Holi a festival of colors

I don't know if  you've seen "Outsourced" a movie later turned to a television series but only lasted one season. I learned of Holi watching the movie. I dreamed of one day possibly getting the chance to travel to a far away country to be able to experience this Hindu celebration called Holi. What exactly is Holi? Holi is a celebration of the beginning of spring. The celebration of colors. When spring begins the colors of the earth come out from hiding and are full of life and the feeling that it makes you feel. How many of you love purple, pink, yellow, orange, green, and lets not forget red? When you need a cheer me up you pick something bright. 

I didn't get the opportunity to travel to India to experience Holi. Holi came to me. I learned of it last year, the first ever Holi festival here in the area. Didn't get to go last year due to rain. This year was it's second year and this time I wasn't going to miss it. I'll admit I was a bit nervous showing up and being the only Spanish speaking individual and Heather being the only bright skinned person but I was also excited to go.


We arrived in the parking lot and already wondering if we should turn back around and leave but like I normally do, is I pretend to know what I am doing and walk with such confidence like the phrase says "walk like a boss" into the festival ground. I knew we needed colors so walked right up to the tent where I saw people getting pouches of colors and asked to buy a whole box. The box consisted of five colors: yellow, red, blue, orange, and pink. Depending on the box is what the colors were. They are called Holi colors, spring colors. What you do is cut the pouch open and start tossing the powdered colors into the air filled with festival goers. My favorite was going up to a total stranger and saying happy Holi and touching (caressing) their face with the color. Everyone was so welcoming towards us. They were just a happy crowd. Music was playing so there was also a lot of dancing going on. Food was being sold. If we had yellow and pink but not red a person would come up to us and touch us with green. There was not a bright color missed. I felt like I was in a totally different part of the world. We stayed almost to the end and we did dance to their music.

If you have never experienced a different culture you my friend haven't lived. It was an experience well enjoyed and will be more than glad to attend next year. I don't think I have ever felt so welcomed by a different community in my life time than I had on this day. The day we celebrated spring. Holi is also the beginning of forgetting all the bad and making mends. Me being stubborn that part of Holi would be hard but to help welcome spring with my love and total strangers is my kind of life.

Look forward to it next year. Remember this time next year to say goodbye to winter and hello spring Hindu style, the best way the world could celebrate it.  I also recommend making "Outsourced" the movie a must watch on your list. I guarantee you won't regret it.


Happy Holi friends and enjoy the colors.

didn't even say hello

Was driving home from taking photos of a soon to be three year old. Took me a little longer than expected. The sun was right at the sight where if you don't wear sun glasses you would get blinded by it. Was driving home when I saw something from the ground fly up and land back down on the road. I began to slow down when I came closer. I looked to my right and saw a woman with a ghostly look on her face and a leash in her hand. I look to my right and there was a young guy with a big dog on the side walk. By this point I had made a complete stop on the street and rolled my window down and yelled to the lady if she needed me to call someone. She yelled back and said no I just live up the street. In front of me there had been  a red truck with the outline of a person wearing a straw hat. I'm going to tell you what I think might have happened.

The lady had been walking her little dog, when the dog saw the big dog across the street and wanted to get closer to say hello. The small dog pulled himself in that direction when the leash broke and  ran completely across the street. That's when the red truck hit the dog. It had hit with such force that the dog flew and bounced on the ground. He didn't get the chance to say hello. The lady stood in shock before going in to the street to pick him up. She picked him up like a small baby carrying him on his back with his feet up. She looked at him calling him but he was not moving you could tell he was gone. She carried him with such delicacy as to think that if she moved him he might be in pain. It's when I yelled to ask her if she needed help. She then hurried home. I looked over to see the guy with the big dog and we both nodded our heads and said he was gone.

The person with the red truck you ask?  They knew they had hit the lady's dog.  Wasn't going to stop but decided to slow down. The red truck finally pulled over slowly to the side and waited for some seconds before proceeding again. Not once did they get out or approach the lady. Not once did they ask what they could do. Not once did they say I'm sorry. Not once did they pretend to care.

They had just committed a crime by letting this woman see her baby die right in front of her. The red truck just stopped at the light and made a right turn and didn't look back.

I'm going to say that it was an accident because it was but why didn't they stop? They didn't just kill a stray pup. This pup had a mother that had just happen to take him out for a walk.

strength

What were you doing this morning?  Some Mondays are more interesting than others. I hear how everyone hates Mondays, but I think I might be the only one that enjoys them. I'm off from work so I spend it doing errands with my pops. Sometimes every once in a while I'll get them to myself now that he started working.

Today I woke up a little after four am. I woke up to drive to Irving to then leave by six in the morning heading to Wills Point. My father needed a little help out at the ranch before he actually worked today. He is working to get a tractor but in the meantime we use his small truck to bring out a bundle of hay. It is much easier when a vehicle is used but not today. It had been raining and it wasn't safe to use the truck so we had to physically try to pry it from being on the ground for months and try to push it out where it would be safe for the cattle to get to it. When hay is left on the ground for months it starts to grow it's own grass onto the ground so it would be like pulling a huge pile of grass with your hands from the ground. Try rolling something that has taken over the ground and weighs over five hundred pounds when wet. I would push on one end while my dad pushed on the other. We barely nudged it. I then began to pray and said God give us the strength we need to do this. It wasn't easy but He did listen. I kept yelling in my head "God help us" over and over and He finally did. By the time we were done I had mud inside my shoes. Living the farm girl life this morning.

When I realized what we had just done I thought to myself how I had managed to either have the same strength as my father or the fact that he was getting old and I now have more strength than him. How, when I was a kid, I used to think of my father as the strongest man on earth now and his strength was losing him. 

I don't always get to go the ranch but when I do I'm glad to get to visit with my sister. It's like a silent world out there were no one knows you. Where you can still pump gas first then pay. If you haven't heard of the pump first then pay it's because the world is changing and honesty or trust are values that are becoming extinct.