We love to give advice. Hell, I wish I could have a radio show people would call into to tell me their problems, rant, and disclose secrets. That would be fun. I love flying off the handle. This is one of the ideas I have for an upcoming radio project with my friend Dr. Gabrielle. I’m psyched and kind of scared. The best feelings to have when you are about to start a project. Did I mention that it will be in Spanish? Will you like me in Spanish too? These are a few things that cross my mind. What kind of advice would you give me? I know what I would tell my students. I just could do with someone telling me those things in a determinedly convincing way, right now.

To express advice, you could use the phrase: If I were you, I would…

This might be better than using the imperative: do this, do that. Cinderelli.

For instance, if I were you, I would create a media strategy to rouse listeners for your radio show.

Something is enheartening about the phrase if I were you. It is the element of empathy. It is undeniably there, in the the subjunctive were bridging I and you. You recognize that what you are expressing is a hypothetical and that you have gone through the steps of using your imagination to be the other and to disclose what you would do for yourself. If I were you says they have imagined putting themselves in your shoes. You gotta appreciate that. Continue reading

Charlie Brown would commonly exclaim, Good grief from being surprised, not necessarily in a good way. More of a way to express dismay, maybe being let down. Being let down is a good way to start to think about grief in general. We feel grief when we lose something or someone. That feeling seems to take the place of that person. I emphasize the word seems because people cannot be replaced. Ever.

When I heard Pope Francis passed this morning, I started to grieve. I didn’t expect to, only because I didn’t know how important he was to me, to know he was in the world. When people do good things in the world, they don’t have to say anything. Their actions speak louder than words. That said, it is good to recognize the good people do. Who knows, it might start a movement.

I remember when he became pope. This was the first time I was excited about a person at the Vatican. I was aware of what it meant for our region, Latin America, and our shared cultures, to have a leader in the Vatican. From an International Relations perspective, this was big. A Jesuit voice from the third world in this institution. Then other things kept coming, he was eager to use his position to express progressive ideas (progressive for the Church) on the role of women in the church, the lgbtq+ community, the mother’s and family’s of the disappeared, migrants, to sum it up, the teachings of the Church applied to real life issues. I was baptised a Catholic and this was the first time I looked toward the institution with a feeling of hope and possibility of seeing someone apply the tenets of Christianity. I won’t reflect on the inner workings of institutions. Not today. I’ll be grateful for a person’s life who meditated on and spoke out about issues of social justice and acted from a place of love, because he believed in a God who has love for all, in a Chuch that welcomes all. A man in one of the highest positions of power in his milieu. That moves me. His messages moved me several times. He reminded me there is a possibility for change when I felt most at a loss. We know how important it is to say things out loud to make them visible. He did. That’s two things that come to mind when I think of him. Continue reading

Hello, Welcome. I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. Musing Interruptus is a podcast for sharing thoughts and stories and enjoying idiomatic phrases. You can read along; just click on continue reading in the description to open a Google Doc with the transcription of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, subscribe, follow, and share, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Drop a comment with your answers to today’s questions! I love hearing from you! The background music is called Within Garden Walls by Blue Dot.

The mix and master were done by Chuy/Jesús Darío, my sound charolastra

What would the world be without music?

Just noise.

In the beginning, it was dark, and quiet was interrupted by clamors and clutters, knocks, knuckle raps, the rhythmic sounds of intercourse, yips and yelps, cries, collapses, wind rustling through trees, firecrackling, the sounds of destruction and creation, the roar of the waves, and the fury of the rain. From gentle and inviting to mind-numbing and deafening.

It was dark, even when light shone through, beckoning us to organize, repeat at certain intervals, and communicate. Percussions that traveled from our mother’s hearts through umbilical cords and cells and atoms. The beats that would mark humanity's artistic expression of sound. The hearts that set the beats to one of humanity’s greatest developments. Music.

It was how the leaf and bamboo reeds became flutes, hunting bows, lyres of Ur, and eventually guitars. Eventually, happened over and through North and East Africa, Mesopotamia, and the Mediterranean, the Greek, Roman, and Spanish empires via the Moors. Too much to mention in a few lines… Too important not to notice.

From the randomness and chaos of earthly existence to the systematization of sounds to a beat, humanity arrived at symphonies, a collectivity communicating our history and experience. Strings and winds and percussions and brasses that have accompanied our existence. Crippling solitude is an illusion via the realization that it is not unique. Oh, it is shared across grids and ranges. Music surrounds our senses, not just the auditory. That is only part of it. It is the vibrations that emanate from the earth through our limbs, the intention and intensities, the command of interpretation. What of the lyrics? If any? Words that accompany and explain our existence by regaling victories and failures, articulating feelings, all the feelings, basic and complex. All our thoughts. Weaving in and out of fiction, immortalizing, making that which is internal visible and known.

Pendular movements are traced in the evolution of musical expressions. You must learn the classics to appreciate the contemporary. To hear the resistance and how musicians push back, push forward, creating genres. None isolated. All embryonic creations paying tribute to the mother’s heart.