Raquel Martina Martinez: Putting Me First – NY Resolutions 2019

Raquel Martina Martinez: Putting Me First – NY Resolutions 2019: People who gripe about New Year Resolutions and refuse to make any don’t realize they just did.   Not making a resolution is just that –...

Putting Me First – NY Resolutions 2019

People who gripe about New Year Resolutions and refuse to make any don’t realize they just did.  Not making a resolution is just that – a resolution.

As for me, I make resolutions all year long.  I start anew every day, readjusting my goals.  Being positive and productive keeps me active, alert, and alive.

I look forward to 2019.  It’ll be the last year I spend in my sixties. Voicing my age aloud may not surprise others but it does surprise me.  I don’t feel old, but I can no longer claim myself as young.  On demographic questionnaires, I have to scroll to the bottom of the page when it asks my age. It’s like those of us who get to live this long are not allowed to be first anymore.

Oh well, so what is new for 2019 for this vintage girl?

Besides the usual – diet, exercise, lose weight – I’m going to walk a 5K, maybe a 10K, by next December. Might as well work toward a bigger goal than just fitting into the clothes in my closet.

HoneyBunch and I have decided “to stay in place” as we retire.  We like being mortgage free, living on our three acres, so for now we’ll keep downsizing (emptying five buildings on our property down to two). He’s recycling all the wood in his airplane-hangar-sized shop from his kindergarten furniture business into beautiful, handmade pieces that he sells at local craft shows. We’re on our third year but are expanding which shows to do in 2019.

Me? I’ve decided to continue reducing the number of books I own.  All my books will be down by 50% by this time next year.  Before I buy another book, two books have to go in it its place. This includes my To Be Read pile (that honestly, have been waiting to be read for years and years), and my extensive cookbook collection. Earlier this year I reduced my children’s lit books, but those too will be half gone by next December. I have no idea where to get rid of them, but I figure, it is best if I do it while I have some say so.  I don’t want this chore should we ever decide to move or to whoever survives me.

There are a few more goals for 2019, nothing exciting.  Some personal, financial, and legal decisions we have been ignoring. A few touchups our old house needs now that we’ve decided to stay in place. But the biggest resolution HB and I have decided is to keep introducing change into our lives.

Choose to Smile By Raquel Martina Martinez

 “. . . let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:18 (NIV)

Every Christmas, I used to include myself in the purchase of gifts.  I’d often take advantage of the sales and bought myself a new car or the latest electronics.

One Christmas, however, what I needed the most could not be bought.  I felt an emptiness that affected everything around me. Nothing I could buy would assuage the pain. I needed to forgive the person who hurt me, and I needed to forgive myself for my part in that failed relationship.  

It wasn’t easy to let go of years of anger, so I started by verbally forgiving the person, and then, I forgave myself. My words became actions, and my actions transformed me.  

Last Christmas, I chose another such gift. I gave myself permission to walk away from vitriolic “friendships.” We may not have parted how I would have liked, but I am much happier without the constant bickering.  

We can choose to smile or frown, love or hate, honor or disrespect. We can choose to be humble or haughty, be polite or be vulgar, to share or to hoard.

Choice is a beautiful gift, and if done with a sincere heart, lots of practice, and dedicated follow through, the results might surprise us.  

Prayer: Lord, help me be more like you each day – showing love through my actions.  

Raquel Martina Martinez: The Matriarch

Raquel Martina Martinez: The Matriarch: Bossy, intrepid, little girl All skinned knees and unkempt pony tail More afraid of being afraid than getting things done A thin, ...

The Matriarch

Bossy, intrepid, little girl

All skinned knees and unkempt pony tail

More afraid of being afraid than getting things done

A thin, teenaged beauty

A sweet siren smile and long, brown hair

Afraid she won’t have time to do things, see things, go places

A career woman, a wife, a mother

Youth a fading flower but a full life spreads out before her

Afraid of losing hold of her dreams

A grandmother wearing a silver crown

Gone are the days she conquered mountains and broke hearts

Her only fear – that of being forgotten

Raquel Martina Martinez: The Chicken or the Egg/The Book or the Movie

Raquel Martina Martinez: The Chicken or the Egg/The Book or the Movie: Our book club chooses one book every four to six weeks to be discussed at a later date.   When we get together, the six of us enjoy a live...

The Chicken or the Egg/The Book or the Movie

Our book club chooses one book every four to six weeks to be discussed at a later date.  When we get together, the six of us enjoy a lively discussion even though we each have differing opinions.

We are perfect examples of what is called reader-response theory.

Reader-response theory suggests that the written word’s (author’s) intention and what the reader understands are two different things. The good news, these two different views do meet somewhere in the middle.  Regardless what the author intended, the reader adds to what is on the page based on his or her own past experiences.

This happens with any created object. What the “artist” presents to the world is often seen and appreciated differently by the reader, the audience, or the consumer.

This often happens with movies. The director creates a movie, but the movie critic sees one thing, and the movie goer sees another. We each respond to the film based on our past experiences, our likes and dislikes.

Knowing this, which do you prefer to do first, read the book or watch the movie?

For those of us who read the book first, we form a solid mental picture of the characters, not just what they look like but also their inner workings, their motivation. Through the written word, we have been privy to inner thoughts, back stories, imagery, mood, and this ‘bias’ affects our expectations should “our” book become a movie.  

We balk when the characters do not look like we pictured them, and worse yet, if torrphey do not act and react like we expected.  We scrutinize the film, looking for the details we enjoyed in our reading – the inner dialogue, the back stories, the conflict. We are not forgiving should the setting, the imagery, the mood, or the pacing not jive with what we “pictured.”

We pretend expertise and become amateur filmmakers, looking for evidence to back our criticism - the use of sidekicks or confidants, camera pans, background music, and visual effects. We become film critics if our “favorite” scenes get written out of the scripts or end up on cutting room floors to fit budget restraints or maximum run times.

Book-first readers are merciless.

I know very few who see the movie first and then reach for the book. They would be surprised in the difference between the two presentations. On rare occasions, if I see the movie version first and it intrigues me, I’ve been known to buy the book.  

Afterthoughts:

·      In the movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back, the character played by Whoopi Goldberg was not a character in the book. She was added as a confidante into the movie to share Stella’s misgivings over dating a man many years younger than she was.

·      Characters have been added and deleted in series like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones in order to streamline the stories.

·      The movie character Lestat played by Tom Cruise in The Vampire Lestat looks nothing like the description the author portrayed in the book, though he did the part so well he won over its author Anne Rice.

·      Whole sections of the Harry Potter books were eliminated to fit into the maximum time frame allowed for a movie.

·      The beginning of the movie Jurassic Park is totally different than the book, but that scene was later incorporated into subsequent versions of the series.

·      Books like The Book Thief or Ready, Player One do not transfer well onto film even with the help of modern technology. Part of the charm and expertise of both books was allowing the reader to envision the wildly impossible.  

·      After I watched The Martian, The Descendants, and Waiting for a Dancer, I had to buy the books, and I am glad I did. I craved more details and understanding than what the movies provided, and the books supplied them.