Note

Testing, testing, one, two, three.

Testing, testing, one, two, three.

Okay, it's 7.27 a.m. February 4th, Tuesday. I'm on the 101. Looks like I'm passing on the overpass at St. Vincent's again. It's a bumper to bumper traffic. I've got a 9 a.m. meeting today. The ERMC meeting. So yeah, it's going on. What else? We get the exhaust fumes of cars out of the car. So, last night I was working on sleep walking and how to introduce sleep walking in Florence's diary. But today I want to work on how the book, what role her diary plays in Rosa Alethe's life. I mean, this diary has to be something that again is transformative. It's an object that is transformative. Without it, Rosa Alethe would not be who she is. So, and before it, she was just another girl. After it, she was preoccupied by it to say the least. To the point where it had kind of consumed her life. Yeah, I mean, we can't say that. I mean, she functioned. But she basically found ways to overlap her pursuit of the owner of the diary and kind of daily life as one in the same. So, now the diary appears to her as a child. And then she loses it. And then reappears again in adolescence. And I guess what you would say, her middle school years. And then finally, and upon each time, she somehow loses the diary. And finally, in her college years, she holds on to it. She does not let go of it at any cost. But she's determined to find the owner. So, as a child, and when I say child, I mean someone who is, I'm going to say eight years old, maybe nine. Nine is a good age because ten sounds a little too old and nine still sounds like, you know, you still got a lot of kid in you. She was in the fourth grade. And it was after school. I think that's a, you know, it was fall October. And she was just watching her friends play out in the football field or the baseball field. I can't remember. Let's say she's watching her friends play baseball. Maybe she's even, I'm not going to make that stretch this. She's at self-pop practice. And so, she's sitting in the bleachers. And she notices on the bleachers that the diary is just sitting there. It's not, it has no one's stuff near it. So, let's add some more context. Let's say, for example, she liked to buy some candy at the convenience store and eat it before she went home. And she's after school and let's say the high school team is practicing. The football team is practicing on the bleachers. And that's when she notices. So, I'm trying to set the stage for typical American setting. She's a borderline. Well, not borderline, but she obviously comes from a Latino background either. She is still living, either her family is still living there, like her Mexican family, or she's living with her mother, foster father, or she's adopted. I don't know. But that will figure out later. Maybe she's adopted by a family that felt guilty. A church-going family that felt guilty about a cotton-growing family that decided to go organic. And, yeah, adopt her in an effort to kind of redeem themselves. So, then what? Well, so Rosalithia is sitting on the bleachers and that's when she notices. She hears a thud. Let's just say she hears a thud, something like a thud. And then notice is that this diary somehow appears as if it were perhaps taped up underneath one of the bleachers. And over time the tape has dried up the adhesive on the tape has dried up and the book finally fell in front of her. So, she takes it. She goes home and she shows it to her mother and her mother doesn't seem very interested in it or her host's family, up to figure that part out. See, this is where if she has a host family, then maybe they would be the influence to tell her, don't read it at someone's private business. You need to return it. If it were her mother, she would probably be somewhat interested, but, you know, again, don't read it. Either way, I think the next, I like the idea of the host family not telling her you shouldn't read it. Let's take it to the police tomorrow, you know, in an effort to teach her. This is what we do when we find lost things. We take them to the police and they will help us and they will help return it to the owner. So, it's a bit of a lesson that they want to teach Rosalithia. And, you know, she watches it, she learns from it the way a kid would learn anything. It's more about going through the motions than it is about actually learning anything. Rosalithia is a pretty much a silent actor, you know, in the background. She's more of a prop than an actor in this whole interaction. I like the concept of a prop because if you can say she's a prop, then you can talk about her like a prop and the effect will be that much more meaningful. And the effect meaning the interaction between her host parents and the police. She's Rosalithia, you know, her host mother was talking to her in a voice in that voice that she always uses when she wants to teach me something. It's a voice where it's almost as if someone has... It's the same voice that she uses when she's in the Christmas play as one of the angels. That's all Rosalithia could remember. Every year they put on the Christmas play and her host mother is one of the angels. And she uses that voice. And so when she took Rosalithia to the police officer, she used that voice again. And she watched and every time she used that voice she loved hearing it because it reminded her of that beautiful play and the costume she was wearing. And so she listened. Now, you know, and so when... And she could feel love in that voice. There was warmth in that voice but there was more love than there was ever... But she never paid attention to actually what she was saying. She just loved hearing the voice. And so when... But, you know, I'm obviously going to have to recall the conversation either way. I mean, because it's not a matter of actually recalling the conversation but knowing what had happened. And so, her host mother... Her host mother... I just got a text message from Gerald. He was talking to me. I have to pause. But anyway, her host mother tells the police officer that... They need to return this diary to the rightful owner. And the police officer who's also in the play, she recognizes him from church. And so, yeah, they... It's almost as if they're putting on the play again. And Rosalithia watches as she speaks to him in the angelic voice. And he returns the angelic voice back to her saying, yes Mrs. So-and-so. We will. We will put this in our... We will make a record of this and we will find the rightful owner of this lost book. And the whole kind of episode serves... It was intended to serve as a lesson to Rosalithia is that when you find something lost, please try to find the owner. Not just by taking it to the police, trust the police and trust your elders. I want to... And this is all recalled by Rosalithia later in the story. But I want to also discuss how... So this serves as basically a moment where she knows about the existence of the book. She perhaps is able to read one or two pages of it before her host mother takes it from her. In fact, I think that's a better idea is that her host mother discovers that she's reading it. And therefore she must take it away from her and then show her that she has to take it to the police to allow them to find the rightful owner. And so Rosalithia won't find the book again until perhaps the eighth grade or even the ninth grade for that matter. And that will be a different episode. And I need to talk about that. I don't know what that episode is. And then finally she will somehow have lost the book at that time. And by losing it, maybe it will be beyond her control. And then the third time is when she actually holds on to the book for good. And that will be when... In high school, when she finds it in the library. So yeah. I'm done for now. I got a call, Gerald.