Liz Esquirol

Rah-Rah Go You!

You know how random things pop in your head out of nowhere? Like when a long forgotten memory leaks its way back into your consciousness? I had that this morning.

I suddenly found myself remembering my youthful years in pursuit of being a cheerleader. (Feel free to groan and make the gag-me sign of sticking your finger in your throat. Trust me, I feel the same way.) Come on now, cheerleading? Really??!!

I’m not even a big fan of cheerleading. (No offense to anyone.) I have such a roll-my-eyes feel about the whole business – I’m sure partially due to my experiences – but also because the genre itself is culturally easy to make fun of. You know what I mean.

As a young girl, I was a tot of a cheerleader for a Pop Warner football team. It’s a youth-based organization of football and cheerleading. My brother was on the team, my sister was on the squad with me.

We practiced. And practiced. I don’t know how many cartwheels I did in preparation – or how many times I fell to the ground attempting – but I’m sure I had the scrapes and bruises to show for it. Kids have that way about them – not much phases them in the pursuit of fun.

And I did like it. We had our cute little skirts and vests. And the requisite pigtails. And most importantly, our own set of paper pom-pom’s. Oh man, I loved those shakers. There’s something about jumping up and down and throwing your arms in the air with pom-pom’s that makes a person feel good. (I’m not even going to go there.) But something about it made it special and cool and desirable.

So as the years rolled past and I moved into Jr. High School, being selected to the school cheerleading squad became a bit more competitive. Grabbing a coveted spot took more gymnastic skill and social ladder climbing. Neither which I was pretty adept at. Certainly the splits and back flips and cow-jumps were NOT my forte. I don’t know how many times I was probably borderline muscle tearing as I forced gravity to heave me downward in a split that clearly my legs weren’t made for. Oh, I practiced. And grimaced. I was a dancer but I wasn’t a gymnast. Back handsprings were reserved for others.

I envied those girls….whose flexibility rivaled Gumby’s. I wanted that. But it wasn’t happening. Perhaps I was just better closer to the ground than heels over head. I know that I had the spirit though – the deep voice, that could shout for hours. And I liked to smile. So I always hoped that would count for something.

My Jr. High didn’t have a football team – just a basketball one. And I did make the squad. One year or maybe two. It’s a blur. And not on my resume under special skills so it doesn’t much matter. But I pushed my way in….somehow.

And then came High School. The nirvana of your cheerleading years (if you’re of that ilk.) It was cutthroat. Seriously. If you didn’t have the typical gymnastic abilities…or you weren’t of the popular ‘in’ crowd, there wasn’t a chance in hell you were getting in. Damn. They had cool megaphones and thick white sweaters to keep the football weather at bay. Pleated short skirts and saddle shoes with red and gold laces. And jackets – with the squad’s name embroidered on the back – and your first name on the front.

I didn’t get in. No matter what I did, I just didn’t make the cut.

So I created my own squad. My own group to belong to. Take that cheerleader girls!!

Since I was a dancer (I had been dancing since the 3rd grade), I created, along with friends of mine, a dancer-cheerleader hybrid I had seen in other schools. We were Highsteppers. We would perform routines to music during halftime, on the field, in front of the crowd. We were part of the mid-game entertainment (the requisite break from the sporting action.) And we had our own set of pom-pom’s. Yes!

My friend Trudi and I were co-captain’s to a bit of a motley crew. We had tryout’s and weekly practice. We worked hard to choreograph dance routines that included kicklines of Rockette fame. None of our routines consisted of flips or jumps. After all, I wasn’t much of an aerialist.

We weren’t entirely ‘accepted’ at first – I’m sure the cheerleaders weren’t too happy about us horning in on their territory. But we weren’t out to take any of their glory (well, maybe a little), we were out to create a slice of our own. After all, even in Western’s, there was always space for a sheriff AND a deputy.

We made it happen. We bought our uniforms (even cuter than the cheerleaders, in my biased opinion) and we wore our saddle shoe’s on Pep Rally days in school. Oh, and we got jackets too – with our names.

I’m sure the squad has evolved over the years – growing into whatever its newest members need and want. But it’s nice to know I helped plant the seed.

Blazing your own path is essential to creating the life you want – the experience you wish to have. If you don’t fit in to the standard mold (or don’t wish to), make your own. Why not? You are your own greatest inner cheerleader – and what better way to win then doing it your way. No cartwheels required. – BB

Buddha Balboa

Getting to it

Isn’t irony funny?

I was telling someone that I really needed to get down to the task of writing more often (a lot more often) because I had SO much I wanted to write. And the fact that I had so much that I wanted to write about was the thing that was keeping me from doing the writing. The overwhelmed factor – that feeling that you have so much to do that you don’t know where to begin. It’s a self-inflicted paralysis of sorts.

So much to write about but I can’t get started because I feel overwhelmed by all that I have to write about….irony at its most absurd.

Steven Pressfield, the author, writes in his wonderful book, “The War of Art”, that we all encounter this block – he calls it Resistance. This invisible force that keeps us from our work, our task at hand. It’s internal, yet we externalize it through excuses and justifications. We allow this Resistance to take from us what we want the most – to get down to it…to take a step forward and get moving along our desired path.

I suspect it’s because we want everything to fall into place….to be struck by inspiration which magically allows everything to flow smoothly and easily. We don’t like being “forced” to do this or that…to get down to the hard work of focusing and plowing through. I like to have a clear, complete picture in my head when I’m writing a piece, but yet I forget that the beauty of writing is that it takes on its own shape despite where I try to lead it. Writing is not about producing the perfect piece; writing is about being open enough to allow the “muse” to come through…to let it be what it will. Just the act of sitting down to put words on paper swings open the gates of energy and forward momentum. It can’t be any other way.

I guess what I’m saying to you, and to myself, is to get on with it. Whatever you have to do – be it write the next great American novel or clean the bathtub, go at it. You will feel so much better once the task has begun. – BB

Buddha Balboa

Soprano Silenced

By now you’ve heard the news…James Gandolfini, of The Soprano’s fame, has died.

James Gandolfini (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At 51.

In Italy. A suspected heart attack in his hotel bathroom. Discovered by his teenaged son. Pronounced dead at a local hospital.

At 51. At 51 years young.

For someone 20, he may seem old, but for the rest of the world, he was young. Dying at 51, out of nowhere, is hard to swallow.

I was in shock when I heard the news – which was texted to me last night when I was out having dinner with a friend – “Gandolfini dead?” – read the brief text.

What? I thought. I looked to my friend and asked her as if she would possibly have had this inside information and not shared it. Her response was the same disbelief. How out of the blue, how sudden, how unexpected.

I, of course, don’t know Mr. Gandolfini personally, nor professionally (though I did do stand-in work in one episode on The Soprano’s, a mere brush with infamy.) So I can’t speak to the man he was, but I did enjoy his work on The Soprano’s as well as the numerous other acting roles he embraced.

He was good. That was clear. And his portrayal of Tony Soprano changed the television landscape for the years it swept through our homes. He was fortunate to land such a role and he knew it. He became a household name….such so that all one had to get was a text asking Gandolfini dead? and anyone would know who it was.

For me, it’s yet another poignant reminder that nothing, and I mean nothing, can stop the inevitability of death. Not fame. Not fortune. Not plans to attend a film festival in Sicily just days later. Nothing. It is, as they say, the great equalizer. All of us are headed in the same direction – regardless of our financial or infamous successes.

I think we tend to forget that. We tend to put those well-off or well-known in a different, impenetrable category. As if they have the secret to longevity or the good life. That because of their societal status, they are immune to the difficulties, pains and sad surprises that life can throw our way. But they aren’t. They are just like the rest of us – full of human frailty.

The shock here, in Gandolfini’s case, is not so much that he died (as we all will) but that he left us before his time. That his gift as an actor is now silenced. That he still had so much to do, see, feel, and experience. That’s the kicker for me. Because inside each of us, I believe we have this constant yearning to live life as fully as we can until our time has come. I often need to remind myself that this road is limited. There is an end.

RIP Mr. Gandolfini. Thank you for entertaining us – you will most certainly be remembered and missed. – BB

Buddha Balboa

Bionic Life

Bionic. I think we are in search of a modern-day bionic life.

If you’re old enough to remember the show “The Six Million Dollar Man” from the 70’s – a big high-five. If you’re not, look it up….youtube it. Find out what all the excitement was surrounding the rebuilt astronaut Steve Austin (other than his 70’s good looks.)

The premise was that we could rebuild a broken man and make him “better… stronger…faster” (music swells as Steve Austin runs at lightning speed.) Ah, 70’s television – I miss it.

The thrill of the show was that we finally had the technology to do something never done before. We had become advanced enough as a species to go beyond our wildest dreams. It was post-space travel capability and pre-cell phone domination. It was the cusp of something superhuman.

And so here we are today – with our bionic lives in place. We may not have a computer eye in our heads (yet), or legs that outrun an Olympic sprinters, but we have created a world that is in overdrive…flying by, morphing, twirling like a Tasmanian Devil.

How do we keep up? Or better yet, do we need to?

There is an argument, naturally, on both sides of this coin. Of course we need to keep up, say the workforce guru’s, as the only way to compete in today’s job market is to outrun the competition. Technology is the driving force – a new gadget magically appears practically every quarter (never mind annually, that’s so old school.) I blame Apple for that – creating and marketing the next best thing – with unveilings coincidentally surfacing around holidays and school seasons. It’s a thirst that can never be quenched – “What – you only have an iPhone 4S? Oh. Sorry.” As if the latest anything will bring us joy, prestige, happiness and self-esteem. What it brings us really is dwindling bank accounts, increasing credit card debt and just another soon-to-be outdated piece of tech equipment earmarked for the junk drawer.

So what are we doing to ourselves? The big boys are making tons of money off our desire, or rather our “need”, to be at the front of the line. Maybe it’s our ancient yearnings bubbling up – the need to beat our chests and be king of the jungle. Maybe it’s the desire to belong – to not be an outsider. I mean, who does NOT own a cellphone these days? My dad does, even though he can barely use it – I’m pretty sure there are voicemails I left him 3 years ago that he never retrieved. I try to cut him some slack – there are a lot of buttons to push – it can be confusing.

Our need for speed is outpacing our ability to learn. Our multi-tasking is actually, according to neuroscientists, re-wiring our brains. What? Yes, re-wiring our brains. So maybe we are altering ourselves bionically after all. We can’t focus, we lose sleep, we burn the candle not only at both ends, but have torched the whole darned ball of wax.

Can we slow down? Is it too late for that? I don’t think so. There’s a bit of street talk about quitting Facebook, powering down our phones at dinner, and going off the grid during vacations. We are trying to loosen the grids grip on us – as it squeezes us into forced decompression. We need it gang….we really do. We need to step away from the bloated buffet of technology and remember what a tree looks like, before we’ve cut them all down. (Oh God, I realize I’m suddenly sounding like a wild-haired hippie tree-hugger right now, but that’s not my intention.) I’m just like the rest of us – I want my iPhone and my cake too. I love my Kindle and my Apple TV and my high-speed Internet connection. It all makes for convenience in my day. BUT – and I draw the line here – not at the expense of my ability to understand that it’s just metal and wires and invisible electromagnetic waves (which is probably the source of many a migraine other than just hearing your mother’s voice on the end of the line.) It’s not flesh and blood like you and me. It has no heart or soul or whatever you may call it. Shouldn’t we remind ourselves once in a while that technology is A source, not THE source.

And not for nothin’, six million dollars to rebuild a man? I’ve seen apartments that cost more than that. Inflation. – BB