A la Ru Ru Baby

Still in College Station. Taking advantage of an opportunity to write a little. Rey went to Sonic with Seth while I bathed Miranda. I thought I’d write a bit.

I never wrote about this and I just saw this entry that I started a while back.

This is such a great hilarious example of how crazy my family is and how they introduced it to me early in life and didn’t even blink about it because the dysfunction was such a part of their every day life.

When they sang this song to me they changed the words to:

“A la ru ru baby. Duermase mi baby.
Porque si no duerme, va venire el cu cu y se la va comer…” etc then they added some parts about the manzanita, “una para ti y una para mi.”

As I sang this song to my kids at the age of 35 I thought that it probably wasn't a nice song for a baby and it also occurred to me that the word Baby couldn’t possibly be in the original song, it just doesn’t go. I also remembered that I had heard my father sing the beginning of the song, “Señora Santana.” I always thought the name of the song was "A la ruru baby."

I got curious so I asked one of my sisters and she looked at me like I was crazy and said, “We just made up those words to the song.”

“What are the real words?”

“I don’t know

I looked for the real song on the Internet and I found this version.

"Señora Santana, porqué llora el niño?
Por una manzana que se le ha perdido.
Vamos a la huerta; cortaremos dos...Una para el niño, y otra para Dios."

I also saw some versions that said the apple was for Jesus or for the Virgin. I can see why my family would have changed the words since it had a religious tone to it, but my sisters chose the boogey man to come and get me.

I found this really pretty version. I forgot to write down the author and now I can't find it anywhere on google.

“Senora Santana
Porque llora el niño?
Por una manzana que se le ha perdido
Manzanita de oro.
Si yo la encontrara
Se la diera al niño
Para que callara
Duermase mi niño
Rayito de sol
Duermase pedazo
De mi corazon
Duermase pedazo de mi Corazon"

Now isn’t that a lot nicer than being told that you’re going to be eaten by the cucui?

The fact that my sisters chose such a negative picture for me as a child is hilarious and sad all at the same time. I do find humor in my family dysfunction like so many of us have to, but it's also interesting to me to see how their way of thinking shaped my way of thinking too.

My sisters were the most influential part of my life, as much or more so than my parents. Their way of thinking was now or never and if you didn't do something early in life it was all over for you and too late.

For example, when I was in fifth grade I LOVED ballet. I wanted to take ballet so bad. My best friend's mother found an affordable summer class so I was finally able to take ballet.

However, my sister would look at me with what seemed like disdain or pity and would tell me I was too fat and that it was too late for me any way. (by the way, I wasn't skinny but I wasn't fat) I should have started ballet when I was four years old. I might as well forget about it.

Later as I grew up I realized how ridiculous this way of thinking was. Who said I was striving to be an award winning ballerina with the New York City Ballet? All I wanted was to take ballet and have fun. If I started at age 11 I could have kept dancing for fun and exercise well into high school, which was still a good 7 more years. I wasn't striving to be a famous ballerina. There are many other examples like this one.

I'm not blaming my sisters. I also realize that their way of thinking had to have been shaped by others, namely my parents and other family. My sisters are so much older than me that they had already been influenced by another generation of people that didn't affect me as much.

Frankly, I think it's a miracle that I did as much as I have in my life and that I learned to set goals. I think what I must have done was grabbed on to one thing, namely my professional life, and I did as well as I could in that one area, because I still felt like there was still enough time.

It makes me sad now when I see other people do this with their own lives and the lives of others. I hate when I see kids being given up on in schools because they are a lost case any way. What if Helen Keller had been give up on as child? What if those kids at Garfield High School had been given up on? (the ones in the movie "Stand and Deliver.")

I love it when I hear of sixty year old people going back to college or kids who had been given up for dead rising from the ashes of drugs or poverty and doing something with their life. Like Manny Jimenez who left life on the street to start a talent agency Suspect Entertainment and he helps turn former gang members into Hollywood actors, and offers an alternative to the “thug” life. Also Blak (Yanier Franklin Donald Moore) an African American drug dealer turned writer.

Sadly I also realize that "now or never" attitude affected me in other ways in other aspects of my life that don't have to do with my professional life. That feeling of being doomed anyway so "what the heck." That's a feeling and a way of thinking that I really need to work hard on changing. That's what one of my goals for this year will be. It may take me longer than a year to re-program a whole lifetime of a way of thinking.