, only that these are backdropped by a century-old white curtain where dried and stringent splatters of food sarsa or sauce were screaming to be noticed as well .

Carmen’s food stall appeared as an extension of the squatter residences behind it, shuffling with their structures of houses in rusting tin roofs and cardboards. The eatery is even as nasty as the murky waters in the duct, running inside the scullery where ingredients are being cut and prepped. But nobody minded, people go there for the cheapest lunch. And she went there for work. Before.

 She brushed off the spark of another fold of memory.

She took a deep breath to regain her focus and she opened her pressed powder to take a quick preen. She needs a well-mannered version of herself to meet the boss that she needed to impress. She really needs the job! THAT big job in a seaside restaurant in Livorno, Tuscany, so she can’t afford a huge blast-from-the-past distraction that can hinder her to a dream of basking her tan skin under Tuscany’s golden sun. Funny, how she used to despise her natural shade back there in the Philippines where she received jokes from her aunts for being dark. She always get compared to her other female cousins who kept white complexion for using Papaya soap. She tried to do the same, envying their ivory glow, but it did not work on her. Her childhood scars went subtle.

   She looked back at herself in her mirror and fell satisfied at her stubborn curly locks pressed tightly up her head already with the help of bobby pins—kept for almost a month in her purse-- and at her lips, shimmering in ruby red.

“Sei bello.” You’re beautiful. She taught proudly with an excitement that had never left her chest. She cannot wait anymore to live in Tuscany. The sun, the beach, those are the things she anticipate.

She surreptitiously glanced at the door through her pressed powder mirror when some flustered gentleman got inside. He might be also caught by the unwelcomed attendance of the rain. She looked up his face. All of a sudden, her senses were caught off-guard. She gaped. Her heart throbs in breathless beat and it seemed like the air went thin. She was gasping for it.  Sweat also began to blister out her temple.

                She frisked for her hanky on the left side pocket of her coat and got it out instantly, dabbing her widow’s peak.

She could bet all the subtle heat of Tuscan sun that that gentleman is Alfonso. ALFONSO. The thick brunette strands, the deep-seated eyes, the drooping lower lip, and all those jaws: those could sum up that face she HONESTLY knew six years ago. The grandeur of those traits will never be stolen by another identity; even, through the luxury of the coat he used over his body or the gold-plated wrist watch on his left arm.

                She followed Alfonso with a look to a table at her back, launching down to a wicker chair.  When he was about to reflect his eyes on her tiny mirror, she snapped it close. How could the world serve that human being in this huge Italia? How could he crept his way inadvertently on her life again?

But that was the past! Warned her mind. It shouldn’t bother her anymore. Her life now is far-fetched from the pity that she was from their history page.

Be brave, Annita! That’s another attempt at consolation.

                Her coffee arrived in a ceramic cup over a saucer, placed neatly before her. The aroma suffused to fill her nostrils and the whole delirious trattoria. It gave some spike on the happening that she would have never thought to happen. But silently, and she cannot deny that in the back of her mind, she did hope for. She scoffed with that tinge of delight. After all, Alfonso can still thrill her, just, after all, the anguish she buried for years in the Philippines. She was a bit disgusted with herself and twisted the upper lip in lop-sided manner. She then turned her wrist to check the time on her silver-plated Seiko watch. She’s still an hour away from the interview on the third block from the place they are in.

                It has been five years. She thought as she turned her gaze again, outside the thrumming precipitation. The dark clouds that brought the rain cloaked that side of the street as if it will come to dusk.

 Italy, the land of shoes, leathers, beautiful clothes, coffee, pizza, pancetta and cheese brought her a different world, different from the balmy Carbon street were most people are in seeding and tattered shirts, making their  earnings in slippers, partly just to take a grip at fried chickens sold in the corners. The present has almost been devoid completely of the old life and sentiments she felt she has forgotten. And, got rotten under all heaps of hope. 

Nothing will hurt anymore. She calmed herself. Nothing will even happen to be dragged again to that old self of hers, to the old fool Annita. Even if she is caught to the day she has prayed to avoid.

 If she’s a bit glad, she agreed, it is that she has seen an old acquaintance. It’s like that feeling of seeing one Filipino you knew in Italy. And she believes, the guy deserves a “hi”.

                She inhaled to muster all courage in the world and turn herself slowly to the left side to greet Alfonso. There. Just when her eyes landed on his face, he seemed enthralled to be searching on her face too. His mouth opened in surprise and he looked like more than happy to have seen her in the most unexpected place of the most unexpected time.

                “Annita?” He worded almost soundless.

                She smiled from ear to ear. Her heart skipped a beat, the kind she felt six years ago when she was all-possessed by that mad love. Is she prepared for another damnation? So her smile hang there dry and in wary of what could happen after a minute or two with HIM!

                He swiftly moved out his chair and before she knew it, he already landed in a stool on her left, still in amazement.

                “Is that really you?” He asked on that kind of huskiness in low baritone that only Alfonso can exude. Then, each good old, sweet thing from their past came flooding inside her. It was so strong she is slinging some harsh, loud curses against it in silence.

                “Y..yes!” An amount of uneasiness almost stalled her single word.

                “That silly Annita you knew from Cebu.” She added, nodding. She could feel her inhalation by that second.

                “God! I never thought I could still bump into you!” He gladly exclaimed.

                “Me too.” Then, she could not agree more.

                “And in Italy!” He exclaimed. He could not contain his disbelief on the wildest circumstance that brought them together.

                “Yes, in Italy.” She repeated.

                “We can really never can tell.” Alfonso, still bedazzled, checked all the corners of her head as if it is still like a dream.

                “So how are you? It’s been like,” she paused.

“Years.” And turned to her cappuccino, taking it in her lips. Some uneasiness crawled in her, remembering how it had been and how they are now. Then, in a moment, the well-lighted corner of their past starts to dim again. And, the skeletons shook out from the shadows.

“I’m doing great. Remember that stout Italian I had for a boss in Ayala?” Alfonso conspicuously manifested his jubilation over her and that unprecedented meeting while she is slowly fumbling down the darker tunnel of memories.

“Per favour servi il mio caffe qui.” Please serve my coffee here. He called the attention of the person in the counter.

“Yes. Francesco. You kept texting me about him being dear to you, but, on the other hand, disgusted on how you cook his Bolognese ragu.”

“Still best memory you got there, Annita. That mind is like a pot of brilliance.” It was impressive.  His dark eyes squinted.

“Well, he made a real good Italian cook out of this handsome boy.” He quipped and that got her a little tickled. They laughed together while hers got to be feigning at the end of the momentum. Nothing has changed. He is still a master of tongue-in-cheek bragging. She learned that Alfonso’s kitchen skill got him in Italy when the good, old Francesco opened five successful bistros in South East Asia and eventually owned two in Roma. He posted Alfonso in here with a great deal of salary to look over them while he could be fluttering away in some Asian countries.

“Wow.” That’s all she could say. Her thoughts hang on how unrealistic life had turned itself just to put glory on the hands of Alfonso. After finishing her cup of cappuccino, she calmly placed it back to its saucer. Who would have thought that THIS GUY, who used to cajole his charm on her to steal in an impoverished eatery in Carbon Market for his vice, will look as sleek and count-like after years of grinding off his abrasive and shabby self.  

“I know, Annita. It is amazing, right?” She looked at him as he threw a glance at her. That glanced that his eyes flung that could stick unto her soul. She shivered, but he did not notice. She quickly contained it.

“But really, we can never can tell. And look? Look at you, too.” The thrill of pride came rushing with his utterance.

 She served a thrifted smile on her lips. Unable to give empathy to its hilt. Yes. What has become of her too? She was once jailed for a day for him, for theft. It was like this, on a rainy day, only that it was before the restaurant closing, when she has to make an account of the day’s earnings and Alfonso rallied from the door and went straight to her. He was wearing a soiling shirt with white “TIDE” detergent as its front marking.

“Oh! Here you are again, pestering Annita!” that was her Aunt Lucy, boorish for eternity about her good-for-nothing boyfriend. She also worked in that carenderia as its cook. She was carrying some empty cauldron she got from the wooden counter, covered by yellowish oil cloth that was festered by houseflies.

He threw a glare at her aunt who jostled at his glare and went straight to the kitchen in an up-chin. Alfonso went back at her, shifting into a rueful face she cannot bear to take. It got her. Again.  She does not know how he can make her heart swing or fall to a plunge, as if the only thing she can care are his hands that will hopefully,  catch her from a dangerous trip.

“I need money, Annita. The police are cracking down the dens and Roger needs his money back.”

She was taken aback. Fear crept into her nerves, for Roger rang thousands of bell for being the notorious crystal meth peddler in their area. She knew stories about him, most were disgustingly atrocious, confirmed by the .45 calibrated gun he always carries on his tattered sling bag she once saw.

“I don’t even have any centavo here..” in soft trembling voice, she answered in sympathy.

“But, Roger’s going to kill me!?” He cut her through that hiss in between his teeth. His eyes were furious to where trouble is spelled, specifically in his dilated pupils.

She sighed in trouble. Her mind is on a battle to untangle the snare that Alfonso put them in. Then, her sweat glands opened wide to release sluice of sweat, intensified by Cebu’s balmy weather. The white towel hanging from the back of her shirt is serving more its purpose.

“I will lend money from Carmen.” She pertains to the owner of the eatery.

Alfonso moved his eyeballs from left to right, fidgeting for unknown reason.

“When is she going to come?”

“About an hour from now.”

“Annita.” He whispered, leaning himself over the counter.

“Just get two thousand bills now. I don’t think she might notice it.” He glanced at the bills mounded through a rubber band on her left hand..

“I cannot do that, Alfonso. That is stealing!” Indignantly, she raised her voice.

“Shhh Shhh,” He cut her again anxiously. All the nerves on his throat furrowed due to his strong reaction.

“But Carmen might not let you borrow anymore. Remember you still have thousands of loan from her.” He whispered again as if fearful of anyone eavesdropping from them.

Yes. A five thousand loan to be exact because of Alfonso, too. All those went to his odious vice. His work as “kusinero” or cook in the next door’s carenderia will never be enough to sustain his support for his old  parents in Talisay and most of all, his exploit in sniffing grams of white substance.

As long as she could remember, he was taintless when she first met him. It was five months ago when he was just employed, during the end of their shifts, when both of them were walking in the dark and muddy alley through the shanties. It is the only shortcut she can use from work than going around the highway.

She dwelled there all her life while he just bedspaced in one of the dilapidated boarding houses.

“Good evening! Weren’t you afraid to be walking alone here?” He broke the silence while he was at her back, tailing on a narrow space in between the shacks.

“Been here all my life. What to be afraid?” She tried holding her balance on her foot, stepping on a protruded stone in a murky puddle.

“Good for you.”

“Well, I just moved here. What’s your name?”

It was when she arrived at the opening. The lighted tiny street was still full of bystanders loitering in some sari-sari stores and children running to and fro.

She spun and faced him with eyebrows buried towards the center, implying curiousity. 

                “I think I could use some few more friends.” He added. Then, the light from the side street light hit his face. The man was way taller than her and she could not understand, suddenly, her heart is slipping from its usual beats. Instantly she knew, from that very moment that she got attracted by this handsome moreno she hasn’t known yet. All she could do now is to welcome him through a warm smile, just as it exploded inside her.

                “Annita.” She told him her name, neverminding the enchantment she might have shown to him.

                “Alfonso.”

He smiled back, presenting his teeth. Those were not perfect, but the dimple, the wrinkled eyes, and his defined jaws made them a million-peso worth.

                They immediately became friends, and she became his secret admirer. That started the going-home an excitement for her. Even an hour before 9 p.m., she will be all prepared from parting the eatery, restless to meet Alfonso in the alley. There are times that she would miss him on the dim shortcut for reason that he was seeing Martha, but that fact never stopped her from liking him in a deeper, unfathomable reason.

                Things moved fast. After a year, Alfonso and Martha broke up. She was there for him in all the tormenting days that he could not bear from happening. They will stay late in Prosesa’s Sari-Sari store. He, inebriated in his Red Horse beer was being waited by her through munching all the Chippies and Corniks. She will be waiting for him to be totally drunk and eventually, ask him to go home.

                She did not get tired. Who gets tired when you got a loving heart, the strongest muscle in the human body? It can endure all the blows of jealousy and punches of neglect as long as its longing is suffice--to see and to talk with him every single day. She was hoping that it will lead him to divert his affection towards her.

                And it did happen. They became more than friends. But Alfonso was still on his deepest sea of remorse, unable to be salvaged, recuperating through her and through a vice that put him into another snare.

                “Yeah. Time has changed me into this.” She would like to let confident supercede on each word she pronounced, but that failed. Her voice was weak that it broke instantly to silence. Blame the deluge of loneliness from the flashback. She bowed her head down and put her lips together, pulling them inwards. She felt her drying lipstick. It has chapped itself in this chilly weather.

                “I’m sorry.” He wistfully said, and a deep sigh followed. It’s as if he read what she always had in her mind.

                It was the moment when time learned to stop for her. After all those years, starting when she fell for him up to the time she entered this tratorria, time, finally, was kind for her. It gave her the words she had frustrated to suffice down her stomach for the longest time. There are those people who had done her various mistakes, but the grave that Alfonso dug for her was the thing that she could lie back in some of those nights after she was bailed out from jail.

                “I understand it is the reason you moved out the squatters and disappear. God knows.. I looked for you in any way.” He continued in a remorseful tone.

 But, Alfonso did not came when she waited on that dark and scalding concrete corners of the fetid cell. The pickpockets, the drug pushers and the users who were still in the spur of psychedelic effects, and the squeaking rats were her frightening companions. She could not bear remembering that night when all she could do is whimper in one corner, exhausting out the dismay of crumbled expectation about Alfonso—that for once he will suddenly come to save her. Just for once.

“I was lucky enough that your Aunt Lucy’s teenage son was unaware about “us” and gave me your number. But, you never replied, Annita.” There was pain on it. There was pain reflecting on his eyes when she faced him.

He could endure a lot of pain, but he was too coward to iron out the intricate mess she made for her, or it’s just that she was NOTHING to him after all. So when she was forgiven by Carmen and freed, she decided to meet Alberto, her persisting septuagenarian Italian suitor whom she met online. She settled with him, five months before he succumbed to cancer.

                “I wished to see you. You know that.” He broke her wallowed thinking.

                “I know.” She remembered how his message suddenly popped up on her analogue phone during those time she departed already from Cebu. He was talking about how he changed and got a new cooking job. There was that surge of emotions when it happened, but she needed to remember the rotten jail and the neglect he had made her feel. It was one big fight she lost in a moment and won for a long time. Since then she promised, she would never put herself on that self-demeaning bout anymore.

                She inhaled and held an amount of cold, fresh air on her lungs. She bet that that has cleared her from the webs of doubts from the past that clang on her insides. 

                “Un altro capucinno per la bella signora.” One more cappuccino for the beautiful lady. He told the service crew.

                “No. I’m already fine.” She turned to him.

And, gave a breath of relief.

                “It was all done, Alfonso. I’m fine now.” It was her response for his sorry.

He got it right, as it got him alarmed.

                “Thank you.” She added and smiled warmly.

Annita put her right hand over his which held the cup.

                “I think I need to go now.”

                “But can’t you spare a time for me?” Alfonso demanded with troubled grim written on his face.

                “You gave your sorry already and I am forgiving you. It was all I ever wanted since then and I think it should end there.”

                She paused. It will be her last time memorizing his face.

                “It was really nice seeing you again, Alfonso.”

Lord, I'm on my knees again

Because the worst has happened

The death of a loved one

The loss of a job

I can't pay the bills

My wife no longer loves me

So I'm here today

Before the Lord of creation

The First and Last

And perhaps the best I can say

Is a hollow hallelujah

From an empty heart

“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away

Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

For who knows

Perhaps by my suffering

Someone else may be blessed

Someone else might have hope

Someone else might see You through me

I can't see the future

I don't know the greater plan

But I believe, but I Know

That even in the hardest of times

I can rely on You to carry me

When I fall, let me fall into Your arms

Please take this broken life

This shattered jar of clay

And shape it into the man

That You need me to be

I trust You

I love You

And because of these

I know that I'll be ok

 Poetry is a very unusual form of writing. It falls into little pigeon holes. It has rhythm, flow, meter and sometimes rhyme. It also is filled with emotion and comes from the heart. It has often occurred to me that I do not exactly understand why people like John Donne who felt the need to pour his heart out put these tremendous artificial limits on himself by forcing himself to do so within the constraints of poetry. Why didnt he just write it in prose? It would have been so much easier. But for many who are poets, there is only one way that they can allow that grief and emotion to come out and that is within poetic restraints. For that reason, poetry is a singular anomaly. Pax - C.

Bright constellations shimmering against the ocean floor. My grandfather was born for the sea, or maybe it was the sea that had been brought upon him. He stared down to the blue and looked up at the twinkling stars and couldn’t ever imagine a world without these peppering kisses of droplets sprinkling against his freckled face.

Everything needs an engine. Even a mighty boat.

February night, cold air sneaking its way through the door that was ajar. Sneaking its way through his veins and all the way to his heart. Rhythm suddenly stopped, the beats were uncertain. A nurse walked in, called the doctor and made sure to close the curtain. It was under attack, his heart that is. The mother organ. Only physically though, his love and kindness still open. And that was it for a while, that’s what kept him alive for so long. Not very long but still longer than most.

Who would’ve thought that the young sailorman, the scuba diving king, would be depending on a machine to keep his heart beating and the summer air clean. But there It was and here we were and even though he couldn’t form many words, I still know if he could he’d be joking everywhere and finding a way, in his mind, to still crack a joke.

A pacemaker. Artificial life. But nothing artificial about it said my grandmother, his wife, because after all he was still here and that will was what mattered. Little did we know that his biggest dreams had been shattered. Yes, he loved us, and he loved being with us and his family visiting did help him recover but what is it that happens when your major interest is over? Would it feel like everything was out of order? My dad said he wasn’t sure, but oh boy I knew it. How could I put in doubt his love for the sea and fishing and doing? A hardworking man he was, you can’t just expect him to be okay and resting. Not when he’d rather be put in action and fighting and testing.  

A pacemaker, they call them. Those little machines that send electric shocks so your heart’s valves stay open. A pace, a rhythm, a beat. Could really help you live but, apparently, not to stay on your feet. That’s when I understood and that’s when I saw it; my grandpa’s heart didn’t beat to pump blood, it beat to imitate oceans.

We took him to the beach, to see it for one last time. The pacemaker seemed to smile, his eyes seemed to shine and everything was okay, at least for a while, at least for some time. Every heart beats to its own rhythm and that’s completely okay, you just have to find what is yours and what makes you brave.

September afternoon, the old man passed away, the pacemaker stopped. It was bound to happen sometime anyway but I still cried. It’s not easy to see someone you love die. My father sniffed and showed me his closed hand, I looked at it and he opened it to see what it had. The small object, that thing that kept my grandfather alive for so long. It wasn’t so away from him just hours ago. I sighed and closed his hand again, told him maybe it would be useful to donate the thing to some friend. A man so alive once, had depended on a machine and oh, so naïve I was to think it was only the sea that gave breath to his lungs and helped him feel free. But everything was okay now, it was time for him to rest. When someone is alive so much and has given his best it’s okay…it’s okay for them to just stay…and sleep and snore so deep. So deep as the ocean and the deep blue sea, dreaming to the beat of a pacemaker and to heaven to flee.

My grandfather’s boots, the most memorable pair of boots my family will always remember. Before he passed away, my grandfather had the most beautiful and amazing pair of cherry oak colored Lucchese boots ever. Every night he shined and cleaned them before going to bed. Whether he was tired or busy, whether he was sick or at a dinner. Every single morning he woke up at 5 am, slipped on his boots and went to work with his cows, it is safe to say the cows in the ranches saw more of my grandfather than we did. The kids in our family did not get to see him much, but one thing is sure, every afternoon my grandfather would come back from the ranch and leave the boots as dirty as they could get. The boots being in the same place every afternoon was the only thing constant in my grandfather house. He would change the house, buy new things, but one thing remained true, the boots would always be on the entrance of the house. Clean or dirty, as kids we used to play with them. We would put them on and play being a cattleman, just like in the Dallas show. We would play piggyback riding each other, chasing cows, and shooting coyotes.  My grandfather realized we loved the boots so much that one day for Christmas he got each of his grandsons a pair of Lucchesse boots. Each pair he bought was chosen with special care and specifically though for each grandson to match his likes. We would wear them every day to the ranch, most of us work on our parents ranch now so we wear them every day. My grandfather boots where so iconic of him that every time I put my own pair on I say to myself “Wow, now I can be like my grandpa.” When my granpa passed away, I remember nobody cared for the money nor the material goods, the only thing his children and grandchildren where fighting about where his boots. In the end nobody kept his boots, my family decided to commemorate his life by keeping them safe in the one placed he loved. Nowadays the boots are always on display in the LALA offices. They are meant to represent hard work, and that even though it is a big company nowadays the building blocks are in the ranch. My grandfather boots represent hard work and dedication. Oh how I love my grandfather boots.  Although we now each have our own pair of Lucchesse boots one thing remains sure, our favorite pair is the old and smelly Cherry Oak colored boots my grandfather used to wear.

I always wondered how to play it. The old fashioned grand piano just stood there, in the living room. Nobody would play it, nobody would acknowledge it. Was it special? Did it even work? Every month, since I was 7 years old, I would attend a family reunion in my Aunt’s house, and I would think about the polished piano that seemed as if it were just another piece of furniture in the spacious living room. It seemed insignificant to everybody, it seemed as if I was the only one who recognized the charm in this instrument. Until one day, I finally asked my aunt, “Does anybody play the piano?”. She laughed, and told me that it was merely an ornament for them, they had bought it 10 years ago and nobody ever even took piano classes. Yes, the $5,000 piano was simply, just, there. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t stop thinking about this piano that seemed so elegant, fancy, and even stylish. As I got home, I told my mom that I needed to learn how to play the piano. I fell in love with the gentle, emotional and mellow sounds it made. As I started taking clases, I realized that I really did enjoy playing. It became my only hobby that was not related to sports, which was incredibly strange and awkward to me. Until this day, I have no other hobbies (besides reading and playing the piano) that are not sports related. I grew up, the years passed and my 13th birthday came, the greatest gift of them all was from my aunt. Yes, she gave me her piano. She said that it would make her more happy if someone actually played it. I stared in amusement, not understanding the fact that she had just began to realize that. I thought about saying: “You don’t say?”, but my parents taught me that sarcasm is bad. Yes, really really bad. So I actually said: “Thanks!”. My aunt’s piano, which is now my piano, now sits below the stairs in my house, and finally, has someone to play with. It now feels satisfied, complete and seems even more joyful than before. Now, thanks to my aunt, I have a piano that I would never thought I would have. I take care of it more than I take care of any of my belongings. And my aunt, as weird as she can be, and as weird as she may think, will forever be the aunt who gave me her grand piano.