PeregrinaMom

“So, did you vote for Obama?”… The question caught me off guard. It was posed to me by a dear friend of mine in the Basque Country, in Bilbao from I just returned.

At my age, I have learned never to discuss politics nor religion at dinner parties, get togethers and even with my friends. I do believe it was Winston Churchill who said ” If you are not liberal when you are young, you do not have a heart, if you are not a conservative when you are old, you do not have a head”……

Well, for me to know and others to find out whether I am old or young or in transition.

Needless to say, on the drive back, I was thinking about our conversation….. which leads me to the sins of the father being visited upon the son…..

Things in Spain, I guess because I am not from here, I see them in a different light…. As an example, I suppose like in every other country, we have a special fondness for our place of birth, our town, our area…. but here in Spain people are quite well…… passionate about where they are from…. If they are from the Barcelona area they are ‘catalan’, from Rioja ‘riojanos’ , from Navarra ‘navarros’ , from Andalucia ‘andaluces’, Galicia ‘gallegos’ and there is no other place in the world like the one they came from….. and when I speak of this, I am not necessarily speaking about the beauty of the area, but more so about the traditions, beliefs, thoughts, behaviors, etc.  As an example, many of my Spanish friends have this animosity towards the Basque Country and the ‘Basque’ because they are vascos and they support independence and they support ETA’…… yet, most of my friends in Basque country are very much against violence, ETA and many of the things I hear from my other friends about ‘them’…… And in the case of my Basque friends, I hear all about how the ‘Spanish’ do not understand them and how they are not really part of Spain…… Say what?

How does all this come about?…… This is my theory:

a) Children emulate all we do. Children become like us – parents –  Doing exactly as we do.

b) Children rebel and revile all we do – as parents – doing exactly the opposite.

………As an example: My grandmother, whom I loved deeply but whom I did not often see eye to eye, said many things to me which I rebelled against, mainly, my Catholic faith….. Oh dear, I questioned everything she said, attacked the Pope and the stands of the Vatican, the teachings, everything.  Did I do it as a way of rebelling against God? No, I was rebelling against my grandmother who was shoving down my throat her own ‘views, believes, traditions and way of life’….. yet, with age and maturity, I have grown to understand and appreciate a lot of the things she taught me but which went unheard of….. because of my rebellion…. and you know what? She was right when she was imparting her pearls of wisdom but because all she had ’shoveled’ down my throat, I refused to listen to her wisdom….. My loss.  I now have a beautiful relationship with God and my faith is an intrical and important part of my life, but I had to come to it, on my ‘own’ terms once I gave myself permission to be ‘other’ than what I was told I ‘had to be’ and coming to this awareness with an open heart and an open mind.

From my late father and my mother, I have learned wonderful things, but I also have learned some, let’s call them ‘defects of character’….. should I see them as defects and think of them as a death sentence what would be the point of living?….. now, I see them as an opportunity for quality improvement of an already very well made ‘product’…. for the sake of argument, let’s call it ‘quality control’

There are many things I appreciate, at my age, that was my parent’s legacy to me. Others, well, I wish I could do without, but then again, I love them both dearly and I cannot hold them ‘totally responsible’ for their legacy, they did the best they could with what they had and passed on their best to me…. whether it was the best for me, it’s another matter…. but I do appreciate what they did.  I also appreciate the fact that I have the choice to either continue living with their entire legacy or part of it…….. and the brain to choose what to keep and what to discard….. Were my children to hold me accountable the way I held my parents accountable, I would be appalled!……. So the choice is mine to become who I want to be, to do the best I can and be at peace with it knowing that I did fight the battle to the best of my abilities……. Which leads me back to the conversation I had in Bilbao………

……….. Do my Spanish friends hate the Basque because of what they have heard from their parents and grandparents and what they lived through during the time of the ETA violence and bombings? Can they  and are they capable of seeing the Basque people separate from a militant group?

……….. Will my Basque friends be able to feel that they are part of a greater community, a wonderful country called “Spain”? Or are they just repeating what they heard from their parents and grandparents? Is their anger towards the Spain only a continuation of what happened before?

……… The choice in both cases is the same.  As in any family, group, or whatever…… We choose to continue the past or we rebel and become unreasonable in the process…… or we choose to try something new…. to see things on our own, with an open heart and an open mind.

As for my political views…… well, I am 46, not too old, but not too young either……….I have the experience to know what I want and the youth to carry it out….. Am I a conservative? Am I a socialist? Am I liberal? ……….

I am just a socially conscious capitalist pig who loves the world and wants to make a change by being the change I want to see in the world…….

As my mother wisely taught me…….. ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. …… and so it is.

Peace and all good,