What if #16 [Writing Prompt]

Each week the Rivera Runs Through It blog presents a different "What If...?" question for you to explore.
 At the bottom of this post is a place for you to link up your own post about this week's question. If you have arrived at this post and the inlinkz tool is closed, or you don't have a blog, then please leave your response (or link) in the comment section below using DISQUS.

Happy pondering to everyone...

What IF #16:

What if it/they never existed?

For me, it was the Muppets. For my little brother it was Star Wars. My husband had GI Joe and his brother had Japanese entertainment (DragonBall Z, Pokemon and the Power Rangers). 


What are these things?


Those childhood obsessions that consumed so much of our thoughts, playtime and imaginations. I venture to guess that the influences these have had on us, even as grown-ups may be deeper than we even imagine. Let me give you some examples:

• I have a tendency to look to the silly, fun and colorful aspects of life. I also tend to talk to animals a lot. I seem to think that all furry things have a basic concept of the English language.
• My brother joined the military and then the police force. He is constantly fighting good versus evil.
• My husband is very creative. How does this relate? When you have GI Joes the way you play with them is by imagining scenarios in which they all participate.
• My brother-in-law is currently living in Japan. I truly wonder if he had not been exposed to Japanese culture in his youth if he would be as interested in pursing a career and new life in that country!

These are all very broad-strokes examples. Without telling you each of these life stories, I don't know how else to express the influence I see within each one of them. The fact is, our childhood obsessions framed us and our understanding of the world. I, personally plan to take some time to think about how I would be different if the Muppets didn't exist (even though this is a thoroughly heart-breaking perspective for me to take!). 

You may have guessed by now what inspired this question - THE MUPPETS ARE COMING BACK TO THEATERS THIS MONTH!! (I have become very Muppet-minded as of late!).


So I turn the question to you: What was your childhood obsession? What if it never existed? 

• How would this have changed your childhood?
• How do you think this would change your perspective of the world today?
• Are there any negative aspects you picked up from your obsession?
• Based on this, are there any current childhood "obsessions" you would like to steer your own children away from?

Write your story. Link up below!

For a list of all of the What if questions asked so far, 

see The What If Prompts

Who Do I Think I Am?

Who I Am
 
I've lived here my entire life, so, if I want to make this post short, sweet and to the point, the answer is simple: I am an American, a New Yorker or, to really pinpoint it - I'm a Staten Islander.

Who I Think I Am
 
However, a couple of years ago, I began to explore my roots. My parents always told me I was half Sicilian (dad's side) and half Irish. Well, maybe more like an Irish mutt - Mom's side was a little less pure, but "Irish" was evidently the most prevalent. After losing both parents early along with my grandparents being gone as well, I realized it was high time that I learned my back story before I had some confused kids of my own - because, like their mother before them, they'll find dad's lineage to stems from one island's story (this time Puerto Rico!) and mom's (that would be me) one big muddled mutt mess!

Growing My Family Tree
 

I've been on my own personal "Who Do You Think You Are?" (a la the NBC show) journey without the budget, the celebrity, the international trips or the cameras to follow me all around. It has been slow going and it is really making me wonder about Who I Think I Am!

I've been learning a lot throughout this process - some things I am learning about myself, some things I am learning about genealogy and some things I am learning about history (my family's and my country's). I am no where near the finish line, but I thought I would share what I've picked up so far with all of you tuning in to my adventures here at the Rivera Runs Through It blog!

Lessons Learned from my Family Tree Adventure:

1. This could easily turn into a job. I have been at this for years because I am not in the best health and can not give it the attention it needs, but I could easily see me waking up each morning to do more research, scan more records and add more info every single day. This is a big project.
2. The family stories are invaluable. While my parents and grandparents are no longer alive, I had up to 33 years of stories from one grandmother, 29 years of stories from my mother and almost 25 years of stories from my paternal grandparents. I remember them, they are what I have and they helped so much in the process. I knew approximate dates of major events (coming to America, births of brothers and sisters, deaths, careers, military service and weddings) and general locations of family units.
3. There are never enough stories. Once I reach a point where my stories no longer reach I begin to kick myself, "Why didn't you ask them more, Nicole? Why did you waste time telling them about your day?!" It is a silly thought, I know. Conversations are a two-way street, so, of course, I had to add input, but there is always a point where a question mark pops up and I think of missed opportunities. My advice to those of you who still have your family with you: Don't become an intense reporter bombarding them with questions all of the time, but don't miss opportunities. In fact, start this process now WITH THEM while they are still alive.
4. Sometimes legends are just that... [maybe] nothing more. I have gone back four generations on mom's side and I've crossed "the pond" in three different directions so far - England, Germany and France - and have no Ireland in sight yet! I'm not saying that there is no Irish blood here, I'm just thinking that goes back a bit further than my family once believed. I'm wondering if this is a lot of wartime movement, or if it is actually where we are from (this is why I say I have a lot more to go!).
5. "Family" has a much broader meaning than what is flowing through our veins. There is so much evidence of this in our everyday lives, but let me demonstrate just two (and a half) examples that glare at me repeatedly in this process.

• My mother was raised by her "grandparents" - Bob and Ann. When she died I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were the first angels to greet her, and the first she would look for. These two people made my mother the woman she was. And, yet, search as I may, there is no record of Bob and Ann together nor with my mother. I am not surprised. Bob was Ann's second "husband" and I don't think they were ever married. Also, I think mom was legally listed with her dad at the time.
• As I search through the census records of my ancestors that were the first to come to this country in search of (who knows?) freedom, work, a new life; I rarely find that they are living with blood relations in the initial years. There are names listed that I know from "the stories", but I can clearly see now that they are not blood-related. This, in no way, changes my own definition of them as being family.
• There is NO MENTION of pets on ancestry.com. In this house, pets = family/

I enjoy this process more than I ever thought I would. I thought it would become a passing curiosity, but it is, in some ways the greatest story ever to be revealed: The Story of Me. I remember, as a child, having a book that was customized to have me in it as one of the characters. I loved it. I thought it was just fantastic. Growing my family tree is like reading that story but 1000 times better! There are no fictional characters in this tale, and there are so many characters that I have loved for a lifetime before  even unveiling their creation story. It's like I am getting the prequel to the story I am living every single day.

I love prequels.

Do you have a family tree or are you in the process of growing one?

Did you have any surprises in your backstory?

How do you capture and share your family's story?

The Green Dress

Another piece from the Writer's Toolbox archives. I used the sentence sticks for this one. The bold sentences are the ones I selected and then wrote until the timer ran out.
 
February 16, 2009

He swore on his mother's grave, but then he swore on just about everything. Jon was only six and still thought that "swearing on" something was enough to make it all feasible. Rhonda, his older sister was exasperated by this behavior, "Enough Jon! Just tell mom what the hell you did to her dress!"

"RHONDA!" her mother yelled.

"Of course I would get in trouble now," thought Rhonda, "the little brat uses Mom's favorite dress as a prop in his latest battle fort and I get in trouble..."

"What?!" she yelled back at her mother.

"Stop cursing! You're a Lady!"

Ugh! How did Rhonda not see that one coming? Then the kicker - Mom changes from her reprimanding tone to parental, caretaker as she turned to Jon, "Now, Honey, what happened to my pretty green dress?"

"It was for the tent outside. It was camoflauge. I needed it. Otherwise the bad guys could see me," his sincerity was sickening to Rhonda, but seemed to ease their mother's increasing blood pressure.

Through gritted teeth, still maintaining some of the motherly sing-song required in conversations with a six-year-old, their mother continued, "Jon, why didn't you use the throw cloths I left you in the shed?"

"They weren't green. They were all the same, I decided."

Mom was just about at her breaking point with this one, "You decided?" Rhonda was pleased with her mother's increased aggravation.

"Yeah, the guys found me last time, and since they were all the same they would just find me again unless I got some camoflauge! You wanna see it?" his excitement was palpable. Jon truly did not understand the issue here. His smile was as wide as the time he caught a fly ball in his first tee-ball game. He was simply incorrigible!

They decided to see the fort as a family. It was easy to see where Jon's pride stemmed from - this was a six year old boy's dream. Which also meant, of course, it was his mother's nightmare. The dress was torn into pieces. The arms were fashioned into two separate camoflauged periscopes, one at either end of a hugely extensive tunnel system propped up by lawn chairs, a garbage pail and the beach umbrella. The skirt was torn into two long pieces and then separated from the inset slip to actually create four long panels of green roofing for the stronghold. The bust of the dress was also torn into two pieces, they were the doors taped to the fortress using duct tape.

My Teaching Appreciation Day

I loved more deeply than I ever thought possible. I gave my everything - my heart, my soul, my free time, my thoughts, my money, my dreams, my creativity; my best. Every day I showed up ready to share all that I knew and I prayed that they could understand. This is what I mean when I say I was a teacher.

My students weren't my biological children, but they were all my kids. I cried for them and with them, I fought for them and against them, I cheered for them and supported them and I held their hands as we walked through the dangerous valleys and peaks of high school mathematics.

It was my calling. It was what I was put on this Earth to do. I know this because it was amazing,  I was amazing. Not every semester, of course, or with every class, but when the chemistry was right I simply could not deny that I was walking the path God had set out before me. It was beautiful, it was euphoric.

No one could stop me from pouring my entire soul into every lesson, every question, every activity and every child on my path. I would walk around the hallways with hand-written math problems hanging around my neck, I would invent fictitious civilizations that we would have to save with our math, I would stay up all night answering e-mails, updating blogs or websites and printing full-color worksheets, homework calendars and "goodies" for my kids and I would wear every ridiculous, nerdy math t-shirt I could get my hands on (or create!). My goal was to shred the fear and anxiety surrounding the subject I had come to love and to build a community of shared learning where we could all discover new techniques in problem solving. 

There were connections outside of the classroom as well. I tutored after school, chaperoned the prom, played paintball, bingo and dodgeball with students on their Senior trip, and spent countless days of my life at all types of sporting events (including the wildly popular Thanksgiving Eve Basketball game) and supported our theater and music program each season. And then there were the clubs... of course I advised the Math Tam/Math Club for years, but then there were others - Asian American Awareness Club, Karma Club, Anime Club, Animal Rights Club and the funniest one of all: Video Game Club.
  
At the end of the year, when the state tests came, I would call every single house of every single student I had to tell them their grade - good news or bad news - and have our last conversation before summer. It was the last of many, because I had the annoying habit of calling up the houses of my kids (especially the forgetful ones) for all types of things, "Hey, how's that homework going?" or "Any questions about tomorrow's test... Yeeeess, the test is TOMORROW," or, my favorite, "Hi Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa, did your child tell you how awesome he/she was in class today?"

Teaching is the single most rewarding profession on this planet. The only thing that I can imagine holding a candle to it is parenthood. I am proud I was a teacher. No, let me rephrase that: I am proud that I AM a teacher ~ whether I am ever healthy enough to be able to re-enter the classroom, or achieve the greatest I once so mindlessly lived in, I don't believe anything can take away the teacher's soul within.


This post was written for a RemembeRED Prompt.

"Tell the story (without any trivialization or modesty) of something in your life that you are proud of."

Look easy? I'm guessing it will be a bit tougher than you think.

We are so used to downplaying ourselves, of apologizing for pointing out our own accomplishments. And? We'll have none of that here!

Your word limit is 700 words.

Are You Reading Read Aloud Dad?

From the first time I first read a blog post by Read Aloud Dad I have been a faithful follower. I love reading, I love family and I simply adore the fact that this blog focuses on the unification of both. Read Aloud Dad takes his role seriously as dad, as reader and as a children's book reviewer. I love his policy on reviewing books:

"I review only the best children's books available - I buy what I review.

In the beginning I considered whether to accept books for reviews, then ... after a long think ... I decided against it.

Read Aloud Dad's - "I review only what I buy" policy - provides more freedom and I can be true to my opinion."

In my most recent reading of his blog, I am happy to report that Read Aloud Dad has revealed his origin story in How Reading Aloud Made Me A Better Father. I believe this post is a must read for all who have some relationship with young children. Read Aloud Dad takes us through the steps of his realization of the power of reading with his children

"Children's books almost magically opened up the the channels of communication. They broke down all the walls. "

How many of us have experienced this same idea - either through being read to or by sharing the reading experience with a child ourselves?

I highly recommend that everyone check out this blog. Read Aloud Dad's recommendations are so fantastically thought out (I have already purchased his Pinocchio book of choice for my cousin's daughter) and filled with the best intentions. Within each post is the outpouring of one man's love for his two children - this blog and the work he does to inspire each post is, undeniably, a labor of love.