On a steel horse...

 

 

September 14, 2006

Today I saw the sunrise. OK, I know what you’re thinking… I’ve seen it before but quite honestly it’s been a few solid months since I actually took the time to really notice one. So I’ll do my best to describe it.

 

Daybreak: As I opened my van I glanced over the row of houses and trees across the street and could just make out dark silhouettes of clouds in the sky which was starting to brighten in the east. I turned the key and the engine quickly turned as a spark, petroleum products and a little luck combined to get the engine purring. I slowly made my way through the couple side-streets and it was 6:40 by the time I negotiated the right turn eastbound onto Killian Parkway joining a sea of cars as the morning rush was in effect.

 

Most cars still had their headlights on and they all had their brake lights burning brightly. I glanced up at the sky and noticed the first tinges of pink around the edges of a few clouds. I could already make out at least three types of clouds: a few patches of feathery, wispy clouds that seem to be way up near the edge of space, known as cirrus clouds; there were also a couple of what seemed like streams of flat, barely moving sheets, known as stratus clouds and I also counted about 12 huge clumps of puffy cotton ball-like clouds, cumulus.

 

I then took a long look at the cars around me and couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else was actually paying enough attention to appreciate the wonder before them. Sadly, it seemed that everyone else was consumed in their morning routine, a lady applying makeup, another attending to her children, a guy chatting away on his cell phone, another reading the paper, etc.

 

I stared back into the sky as it began to transform before my eyes, keeping an eye on the slow moving traffic. Slowly the sky went from a dull, dark blue into various shades of a beautiful turquoise. The edges of the clouds got these magnificent orange, yellow and crimson highlights.

 

As the sun approached the edge of the horizon it pushed along an orange glow which in turn pressed along the blue turquoise higher in the sky. As I got to the top of the Turnpike overpass I got my first good look at the entire sky, it was indescribable! So many shades of reds, purples, yellows, blues, whites, greys, oranges that it made your eyes dance and the imagination soar!

 

There was a bank of clouds sleeping right ocross the horizon so it was a few minutes before I actually saw the top edge of the sun. I was carried along in the traffic stream completely unaware of how much time had passed. Before I knew it I was at the ramp to the expressway and forty minutes had flown by. By this time the sun was about three quarters visible and it was a beautiful morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, I had to blog the previous entry in order to set this one up.. you know- brief history and stuff. Not so long ago a friend, you probably already know her- Cori, asked me if I'd like one of her drawings. Of course I said "YEAH!!" and she said just send me one of your favorite pictures. So I did... and Wahlahhh! a couple weeks(actually more than a couple since she could only draw when she wasn't working or flying to Tx)  later she sent me a preview. The original is somewhere on a truck between here and west central Florida on its way to me, Hoorah!   Anyhow, heres a preview:

 

 

Last night I had the pleasure and great honor of attending a fundraising event which 10 photographers showcased photographs of 20 women with disabilities. The idea is to generate a better general perception of beauty and strength. Here’s an excerpt from the site:

 

“Uncensored Life: Raw Beauty is an innovative visual arts project designed to inspire the public to create new perceptions, transform stereotypes and breakthrough personal obstacles by expanding awareness of women with physical challenges”

 

I was certainly awestruck as I slowly made my way through the gallery. Some of these women I already knew. I was glad to meet the ones that I didn’t. As someone with a disability I tend to hold a certain respect for other people with disabilities. It’s sort of an unspoken code, if you see a fellow gimp-even if you don’t know them you both either just nod or simple say howdy. But I’ve always had a special respect for women with disabilities. Ok, slow down there… don’t bounce off your rocker yelling ‘Discrimination!’ or ‘Feminist!’ just yet. Let me explain: I know first-hand, the issues and obstacles that every disabled person deals with on a daily basis. Now throw in menstruation, child birth, dating, makeup, nail polish, and a few other issues and… BAM! You’ve just increased the complexity tenfold. Therefore my hat’s off to those gimps of the opposite sex.

 

Check out the site, some pictures are there and there’s information on the models, the photographers, and everyone who had a hand in organizing this event.

 

http://www.rawbeautyproject.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve always been against it, never supported or condoned it. I might even classify it as a fundamental character flaw. I think it’s a very selfish act, but to a certain degree I can understand how (but not why) one would let them selves get to the point of committing it. Of course there are certain extenuating circumstances where it might be completely understandable but in general I feel it’s the easy way out.

 

Yeah, I’ve thought about it… more than once. I don’t think I’d ever do it though. I think I’m too curious; I like to know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Besides I’m hardheaded and stubborn I don’t give up too easily. The truth is I’m probably afraid, yeah, scared. I’m not a very fearful person so I guess my fear is derived from the unknown. Not knowing what will happen next.

 

I’m talking about suicide.

 

Some have said I’ve cheated death, more than once. I almost agree, I’ve sensed the reaper to be very nearby a couple times in my life. So if I have somehow been lucky enough to dodge the bullet then why in the world would I decide to take my own life. One of my elemental life philosophies is that things can always get better. Sure they can get worse too but they can and will eventually get better as long as you don’t give up. You never know!

 

At the beginning of last week I had a few personal and some not so personal issues come plummeting down on me. For the first time in my life I actually thought, only for a second, that I might actually be capable of giving up. But then I remembered how I felt about giving up. I remembered that I have family and friends who worry, care and support me. I remembered that if I simply gave up I’d never find out what I’m truly capable of. I’d never truly know if that great job, that one girl, maybe a couple kids and a happy ending were right around the next bend in the road. What if I gave up a turn too soon… I’d never know.

Its been a while since I post or even comment on anyones blog, I was getting through midterms. I'm working on a couple posts that should be up sometime this week. Thanks for sticking aroud.

 

 

 

 

Anniversary

 

Happy Birthday to me…again, today I turn 17!! Ok, put your phone down, close your email window, stop baking that cake, cancel the dancing girls, you didn’t forget- it’s not exactly my birthday. Today marks the anniversary of my accident, THE accident. Coincidentally it was also a Wednesday. It’s funny how certain things can be milestones in our personal histories. Almost everyone that was close to me at the time uses that day or even that year as a time memory reference.

 

I’ve never really gone out of my way to neither celebrate nor mourn this particular day. At the beginning, the first 5 or 6 years, I just simply let it pass like any other day sometimes not even remembering. Then I went through a short phase, 2-3 years, where I would get a bit glum and stay home sometimes not even talking to anyone that entire day. Eventually and thankfully that passed and I went back to making it a run-of-the-mill day. This year I thought maybe I should celebrate it like a birthday or at least commemorate it somehow, why not? I’ve even been reminding everyone about it. Over the years I’ve been asked many times if I regret going to the beach that day or if I would change that instant if I could go back in time and my answer has always been the same, No! I’ve been fortunate enough to meet many people and do many things that I might not have if my life had not taken such a sharp turn. Sure, sometimes it’s a bitch… can’t deny that but overall it hasn’t been as bad as it seems or most people would imagine.

 

 

I’m reposting a couple of my writings that basically tell the story for those who missed it or might not remember.

 

 

Life change

 

 

As we pulled out of Hialeah High’s student parking lot, I thought to myself, “Awesome! My parents actually ‘let’ me skip school today!” It was National Senior Skip Day, one of the best days of our senior year.

I got to school a few minutes earlier than usual and headed to my first class. As soon as it was over I double-timed it out to the parking lot where we were to meet. After a quick bite at the Denny’s and some chit chat while we waited for the rest of the posse, we formed a small caravan and headed across the 836 to the beach.

We arrived at Penrod’s South Beach on this sunny, cloudless day and unloaded the cars. While everyone else settled down, Carlos and I raced towards the inviting water at full speed. He was just a few steps ahead of me but I was catching up. We dove across the waves as we reached the water.

Almost instantly, I heard a loud ‘Crack!’ I hit something solid with my head.

What the hell? What happened! Ok, relax, I’m still alive  I can feel the water around my face. I can her the underwater symphony of the ocean. As I opened my eyes I could see the sand being stirred gently by the motion of the waves. I just make out some shapes on the bottom, I didn’t know at the time but they were pieces of pilings from the old pier. I was still floating face down but luckily I was still holding my breath. I could feel small bubbles escaping my nose and rolling up the side of my face.

Ok, ok, now just stand up. WAIT! I can’t move. Noooo! Why can’t I even lift my head? I slowly realized what had happened; I had snapped a vertebra in my neck. Oh my God! I can’t drown, not today. My parents! My family! My friends! They’ll be so sad. You can’t do that to them! It won’t be fair! Its national skip day, we’re supposed to be having fun! No! No! No!

As I lay there praying, I inexplicably rolled over and gently started breathing again. It was to be the first day of my new life.

Still

 

 

 

Time was standing still as I lay there, flat on my back, unable to feel anything. All I could see was the square ceiling tiles and bright fluorescent lights. I could hear heart monitors and loud speakers and of course a stream of medical terminology, questions, statements, numbers and answers. Occasionally an intern or a nurse would lean over enough to where I could see their faces.

“Seventeen year old Hispanic male.”

“Diving accident, spinal cord lesion C5-6, laceration on chest above left pectoral.”

“Pulse weak but steady at 65, heart rate steady, BP 100 o’er 65”

“Has anyone contacted the family?”

“Let’s intubate.”  

I close my eyes. I feel the wind rushing past my face. Carlos is pushing the wheelchair as I yell, “Get out the way! Wheelchair coming through!”  We race down the school hallway when suddenly I feel a chill and jump straight up and out of the chair. Carlos runs the chair right into me and we stumble to the floor laughing. Only I’m laughing more out of nervousness than pleasure. I slowly look around and see that I’m still in the hallway at the high school. I momentarily think back to the image that flashed in my head, I saw myself sitting in a wheelchair in a hospital room, and quickly disregard it as an imagination hiccup.

I close my eyes. “Why am I remembering that now?” I hear what seems to be an army of medical staff buzzing around me. I’m just barely able to see the tops of their heads. A nurse gently leans over my face and says, “I’m going to stick you in the arm, but it won’t hurt much.” I do my best to smile and close my eyes.  Less than a minute later she leans back in and smiles, “All done! That wasn’t too bad, was it?” I only stare at her because I didn’t feel a thing. My entire life is numb right now.

I close my eyes. I’m driving down a dark highway on a stormy night. I’m feeling a bit nervous, probably due to the weather but still I speed along. Suddenly the road curves unexpectedly and I swerve to follow it. I feel the car starting to slide in an awkward direction. I turn the wheel back to correct the maladjustment and the car spins. It spins and spins, tires barely screeching on the slick pavement. As I am just about to focus on what lays ahead in the direction the car is taking me, I make out a cluster of trees at the bottom of a steep ditch and suddenly- Smaaack!  “Am I dead?” I open my eyes just in time to realize it’s merely a dream. It will soon be Christmas and I soon forget my dream.

I close my eyes. “That dream was months ago. Why do I recall it now? Was it a warning? Was it real? What’s real? What’s going on? ” A young intern leans into view now, “Do you know what happened to you? Blink once for yes and twice for no.” I blink once, longer than normal. “You’ve been paralyzed from the neck down due to a burst fracture of your 5^th and 6^th cervical vertebrae. Statistics show that there is a ten percent chance of recovery from something like this. Do you understand?” I close my eyes. “There’s no reason to be afraid, you’re young and there’s hope. You’re going to be all right.” “Now how does he know that? Is he a fucking psychic too? He just said there’s only a ten percent chance! He doesn’t know anything.”

Now, I blink and blink and blink! Waiting for the moment when I wake up and realize it’s another dream

It was probably sometime before noon, I was in the hallway on my way to jazz band, the middle of my ninth grade school year when I heard about it. Suddenly all the TV’s in the school were broadcasting the tragic news. We all knew about the launch because it was the first time a civilian would be going into space, a third grade school teacher nonetheless. No one expected it to end so abruptly. Today marks the 20^th anniversary of the Challenger’s tragic flight. We also can’t forget Apollo I on Jan 27, 1967 and Columbia on Feb 1, 2003.

 

 

 

Here’s a couple links that I found which have most of the details(MSNBC):

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5380672/?GT1=7538

 

and here Jay Barbee does an excellent job on his Challenger series.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077897/

 

I was rummaging through some of my older writings and found this. I wrote a few days after his sudden death. The cartoons I borrowed from internet articles that posted around that time.

 

 

 

Real Hero, Forever

An ode to Christopher Reeve, (1952-2004)

 

 Dedicated to Dana (who is also a Hero), their children, the spinal cord injured and countless others who tragically become our everyday unsung heroes. J. Garcia

 

Born of imagination

And a set of colored pencils.

Destined to exist only,

In comics, cartoons, and film.

Every child’s marvel,

And even a few adults too;

Was of donning those blue tights,

And soaring, soaring high

To save common humanity,

From evil’s terrible blights.

 

“SNAP!”

 

Faster than a speeding bullet!

“I can’t move,

I can’t feel,

I can’t breath!”

In an instant it happened.

 

More powerful than a locomotive!

He stares adversity

Square in the eye

He smiles, and smiles!

Forever smiling, he’s confident he will walk again.

And now he walks, he walks

With angels in the sky.

 

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!

No cartoons, or even movie magic,

Can raise our fallen Hero now.

Now even Kryptonite

Must yield to

His honor, his will,

And determination!

 

 

 

 

 

            Here’s a bit of education and a little history, a bit boring perhaps but it’s what I got today!

 

I’ve been working with computers off and on for about 18 years now.  I’ve been aware of the power of the internet for some time now. When I started going “online” the internet was still very crude and pretty inhospitable. It was owned by the government and public access was limited at best. Modems were about 300 baud and you had to dial in to nodes called BBS’s or bulletin board systems. Graphics were defined by ANSI standards and your graphic adapter was CGA, EGA or VGA. At 300bps information dribbled onto your screen a few characters at a time instead of pages at a time like today. Eventually the internet became public. The graphics got better, it became easier to navigate and modem speeds increased, 2400, 9600, DSL, etc.  Services like Prodigy and Compuserve popped up first. Then Windows and AOL came along, the rest is history.

Over the years I’m met many people via the internet, before dating sites and chat rooms were around and after too. There were get togethers(GT’s) and most of the people I was getting to know were pretty nice average folks. Every now and then I’d find a real nut case or they found me but generally nice people. Somewhere along the line, I guess as it got popular, the social quality of the internet deteriorated a bit. I was seeing more and more people not being honest in their descriptions of themselves, hiding behind screen names to do mean or stupid things. Needless to say I quickly became a skeptic when dating and networking sites started appearing. Now before you all bombard me with comments, I’m not saying that everyone out there was dishonest or psycho. I’ve met many good, honest people too, some of which have become good friends.

The internet has become quite a powerful creature. Yes, creature…it really is a sort of living thing, constantly changing, growing and getting “smarter”. For me it’s been and incredible source of information for research, entertainment and communication. I can only think of a couple times when I’ve looked up something and not found some information on it. I’ve also met and communicated with people from around the world right from the comforts of home. I can definitely say it saved me from poking a pencil into my ear repeatedly or stapling antlers to my forehead from the boredom the times when my car has been in the shop or I’ve been sick at home. It has also helped me get very valuable information on a multitude of topics for research and work. So I guess that I should be thankful for the internet too in this new year!

’05 wasn’t quite a year to be remembered but unfortunately it will be memorable. I started the year off by rolling right out of bed while trying to get into bed at 2am New Year’s morning. I spent the next 3.5 hours moving the bed then my chair while trying to sit up so I could either reach the phone or get back in bed. Finally by 6am I made it back into bed and slept the rest of the day.  I would end up on the floor a total of four times in 2005, I had fallen maybe 7 times in the whole 16 years I’d been in a wheelchair, but I racked up a whopping 4 times in less than a year. One of which was on my way home from school late night on Valentine’s Day right after bombing a programming test. My chair fell into a crack on a dark sidewalk and sent me head over heels. It wouldn’t be the first time I went head over heels in ’05. Another was quite comical; I went over a speed bump in a dark parking lot and literally flew about 7 feet from my chair in the rain only to be found by my friend a few minutes later. Luckily I wasn’t injured in any of my falls, except maybe a slightly bruised ego! This year I also had a car accident, and of course there was Katrina and Wilma who although left very minimal physical damage to me but they left some emotional scars. I spent the better part of the last six months without much work due to not having my car. And finally, Right before Christmas I ended up having surgery on my elbow for bursitis which wasn’t very pleasant at all.

 

Don’t get me wrong; despite a few mishaps I did have a few positive and good things happen too. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that I’m not one to complain about the negative stuff but I just had to get it out of the way!  I started ’05 by getting back to school and also sailing for the UMPT class. I also had the opportunity to strengthen a friendship with a good buddy, Mike. He probably doesn’t know it but he saved my ass a bunch of times this year. I also found a keen interest in writing, something I had often pondered over the years. Sometime around early to mid-summer I stumbled into the world of blogs. Shortly thereafter I found Kenny’s site and was inspired to set up my own. I have met some really incredible people, some of which have become good friends. I won’t even dare try to name them all for fear that I might forget someone! Thanks to the wonders of the internet I also found some old friends who I had lost touch with. Right around the time I was setting up my blog I got an email from someone who would change my whole outlook about the internet and life in general. We had trouble getting in touch for like the first month but once we did get in contact with each other, what I once thought was impossible became very real. Turned out she was a thousand miles away in another country but we made a connection that was unreal. We quickly found we had plenty of things in common and even a few that we didn’t share. We ended up spending many hours online and on the phone. Her name I’ll temporarily leave out for the sake of her privacy. (Eu encontrei a Gatinha!) Long story short, due to circumstances beyond our control we weren’t able to ever meet in person in ‘05. A while back we drifted apart, she probably thinks I gave up or forgot about her, but I haven’t. Distance can be a bitch on a relationship. She’s still in my thoughts and the coming year will find a way to bring us face to face so we can find out if what we shared over the span of a thousand miles will hold true in person.

 

In retrospect I’m thankful for all the things and people that touched my life in ’05. One way or another it shaped who I am today, hopefully it made me a better person. I’m also thankful that I have my roof over my head and food on my table as well as relatively good health.

 

Warm and prosperous wishes to all for the new year!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll start tomorrow!" 

 

                                                                                                                Unknown

Friends,

 

Been busy with classes and work a bit but I will probably post over the Thanksgiving holiday. I have lots of stuff to write.

 

For you fellow blog walkers, heres a blog I came across from Kenny's site. Its a sad story with a powerful message about two sisters who both  became quads in the same car accident same time! Check it out, no one has commented so it seems like not to many people have seen the blog. Please help spread the word if you can.

 

Heres the link:

 

 

Thanks to all

Johnny