Pinay New Yorker

 I have been enamored by these beautiful flowers which are a staple of spring.  A few days ago, I had started taking pictures of the tulip bulbs up close as you saw in the post below and Friday afternoon (or early evening since it was after 6pm), I decided to stop by and take another look at the halfway blooming bulbs and I snapped away again.  I wish spring didn’t go by too fast — it would be nice if it was more subtle like Autumn is where you literally see the landscape changing colors through the weeks. 

Bryant Park in the Spring

 is such a hub of activity that brings New Yorkers and tourists alike in droves to the vast expanse of green littered with chairs inviting everyone to stop by and sit.  The air was cool and a tad nippy but not chilly.  Still jacket or coat weather, though, but the sun was out.  After days and days of rain, it was a welcome respite from the horrors of a wet New York.

Saturday.. we’re supposed to be heading out to a barbecue in Pennsylvania which is going to be quite a drive — but the chauffer is still taking his power nap.  Me, I’m catching up with the e-mails, blogging, and hopefully, some scrapbook layouts that need redoing.  Oh, and maybe get a to a chapter of my English El Fili.  (Still on Placido Penitente.)  I really, really want to get on with the reading, but there are nights when I’m too exhausted to read. I actually slept through a rerun of  Law & Order Criminal Intent

I fell asleep while cuddling Angelo in his fold out sofa.  I even said no to the Crumbs

Meanwhile, I have my tulip shots to relax with.. makes you smile at how wonderful nature truly is.  The handiwork of a true artist — just look at all that beauty around us.

We’ve been experiencing some horrible weather here in New York the last couple of days and the sun was taking a peek behind the cloudy skies this morning, but it was dry.  So I thought I’d take a moment to stop by Bryant Park before heading to work to take some pictures of the tulips that deck every nook and cranny of this 42nd street patch of green.  There are days when I get so tempted to do just that but I often find myself rushing up to the office.  Not today.  I took a walk around the park and caught the newly planted bulbs.  I’ll be back when they’re all in bloom.  What a treat for the eyes — even after things turned gloomy and the rain started to fall.

My mother has this pearl of wisdom that she had tried to ingrain in me from a very young age — that we are all created differently, and that although I had my strengths and my talents, I should not expect others to be at par with them, and that I should be patient and accept others for their shortcomings.  For if we were all created equal, then I wouldn’t be good at what I was good at — I would be part of the norm so to speak.  It was her way to instill some humility in me by making me realize even those who fall short were given less for a reason.

I miss my Mom.  And I miss her all the more the past few weeks that I have had some challenges as far as being judged for what I have said and done by those who didn’t know me well enough.  It has taken me the past two weeks to be able to say I’m okay now.  Even thinking about what had happened and the things that had been said no longer rile me up or unsettle me like they did when the words were still ringing in my ears.

After all, I am by no means a saint.  Forgiveness is easier for me than forgetting.  And sometimes, the memory of painful words and incidents are harder to let go of than the feelings of pain associated with it.

But my mother is right.  While I have managed to widen my outlook in life and I have a higher tolerance for the quirks of others who do not think like I do, I cannot expect others to be as open-minded nor as accepting as I am.  I, too, fall prey to wrong judgment, even if you say it’s giving someone the benefit of the doubt that was undeserved.  My bad, as I would say — I should’ve known better.

Sometimes I am honest to a fault, to the point that I end up putting my foot in my mouth.  Or worse, to the point that I end up being misjudged or misunderstood.  Then again, perhaps it is those brushes with people jumping to conclusions wrongly about what I meant by what I did or said that has made me more tolerant of others.  Where I would normally have shunned the types whose opinions clashed with mine, I have learned that sometimes, tolerance will get me farther and will actually not really cost me much — except perhaps for a spell with boredom and a tug-of-war with my patience. 

I had written a lengthy missive — hoping to assure a third party that I was not angry at him.  After all, the transgressions of the wife are not the transgressions of the husband.  I am actually not even angry — just totally disconnected.  That a friendship that we had all hoped would be formed is now a distant possibility is but a consequence of what happened.  There was a question as to how to rectify things, or how to resolve the situation — but to my mind, there was nothing to resolve, it was not a wrong that could be righted just as there was no question that needed answering..  It just happened and we all have to live with the consequences. 

I, too, am guilty of sometimes closing my doors to people who strike a raw nerve in me.  But I retreat and just take a step back — I don’t go charging to tell off this person I don’t like how she does things or what she said or what not.  There are people who, for no reason at all, don’t have a good fit with me socially, just as there are people who make me feel as though I’ve known them a lifetime and then some.  But for the former, I remind myself about what my Mom used to tell me.  I hear her telling me I should not look for what I want or what I hope to see in the people I encounter — I should not look for “me” in them.  So where I would be more patient, I realize others will not be as tolerant.  Where I would have the gumption to speak out, others would be timid.  Where I would choose to hold my piece, others would be outspoken.