en miami
I’ve been losing my patience. I’ve substituted water for café negro. I’ve had my first piece of organic fruit since I’ve been in Miami. My first fruit since Sunday. There wasn’t even kale in the store. I am sure in other places in Miami I could find kale but I am in Little Havana. I don’t even know how to say kale in Spanish. I walk down the stairs and cigar smoke and Florida water lingers. It is like childhood. All I need is to chase lizards and catch fireflies.
Lizards were my friends once. Outside of my Abuelo Alfonso’s shack. I played in front with my cousin Victor Hugo. We knew we were good at catching lizards when their tails didn’t come off. My fingers were small then. Now I look at my hands and I see my mami’s. Just a little bit smaller. Her hands have made thousands of empanadas. Mine have only made like ten.
Abuelo Alfonso only wanted my mami to clean his shack. In the summertime. Sweat and dirt dripped down her face. It was always dark in there. He was saving his money for the day Castro would fall and he could go back to Cuba. He did give me $20 bills. My other cousins got fives or tens. A secret between my Abuelo and I.
He once gave me a bag of dolls. They were not packaged nor pretty, not even dressed. Their hair was all tangled and had dirt stains on their faces. I loved those dolls for the seven minutes I had them. We drove off from Abuelo’s house. Mami and Madrina up front. Victor Hugo and I in the back. Our hands burnt from hot seat belts. They drove in zig zags and circles, blocks away from Abuelo’s house. Mami got out from the car with her Virginia Slims hanging from her lips. She took the bag from beside me and walked away. Mami! I don’t even think I got a ssh. She went to a garbage can, opened it and dumped my dolls. My beautiful dirty dolls. A mixture of black, brown and white dolls. Blondes and redheads and brunettes like me. I wondered if their eyes still winked in the darkness of the garbage can. No more dolls for me.
I love the heat and how the humidity makes my hair all wild. I love speaking Spanish every second, arepas sold in stores. I love that there are twelve different brands of Malta. Not just Malta Goya or Malta India. I know we don’t need twelve different brands. Capitalism comes out of me once in a while. I am going to Cuba in a few days, inshaAllah. I am annoyed by this trip. My family without realizing are putting the fear into me only because they talk loud. So, they shout Dengue! Pink Eye! Swine Flu! Of course in Spanish but I can’t remember the words for those either.
The lack of water and raw foods has made my writing all bitter. I don’t think I could ever survive in Miami. California has been good to me with its farmer’s markets and hills full of trees. I walked the other day and talked to everyone who would talk to me. Here I am with a Cuban rooster.
I didn’t talk to the Cuban rooster but to the man who took the picture of me with the Cuban rooster. He kidded around and said that it would cost $20. I told him, Que Dios te bendiga. Then he asked if I was Christian. No, soy musulmana. Then he told me his grandparents were Muslims from Lebanon and became Christians in Honduras. He told me his two last names one in Spanish and one in Arabic then we parted ways.
Everyone is getting older. Including me with my grays. My Tito came over and I showed him pictures of my wedding. Who would have thought that my niece would come here and say that she was married, to a Muslim, named Adam, and she doesn’t eat Cuban bread because it’s made with lard and can’t eat pork and has to go up and down five times a day, who would have thought. Thank God you don’t have arthritis, he tells me. My mami says she could never make salat. I told her she could do it sitting down in a chair and she said, oh ok. In Spanish this was all in Spanish but I have the bad habit of translating everything in my head. She agrees that even though she is not Muslim she has raised me to be Muslim so praying in between the couch and dining table is not a big deal. People seem to assume my family would have a difficult time with me being Muslim. Some assume that they are such religious Catholics that they would be mad. They don’t understand that my family has had El Coran years before me. They got really into finding out about Islam when they watched a Brazilian novela called El Clon about Muslims and cloning. I don’t think it was about the cloning of Muslims but there were Muslims and there was cloning. The novela ended and so was their interest but not their acceptance.
I feel better now. I think it was the Cuban rooster. Oh, alright it was the water. I really don’t have to substitute it for café. And I think it was the writing. No longer words in back seats of cars in my head.
the end.
New Orleans
It’s been like this for days. The words dancing in my head. I’ve spent most of my time in a van. On a tour. Driving in Houston and College Station and San Antonio and Austin. Driving across the border to Louisiana. Louisiana looking like Cuba. This is my prep time for my trip next month. Humidity, acres of green, no toilet paper in public bathroom and the spirits. There’s one in this house. We are here for a total of two days. Floor boards creak while I pray. She stands behind me. Beside me. I can’t see her but I feel her. I pray.
I forgot about this. The spirits of New Orleans. I was overcome with sadness as we got closer, as we saw bodies of water. In my heart they felt turbulent. Overcast sky. Katrina wasn’t that long ago. I saw the waves go up and down. Wet skin, the wails. This is my prep for Cuba. I thought I was meant to go to India to purge. Plans changed. I am not the best of planners. I am ready… I think…
It is the South and the clouds seem bigger. The land flatter, the people looking more familiar. The South is like home. Not like Brooklyn, not like Oakland, like the place my family still lives. The place I will go to soon. To write. Not on a blog, probably on paper. Stories that I have never heard. Stories that need to be told. My abuela is 107 years old but she doesn’t remember me. Will she remember anything? Like the way I like to touch her arm and smile into her warm eyes. Will she remember that I am the grandchild that lives far away and comes for days at a time, years in between rainfalls and sunshine?
I want to write more but I am not here alone. There’s eight of us. Beautiful and fabulous and loving. We’re going to the French Quarter now. I hear about the spirits there. I am sure they will find me. I am not worried. I am protected.
the end.
the last days
I am going to miss this. Ramadan. I was shy in the beginning. Not wanting to tell people it was my first. But when I looked out into the horizon and caught a glimpse of the crescent moon I couldn’t help but want to savor that moment. I still see it. The fog rolling in, the oranges and peaches of the sky. I can still feel how my heart expanded that first night, the first early rise for suhoor. I made eggs and veggie sausages and toasted some spelt muffins for my friend and I. I felt like a mother. Like my mother when she used to wake up before dawn to make breakfast for my father. I woke up as well. This is what daughters of bakers do.
I’ve been wanting to write words on long walks through Berkeley. Words on my body. Wrapped around so I won’t forget them. There are different fonts I like but on my body I want it typed like a typewriter. Each click, a new memory. I am not going to India. Not yet. I am going to Cuba instead, inshaAllah. There I can sit with my Tía Rosa. I can make her coffee, tell her don’t worry I will get the water from the well. I will have ear plugs this time so I won’t wake up when the giant pigs across the street are being weighed. They sound like aliens. I will miss the clacking of the horse hoofs in the middle of the night but I will be able to dream. Maybe I will be able to dream stories. Stories like my mami used to tell me on Saturday nights. She no longer repeats those stories over and over again. She has been in the United States for almost 40 years now. More years than living in Cuba.
I am saving my words for Cuba. They are tucked away in my heart. In between coffee making and salat I will write, inshaAllah. This trip seems better than India. I will speak like a Cuban again.
I tell my family my Ramadan stories. I feel like a child again. It is a full circle for me. Everything my mami taught me I am relearning. Sometimes I am shy to say that I cry when I realize how much I love God. Like a child. I am in my purest state. The other night I had anxiety regarding things of this life. I was pmsing. Sometimes it feels like the end of the world. Before I went to bed I said la ilaha illa Allah over and over again. I said it until I cried. I said it until my heart was pounding so hard I felt it coming out of my chest. I said it until I realized that all I need is God.
I want the words typewritten on my body so I can remember this month. Remember what I have learned, the breakthroughs I’ve had, the beautiful people I have communed with. I want to remember this because it is my first. I took my shahada a few days after Ramadan ended last year. Two days after my birthday. My 33rd year. Some people call it the Jesus year. A spiritual year. It was an amazingly spiritual year for me, mashaAllah. Maybe I won’t miss it. The words are tucked away in my heart. They will spill unto the page and the memories will surface. I can take everything that I have learned and implement them, inshaAllah. I finally understand what going with the flow means. It is me, just like this.
the end.
I met King James today. He was sitting on the bus stop bench on 40th ST. He told me he doesn’t like bad people. I told him, yeah, stay away from bad people. His hair was white, white, white against his hazelnut brown skin. I looked at him, some teeth missing, a few wrinkles here and there and I thought, he was good looking once. I wondered if it was the alcohol on his breath that renamed him King James.
He flies, he told me. Like the pigeons he feeds. They know him. They love him. All animals do. And then he told me about his dog that didn’t listen to him and got scratched up by a racoon. In Berkeley. Yes, even in Oakland I see racoons run to hide in the sewage.
I ached to write today. Maybe because the baby didn’t want to take a nap. He’s sixteen months now and I am teaching him to say please. More please. Down please. Sometimes I hear a thank you. But next week is my last week with him. This line of work can be difficult to the heart. I walk around pushing a stroller and people congratulate me on having beautiful children. Sometimes it feels like I am acting. They think I am the mother.
Maybe that is the book that I should be writing: Motherhood without being a mother. I am like a single mom eight hours a day, I sometimes say. Last year I had three children. Hope (3) Ruby (2.5) and Zeke (1.5). We took the BART to Fairyland and walking with two kids in a stroller and the other one on my side or my back can be quite difficult. We missed the bus and I got all frustrated. We walked towards the lake and then realized that we missed the bus so we can just take a break and eat our snacks on a bench. In peace. I told the kids that and they liked that much better than me being frustrated. The kids ate and watched the geese go by. And this older lady came by. Saw us and the beauty that all these kids had. And then she turned to me, Different fathers right? And I laughed and said, yes. The woman must of thought I was a slut that got impregnated each year by a Chinese man, a White man, and a mixed Black/White man. I love the Bay Area.
In two weeks I will know what will happen for the rest of my life. Ok, I am exaggerating. I will know what will happen for the next several months, insha Allah. Or at least I will have an idea. All, I want to do is write. I want my mornings back so I can write all hours of the night. I want to sit around and talk about God and words and art and life and the world and everything around like the birds and the stars and the flowers that grow out of concrete. I want to dip my toes in the ocean and feel the breeze kiss my neck. I want to say Alhumdullilah, Alhumdullilah, Alhumdullilah ten million times because I am grateful for my existence, even if it was a lil rocky at first.
Breath. I want all of this. I’ve been praying for a long time. And doing something about it, too. Breath.
The birds are chirping outside. Maybe they are telling my to clean or just to take it easy. I am like King James minus the alcohol, the birds know me.
the end.
She’s a saint
My mami’s a saint. Not the kind that needs to be canonized nor is she of porcelain with robes and crowns. My mami is a walking saint.
It’s my last day in Florida. I am actually starting to like this state again. It’s the clouds. They are big puffs in shapes of pillows and goats and angels. It is not just the clouds, really, there is more. It is the palm trees, the green on various leaves, it is the humidity hugging me so tight, it is the Cubans, the Puerto Ricans, the salsa on the radio, it is my family.
I am at the hospital taking care of my papi. He is across from me asleep. A tube here, a tube there, tubes everywhere. Morphine, oxygen, liquids. He goes through his moments of being in pain. A press of a button releases morphine. A press of another button calls the nurse. This is the nicest hospital I have been in but I feel like I will turn into a fast food junky if I stay any longer. I had McDonald’s last night because I was sick of the Subway sandwiches and I have gotten hooked on the Starbuck’s Iced Chai Latte with Soy. Please forgive me I have been away from California too long. Ok, it’s only been a week but please do forgive me.
I leave tomorrow and my papi will remain in the hospital until he is fully recovered. I leave and it makes me sad that I can’t afford to stay longer. My mami who has not been with my papi for the past 23 years will take care of him. Mami never liked church and doesn’t really believe in organized religion although she says, soy católica a mi manera. Mami has always told me that her religion is helping others. That is what she does. She goes from house to house helping those who are sick. A month at her friend’s because she had a foot operation. Over a year while my cousin was sick with lung cancer. She stayed with her sister after my cousin passed away. The other sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, Mami went over there. My little cousin had to have a tumor removed by her heart. Where was my mami? In my cousin’s kitchen making sure the beans were cooked just right. She goes back and forth and is hardly in her section 8 studio apartment in Little Havana. My mami is a saint.
When I was little it annoyed me that she took care of so many other people. I love my mami, really I do but there were ways she didn’t know how to be my mami. Not the one I needed. I think I’ve moved on from that. I think. Hija eres madre será. You are a daughter and will be a mother. That is what she always told me when I misbehaved. I remember that because perhaps in some way I may fail my child as well. May I catch myself before it happens or while it is happening. May she or he not write a blog about how I wasn’t the best mother. Ameen.
I never knew my parents’ relationship to be happy so it has surprised me when she has woken me up in the morning to call the hospital to see how my papi is doing. I forget, once they were married, once they loved each other, once they had my brother and me.
I pray that my mami never gets sick because who would take care of her the way she takes care of other people. I would, of course, she is my mami, but we don’t have the same calling. I stayed at my papi’s place the night of his surgery. I was alone in the apartment while my oldest brother’s house was filled with people. I woke up missing my mami so much. I couldn’t wait to get to her. I hugged her and didn’t care if her cigarrette smoke was getting in my hair. I wanted my mami the way a kid wants their mami. In that moment she was the best mami anyone could ever have. I understand her now. I appreciate all the little things she did for other people and all the teachings she gave me.
My eyes are tired. It is a long drive from Spring Hill to Tampa to go to the hospital. I am not used to these florescent lights. I kind of want to stay here. Maybe it’s the clouds or the fast food is making me delusional. Maybe it’s just that I am all grown up and things are finally good with my family, minus the sicknesses of course, but emotionally we are stronger now. How can we not be when we have the blessings and the love of a walking saint?
the end.
I count the months on my fingers
I was pregnant. In my dream. Belly round. Breasts swollen. My nipples browner and browner. I counted months on my fingers and realized it would be an October baby. Like me. I couldn’t go to India. The birth of the baby would cut into my trip. That was ok. I was going to have a baby. In my dream I imagined myself taking the baby the following year. On my back, brown, dressed in oranges and pinks with shine. She would smile while we walked on dusty roads, while the bicycles zoomed by.
The father was this Swiss guy I dated when I was 21. WTF? I haven’t been in touch with him for about 10 years. He was nice about having this unexpected baby with me and was willing to help me with health insurance because I don’t have any. In my dream I was excited to paint the paradise waters of my walls white and sell everything to leave. I no longer wanted to be in the Bay Area. In real life I no longer want to be in the Bay Area. The weather is driving me crazy and I find myself bored. I am doing a lot and have beautiful people in my life but I am still bored. I talked about it last night. Maybe that is why I had a dream about being pregnant with a Cuban-Swiss baby and leaving to be closer to my family.
Back to my dream:
In my excitement of being pregnant I saw my aunt and her vision was clear. She looked younger no signs of almost blindness. She read my stories. She commented on my stories. She showed me the words that moved her and tears dropped from her eyes. I wrote in English and Spanish. Then she tucked me into bed and her words were like my poems. She repeated them over and over.
After painting the paradise waters of my walls white I was packing to move to Miami. I was going to move to my Madrina’s house only if she stopped smoking cigarettes. She stopped smoking and the air smelled clean again. She stopped because new life was coming to her home. I just called her and told her my dream. She laughed thinking that in the dream she probably told me that she would never stop. I told her, No, you stopped. She was surprised. I smoked for fifteen years of my life. I know what addiction is like. I also forget.
I kept counting the months on my fingers and looking at my breasts enlarging. The unknown is hard for me. I no longer rely on tarot cards or oracles to tell me. I grew up on trying to figure out my future without just being present. I think about leaving the Bay Area so much now. I can no longer grow here. I have nothing of material worth except for this computer I write on. I live simply accumulating furniture and things through out the years. I forget sometimes that I moved here with 15 boxes, 2 suitcases and a cat. I can do it again with less than that. 5 of those boxes were books. Books that I want to sell. There are some that I want to hold unto and hug them to my chest. I wonder how will I travel with such a huge Qur’an and realize I must leave it in someone’s house and get a travel sized one instead. The rest of the items in the other boxes have either been disposed or given away. One winter day when I was in a cleaning madness I let go of all the letters I had since seventh grade. Notes from school, letters from summers away. I read them all one night and threw them out. I kept a few letters in air mail envelopes from my brother. A letter from this guy named, Pan. I kept his letter because he declared his love to me when I was 19 and I can’t even remember who he is. I put Pan in the search bar on Facebook and he doesn’t come up. Who is he?
When I think of my dream and I think about moving away I think about all the kids I have helped raise. Three little girls sat around a kitchen table. 6, 4 and almost 4. One of them asks when I am going to be a mother. I tell her I need a partner first. The 6 years old says, she needs to get married first. The 4 years old says, That’s hard work. What is?, I ask. Finding a partner, she says. I wonder if these little girls are like little old ladies. Or if they are sent as messengers. When I think about moving away I am also confronted with that fact that I will leave them. I don’t want to. So, I wonder if I should count the months on my fingers. In reality the Swiss guy is not in my life nor is any other. I have become more conservative and disciplined and no longer have sex without commitment. I can’t count the months on my fingers. Sometimes I feel like I will never be a mother. The almost 4 years old sat on my lap before bedtime and tells me I am already a mother. To whom?, I ask. To your kids!, she says. I wonder if she is talking about the baby I miscarried when I was 16 or all the kids I’ve helped raise. Not knowing the unknown. I have to trust and accept and believe that dreams and people’s words can be like messengers. There will be a time when I will count the months, insha’Allah.
till then…
the end.
When I begin writing in my dream
I was dreaming. In this dream I was writing. I was documenting the glasses I wore in fourth grade. I still have them. Those ugly eighties welfare glasses. The ones from the lot we could afford. They were big, I mean huge, and mauve and ugly. When I see hipsters wearing them now I kinda want to take them off of their face and give them a lecture about appropriating poverty. And to prove my point I drop them to the floor and smash them with my feet. But I don’t because I am not mean like that.
Maybe I had that dream because Michael Jackson died and he was totally in my heart all those years that I wore those ugly glasses. In my dream I was wearing them to document me wearing them. The dream ended before I even started writing. I am writing now.
I couldn’t stand living those years of my life. 9, 10, 11, 12. Yuck. Those were the worst years. My hair was frizzy, I was fat and my view of the world and myself were through those ugly glasses. In my twenties when I had those moments that I didn’t feel good about myself I thought I was back at those ages 9,10,11,12. Ugly, depressed, trying to fit in, weird.
I wonder why I had that dream.
I performed last weekend with Mangos with Chili. The dressing room in the back was surrounded by mirrors. When I saw myself, I smiled. I focused in. Checked out my clear skin, my beautiful curls, the way my outfit looked at me. I smiled. I smiled big and said out loud, It’s a good thing I don’t have a mirror like this in my apt or else I would never leave the place. If you had just met me you would have thought that I was vain. My sweetest friend laughed and acknowledged that I have just fully come to myself and that it is great to see me love myself in that way.
I remember now. I remember what I was going to write in my dream. I was going to write about being different. About remembering that we have our own life path. I remember.
In my world I am different and I surround myself with other people that are different. We are the odd balls, the black sheep, the late bloomers. We remind each other of our gifts to ourselves, each other and the world. In my journey to be my whole self and to fulfill my life purpose it is necessary that my closest companions are those who accept all the idiosyncricities I have. My people are the ones who love me, check me, never seize to adore me, teach me and learn from me.
I recently started liking someone that I could be my whole self with. I had never gone into something with such an open heart. With such honesty. Another Cuban Muslim- I know! Very rare. But a special kind of Cuban Muslim, one who is progressive, who reads me poetry over the phone before going to sleep, one who I could talk about being a non practicing queer with and not feel like I won’t be accepted or understood. I love listening to him talk that Cuban Spanish. A long time ago I had given up wanting to be with another Cuban. My roommate kept mentioning that she has never seen me like this and she has known me for over 13 years. And it’s true. Before him I was at a point where I wasn’t trying to hold on to anything romantically left with the last man I was with. I felt full, I was working on so many projects that made me radiate, I felt alive. I was content with being single. Then he came along and I totally accepted that I was in a good place so this was a good thing. But that wasn’t necessarily true. It is not the right time for him and I totally understand. It’s annoying because now I have to grieve a little and get back to the content place I was in. I am trying. Now I am in a place of trying to be compassionate towards him and myself, to leave my heart open and to move on. I did have that moment though of feeling like I was in my twenties feeling like I was 9,10,11,12 again. I felt that I would be alone for the rest of my life and there would be no one in this world that would accept all my complexities from having tattoos, to being religious, from being independent, to enjoying serving. There’s more but I still haven’t eaten breakfast yet. That lasted like 10 minutes. Me crying and feeling sorry for myself and then I remembered all those times I told my friends that we have our own path.
These past two days everything I wanted to do did not work out. I kept on saying God knows best. There was peace within me even though I wanted to be frustrated and pout but I felt like it didn’t work out because there was something there that wouldn’t benefit me. So, I am moving forward with being at peace. OK I am trying to be at peace with the place I am in right now and knowing that this is all part of the plan. I get tested a lot. That’s probably why I liked the stories of Job so much. I am constantly reminding myself of his perseverance.
In this moment of writing from dreams and memories I smile because when I feel my heart beat I notice that it does it freely. It has not closed. I am on my path. May you be on yours. May it be lit.
the end.
A Virtual Mourning
The babies were sleeping. Ocean waves came in through the monitor. The sunlight hit my skin. I checked my Facebook account over my phone and there I read status update after status update that Michael Jackson died. I called my mother she already knew.
I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t be in shock. Thoughts went through my mind like the Michael Jackson posters I put on my wall. Like the Thriller jacket I wore in fourth grade. Got teased but still wore it. I thought about the Thriller album and the Bad! video. I thought about the moonwalk and my love for Michael. I forgot about his skin bleaching, his nose jobs, his straightened hair. I remembered his voice and his smile. I remembered singing Man in the Mirror in a school production with my classmates. I remembered the group my family attended for depressed Cubans in Miami who took too many pills and finished each session with We are the World. I remembered how he made my heart beat and gave me dancing feet. I remembered loving Michael, not understanding Michael, learning how to be compassionate towards Michael. I was just remembering Michael. I thought about the articles I read that he took his shahada last year. And I hoped it was true because no matter what religion or spiritual path someone chooses what is important to me is that everyone on this planet has inner peace and self love. I pray that in Michael’s final hour he was at peace and was connected to the Creator, the universe and himself. I thought about his struggles, man, his struggles, like we all have them but maybe not that public. I thought about the pain. I pray that he is at peace.
It is interesting that in 2009 I no longer have a TV but am still connected. I check my phone and my friends in California, New York and in different pockets of the world keep me informed with their status updates on Facebook. I don’t even have to read the news because my friends have already informed me. I wondered for a quick second if I was wrong for not acknowledging his death on my status update. A quick second. I am making brownies and listening to the Michael Jackson Ultimate Collection. I am remembering my love for Michael in my own way. I try to dance but I feel a little off doing it. I can not cry and I wonder if it’s because I look at death so differently now.
I haven’t even been able to talk to someone about it but I am part of a virtual mourning. All over the world where a song is playing one will probably be hearing a Michael Jackson song. This is bigger than Elvis’ death, bigger than Diana, poor Farrah, bigger than hers. It’s 2009 and most of us won’t be able to go to wherever his services are but we can watch it on TV, our phones, our computers. When we get together in PERSON and reminisce our very own Michael Jackson memory we will probably moonwalk to each other or Yee-Hee every once in awhile. For many people in my age group, the thirties, Michael Jackson represented our very own love for music. For many of us our Thriller album was our very first album.
Michael, may the angels be with you. May you have light. May you have peace. May you know that you are and will always be loved.
the end.
my vision
I didn’t really know English then. I was six or seven. I stood in front of my second grade classroom. No paper in hand. Words already memorized. I sang the songs I wrote in the corner of the room I shared with my parents. I sang. I sang with bangs and a cute little pony tail. My big eyes avoided looking at my friends. I sang songs I wrote at six or seven in a language that was new to me. I sang.
I went to a retreat this Saturday at the East Bay Meditation Center. The retreat focused on learning your life purpose. I already know my life purpose but sometimes I forget. Like when I am bored and procrastinating on facebook instead of writing. I went to remember my life purpose. I went to live it. One of my favorite exercises was an inquiry where two people get together. A asks a question, such as: What are you afraid of? B answers. A says thank you and repeats the question. I did this exercise with the girl sitting next to me. A stranger. I could have picked any stranger in a room full of over 60 people but we picked each other. She kept on asking me the same question. I kept on answering. I am afraid of not pushing myself hard enough. I am afraid of not believing. I am afraid of not having money. I am afraid of being afraid. I am afraid of, I am afraid of, I am afraid of. Nothing. Nada. I have no fears. Bring it on. Keep on asking because I am not afraid of anything! Oh, it was such a relief to be asked the same question and I didn’t have the lump in my throat and my heart wasn’t all wound up and I didn’t have tears in my eyes BECAUSE I have nothing to fear.
Our teacher talked about our core and our childhood and to really look at the things that we felt fullfilled with in our lives. That is when I remembered about my songwriting and singing. I remembered the José Martí poems I memorized and performed for my family. I remembered the lizards I caught in the backyards of Miami. I remembered the swimming and the imagining and the laughter and the stories. I liked to tell stories. I enjoyed thinking about the world and how to make it better. I constructed plans to help homeless people find homes and jobs and love and stability. When we did a group exercise and we talked about what things fulfilled us I said right now I am exactly how I was as a child except I am not as bratty. Maybe I might have my moments but you know I have been working on that. In my teen years, in my twenties I rebelled against no one but me.
I was feeling really good about my day even though I was tired. I have been so busy these past couple of months but every moment has been worth it. I knew that going to this retreat will help me realize the things I have to achieve to keep on track with my life purpose. Then we had to pair up with someone to share with them our vision. Sharing my vision with a stranger? I was going to walk around the room and pick someone randomly when this young woman came up to me and asked to be my partner. She went first and for ten minutes I listened to her and was her silent cheerleader when she talked about her vision. There I was listening to a young white woman from Kansas City and LA and I found some commonalities with her. Like she’s a writer and was a nanny. Like she wants to work in therapy helping others through the arts. She had so much enthusiasm and direction that I really admired that she knew these things at 20. Then it was my turn. I must admit I felt a little self conscious. I come from a culture that you are not suppose to tell people what you want in life because they might give you the evil eye and it will be taken away. But I am trying to not feed into that and I said my vision knowing that if I voice it and work towards it it can be possible.
I told her about my immediate visions with going to India and writing and learning more from spiritual teachers. I told her about all the bestsellers I wanted to publish, the languages I wanted them translated in. I told her about the millions I wanted so I can take care of my family. So I can create my own family and ride that horse through the desert with my partner and children. I told her about all the countries I wanted to live in and the cultures I wanted my children to be a part of. I told her about the teachers I wanted to work with. I told her about the ways I wanted to teach. I told her about the house with the ocean view and smells of good Cuban cooking. A house filled with lots of love. And somewhere in telling my vision she was no longer listening. Her body language changed. She kept on looking at the people next to us. I wanted to say, hey listen to me. But I just kept on talking. Annoyed. Those 10 minutes were so long. I just wanted it to end.
I was so mad. So, I told my friends and they couldn’t believe it. I was so sad. My vision ignored. It was like when my mom used to sweep and I would talk to her and she would just say, aha, aha and never really listen. I knew I couldn’t sleep until I told my vision to someone who would actually listen. I had already one night of bad sleep and waking up grumpy. I asked Meadow and she did even with her stuffed up nose she was able to listen. And I retold her my vision but then added a few things like growing old and be surrounded by good people. I told her about the commitment I have to being around people who are healing and healers, people who love and know how to receive love. I told her about the rocking chair I want to sit on. All the people that I will meet. I told her about my dreams and my aspirations. My goals. I told her my vision. And she listened. For a moment I thought I couldn’t add unto my vision because it didn’t make it to the 10 minutes but she assured me that my vision can be continuous. She told me that she sees how I need to write in India. She was so happy for me and such a great cheerleader. I am glad I gave myself a second chance.
Every moment I have lived has led up to this moment. Every moment from this moment will lead up to my vision. I am not afraid.
the end.
