hobbies
photography
My siblings and I have always shown some degree of predisposition for the arts, a kind of connection that exists among us through art. Each one has found different media to express our individual creativity. A family trend that also existed in my mother’s creative nature. Shepainted, did ceramics, knitted, and cooked exceptionally well. She came of a family of talented people, with her father’s older brother being a well-known writer. This is part of my childhood memories.
I recognize that my father had similar excellent aptitudes that created the same bond with us, even though, were different from my mother’s. He was an avid reader, which gave us a love of literature, and a published historian researcher. He loved classical music, which was most of what I listened at home while growing up, and it was the structure for our love of music. His refined sensitivity for everything related to Fine Arts, and his sense of space and placement of furniture, artifacts of art, and accessories, were unusual for a man of his era, although, served him well in the diplomatic world and influenced me a great deal as I developed my career in the professional interior design world.
Painting and drawing were the art expressions my older sister loved with a passion since I could remember, so being a shadow of her creative muse was not something I wanted to cultivate. I experimented with different mediums until I found that photography was an excellent fit for me.
I was in my late twenties when I registered at the State University of New York at Purchase, and for two and a half years, I took courses on design, color theory, composition, photography, and photography lab to build a portfolio I could present at S.U.N.Y. School Art and Design, majoring in Photography, to be accepted as a candidate student. The following summer, I was accepted in SUNY.
I had two toddlers at the time, but my husband’s career called for us to move to Florida soon after I was accepted at S.U.N.Y. We moved that fall down south, and I was never able to enter college until much later in life. But my heart was set in doing black and white photography and has never left.
I dived on photography while healing the wounds of an alcoholic marriage, soon followed by the death of my father and my ex-husband in a matter of 30 days, two or three months after our divorce. Attending my children’s everyday needs, traveling, and scouting for photography settings, were pivotal in keeping me in the present, and photography has been ever since a passion and an escape.
Because of the changes to digital technology, I now use digital cameras and cellulars. Even though I miss the times when I could spend hours in the darkroom working with the enlarger, filters, and smelly chemicals, in search to achieve the perfect blacks, and the brightest whites, to complement the photography I take, in the belief, it will turn into a great picture.
Ceramics
An organic experience
This remarkable discipline of the Fine Arts was a gift and a catalyzing element that arrived in agonizing moments of my life. Soon after my older son’s college graduation, he became a successful new graduate, working with a well-known investing trade company for a few years. But that was short-lived.
The pressure of the work environment was making his fragile emotional and mental state to start to collapse. He resigned from his work and decided to go back to school to get his M.A. in Architecture. But by the summer, he was back home with what I could describe as a mental and emotional break-down.
I had decided to go back to school and finish my interrupted B.A. a few months previous to that; I was at that moment between jobs, and returning to school appeared to be a great idea. I started to study liberal arts to obtain my degree in humanities, the closest to the Arts, which always has been my passion, that a University near me was offering.
A few months into that, I started to grasp my son’s mental health gravity. I decided to start to get all the psychology courses I needed to double majoring, with the idea to understand what my son was going through. I knew that given our emotional mother-son relationship, I would never help him professionally. But in my opinion, understanding the nature of his mental and emotional state would help talk to doctors and other mental health providers, with a little more understanding, and find ways to help my son while I was looking after him. By doing so, I needed Fine Art extra credits as part of the curricula’ elective courses, and when I took three semesters in wheel throwing ceramics, I fell in love with the new experience.
Ceramics, this fabulous Art medium, was not only something I was learning, but it was an organic experience given the nature of the material used with ceramics wheel throwing that is clay, so easy and so hard to manipulate. This creative and tactile art allowed me to enjoy the process of working the material, choosing and applying the right enamel for the piece, immersing myself for few hours a week, acting as a buffer between moments of anguish.
Although ceramics is a medium, not everyone could dedicate to or enjoy it as a hobby given the investment, since it demands to use a kiln, expensive enamels, coatings, the pottery wheel, and tools. And it would be best if you also had an atelier of some sort, which demands a secure work area, which for many of us, becomes problematic to have.
In my case, this wonderful hobby remains written in my “bucket-list” as something I will enjoy again as part of my life while going to studios or taking ceramic classes here and there have to do for the time being.
Gardening
Few years after my father and my husband’s deaths, I was devastated. Looking for guidance, I started visiting a new psychologist in town, who happens to be a perfect fit for my needs. My work with him focused on raising my two boys in a stable environment as a single mother. I worked with him for years, and he helped me dearly in the moments I needed the most. Once a week, I would go prepared with the questions and issues I might have, and he would give me some guidance on how to provide a balanced life to my children without the father figure and listening to my deepest thoughts. I was getting strong emotionally and starting to feel a more stable footing under me.
At that time, I did not know how to handle another one of my vital needs. It was my spiritual side. I was not capable of addressing the pivotal questions I had. I had questions about how to confront loneliness while facing the grievance of my fathers sudden death and also the loss of the man I once loved and respected. I did not know how to respond to three years of devastating experience that had left me depleted and lost. Most importantly, on how I should respond and overcome to the chaos that evolved through with my husband’s alcoholism.
I went to Al-Anon, the AA version for alcoholics families, but it was not what I was looking for, and left me with a thirst to seek a different approach. At that time, I started reading Eastern philosophy: Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, which would reinforce what I felt as if I needed more guidance and knowledge to assist in my grievance and acceptance while maintaining strength.
I grew up in a rigorous Catholic environment, and those beliefs were telling me to believe in God, be stoic, and pray for my enduring faith. My children were at an age that traditionally catholic children received their first communion. I enrolled them in Sunday school, and both of them received their first communion a few years apart, yet that was not enough for me.
I yearned for Eastern teachings. It pushed me to search for their guidance and help from their gatherings. Eventually, I heard about this young Swami that started a group introducing oriental philosophies and meditation. I decided to attend, although no activity was planned soon. I called the Ashram, and he invited me to visit his modest place. So I did.
He was very casual in answering my questions, and that is how I started a connection in the spiritual realm that has lasted until today, even though we had not seen each other for many years. He taught me how to focus on breathing correctly. To relax, meditate, and visualize a calm environment, as well as, how to achieve a balanced inner attitude. That was my introduction to this spiritual growth that is an essential part of who I am now.
Years later, when I was confronting my mortality due to ovarian cancer leading to surgery, chemotherapy, and radiology treatment, Swami’s teachings and mantras helped me from falling in the depths of despair and fear. I remember getting ready for chemotherapy, filled with anxiety and panic as I lay in my hospital bed just before going under anesthesia. I would pray my catholic prayers and repeat the healing mantras he had taught me, calming my soul and giving me strength.
When my Swami suggested it, I started gardening to heal and surround myself with a soothing environment, and I readily embraced it. I had planted veggie gardens before, as it immediately reminded me of the first time I attempted to start a garden when our family lived in Purchase, New York.
We were a young family then, and one of my younger sisters came to stay with us. My husband worked in Angola and Nigeria for a multinational oil company alternating one month in Africa, and another month at home, to rest and recuperate.
Those were times of changes in our family life. Perfect timing for her to arrive! It was nice to have her around, as we kept each other company, she helped me with my busy children; we enjoyed finding fun things to do with them. A few evenings a week, she helped me by babysitting my boys as I took art courses at a local college.
In one of my husband’s month-long absences, my sister and I decided to start a veggie garden, experimenting with growing organic food we could use at home. We looked for a sunny spot, bought some seedlings and gardening tools to start the work, and off we went.
One early summer day, as I returned home after doing some errands, I found my sister, drenched and suffocated, trying to get some boulders away from the area we were turning the soil to prepare for the seed’s planting. They were huge rocks, but my sister was very athletic, and she was able to move some of the boulders with the help of a wheelbarrow, marching them to the curb at the back of the property.
I also notice our next-door neighbor observing from the other side of the fence at her doing all this work. As I arrived, he walked towards me and asked: What is she doing? I said we are planning to plant a veggie garden in that area, and she was trying to clear the site to start the planting. He smiled at me and said, Juani, I think you might need those boulders back where they were. The previous owner placed them there for drainage. He had a wonderful flower garden there.
I thanked him for his advice, and a bit embarrassed by our ignorance, we spent the rest of the afternoon returning the rocks from the place she took them. There were many funny incidents after that fiasco, but I got a good taste for gardening from that first experience, and I loved it ever since. Although living in southern Florida was not the right weather to grow veggies, it was perfect to grow orchids, which I did. It was a great experience. That’s why orchids are very special to me and much easier to take care of than a vegetable garden’s intense and physical care.
I was recuperating from the surgery of ovarian cancer, still weakened, and in the middle of the chemotherapy treatments then later the radiotherapy; each of these therapy sessions left me exhausted on their own, so much so, that I was unable to make any physical effort for days. Still, I would spray my orchids and find just the right place where they would thrive, and this was acceptable, given my fragile state.
Albeit many years after my recovery from ovarian cancer, growing our veggies while living in California has been my best experience. My son had already been diagnosed with mental health deficiencies compounded with Celiac Sprue. This condition can be severe if unattended, and it was a time of infancy for the awareness of gluten allergies. As I got more involved in nursing him back to health, I decided to repeat my gardening experience and plant an organic garden for our consumption. I was ready for the new endeavor.
Meanwhile, while doing my mental health research, I came across little known research papers in three different European countries (England, Italy, and a Scandinavian country), linking a high recurrence of mental health to Celiac Sprue patients.
As I understood, it is associated with the mucosal villi depletion on the lower intestine causing malabsorption, with consequent malnutrition causing the body’s inability to absorb nutrients to produce enough enzymes to help support the production of neurotransmitters in the brain.
My idea of my garden cemented with that information, and the gardening started soon after. It was a great experience as Northern California has the perfect weather to grow vegetables, bulbs, along with summer and fall cut flowers. So I started my garden, this time to help my son. For close to eight years, until we moved to Texas, we ate six to nine months of the year of our organic produce, as I also enjoyed the flowering garden that I developed alongside my veggie garden.
As time progressed and his restricted diet took place, I noticed that he was more stable, and after the diet change, he had shown no more acute mental health crisis neither hospitalizations due to it. His doctor looked at this as a quackery at the time. Even though he had not followed my son’s mental health improvement as close as I had, they only saw him every few weeks to monitor his medication and check his organs were not being affected by the intake. I am thrilled to know that this has worked for him. Now he looks healthier and is stable. It’s all that it matters to me.
Cooking for Heathy Living
Many years ago, my sister and I were sent to cooking school to learn a trait that every lady of the house needs to know. Our home was also El Salvador’s Embassy in Lima, Peru, and in a household like that, to have a cook, who is not adequately supervised, it is not appropriate. My father was a widower, remarried, although his second wife had left home a few years after their marriage. When she left the responsibilities of running our home came to rest on to my older sister and me. We had to supervise the Embassy service personnel and make sure it adheres to the diplomatic protocol.
Every once in a while, my older sister agreed to it, but it was not her thing. She was a bit of a rebel and considered herself an unrecognized-artist and decided that she had to live up to that. On the other hand, I had a sense of responsibility substantially more extensive than my years, and most of the time, I ended doing what I needed to do to have a well-run Embassy.
My father groomed us in the art of entertaining correctly, as quite often, he received diplomats and government representatives of all levels. They need to attend with the appropriate protocol they deserved, from seniority’s seating at the diner table to the flower’s displays and menus, china, glassware, and flatware, and training and supervising of the butlers serving the highly respected participants.
As I already mentioned, my sister and I assisted to cooking classes with a well-known cook in Lima. She started before me, then I joined, and we both thought it was fun. As we learned and practiced the recipes, we brought them home and taught it to the cook; she would chop, mixed the ingredients, and started cooking the dishes, and my sister or I would visit the kitchen to check on the taste, the spices, the cooking time, and voilá! The fancy meals served in elegant sterling silver trays would be for us the immediate family and friends, as we were eight to fifteen people sitting daily at the table, or for formal dinners, that served up to 24 sitting people. So, in our minds, we thought we were terrific cooks and hostess. Although, parties more significant than that were taken care of by catering services.
This lifestyle stopped soon after we returned to our country, and my father was not a part of the active diplomatic corp. Two years later, I met my husband, and my life changed forever in a more down to earth way.
Immediately after I got married, my husband and I moved to Las Palmas of Gran Canaria, Spain. We had a terrific maid to do the cleaning and maintaining the house; sometimes, she would help me with the cooking, but the chopping, the peeling, the mixing, the ingredients needed, and cooking time it had to be done by me. A remarkable difference from what I knew until then! Very quickly, and with my husband’s suggestions, I started to learn to simplify the menu, the size of the meals, as well as the time I wished to dedicate to that endeavor. So my cooking became more homely.
A few years later, when we moved to the States, I experienced another significant change. Our family was growing, and I had to get used to have no help at home, to cook daily, and to make dishes that were fast, simple, and nutritious. Again, at my husband’s suggestion, with my mother in law help, I started simplifying my cooking and she gave me recipes that help me dearly. She was an uncomplicated but terrific cook.
After my husband died and my children were growing up, I had to adjust once again. I became very conscious of nutrition. And soon after I got treated for cancer, I realized that food was fundamental in the healing process. Accepting that forced me to focus more on organic meals, eliminate all possible carcinogenic ingredients, and start focusing on organic-oriented eating. I eliminate all red meats, lowered the amounts of salt and sugar in our diet, and used strictly non-GMO ingredients.
Later on, as I had to go to work for a living, my cooking has to simplify even more. I was still looking into balanced meals with an emphasis on nutrition, using strictly organic ingredients, so my cooking got more creative and uncomplicated by the day!
A few years later, my older son was diagnosed with Celiac Sprue (gluten allergy), and to simplify my cooking, I had to find ways to cook for my two sons and myself with gluten-free ingredients. In the 1990s, gluten-free products were not very sophisticated. We live in southern New Hampshire, and the area supermarket offered near to nothing in the gluten-free area; I tried to find them online, but it was too early the internet food sales at the time, as well as it was almost a non-existing market at the time.
One of my sisters and her family lived in Ottawa, Canada, and I visited them regularly. On one of those visits, I discovered a place near her home, well supplied with gluten-free products. That was fabulous to me, so every time I visited her, I made sure I filled the trunk of my car with gluten-free goods to the limits allowed to pass through customers, stacking our pantry for months. The ironic side to this was that few months after this, I discovered that it was a hangar-size natural food market not far from our home, with everything I could need for my new gluten-free cooking. So crossing the border with Canada was simpler!
Experimenting with our new diet, I tried different approaches with my old recipes using only gluten-free products, not without difficulty; my gluten-free cooking was more trial and error. But practice makes perfect, and after some dishes ended up in the garbage can, my new cooking diet started to improve.
Although I must recognize that gluten-free (GF) products had have improved tremendously through the years since the gluten-free diet started to become a trend. They are a few recipes that I can not substitute with GF ingredients because it would change the dish’s integrity. Usually, it is an easy transition.
I must add that baking is another story, in baking there are fewer recipes that substitutions would work out. Although I am not a baker, and that cooking area is not my forte, I must admit that no ingredients could be substituted by gluten-free products easily in baking; if you want to bake, I would advise using gluten-free recipes.
Note:
I will start introducing my recipes for you to try them.
The ones strictly gluten-free will be marked (GF) for everyone to distinguish it.
See my Recipes sections
