Ana Gabriel (written for my mother)

I hear your voice through any song by Ana Gabriel.

I sit awkwardly at a table for one. It’s my first time in Texas and the heat has beaten me with exhaustion and hunger. I wait patiently for a bus to Austin, but can’t bare to sit outside in Sundance square. “Is this really where I want to live?” I wonder silently, staring out to the barren streets. As the air conditioner wipes the sweat off my face and neck, Ana Gabriel’s voice spills through the speakers, carrying me in a tidal wave back to our Saturday mornings.

“Quien como tuuuuu, que dia a día puedes tenerle.”

On weekends, mom’s voice travels through the house as an unexpected alarm. The rest of us, drained from trying to get her up during the work week, unsuccessfully take shield under layers of weakly stuffed pillows. She floats through the living room, her center stage, to visit each of her audience members for their own personal serenade. “Llevantate,” she squeezes in as new lyrics to the song. “Que hay oficios.” She drifts down the hall on her high healed flip-flops, stamping the air with hints of Mistolin and Pledge— more friends for the concert.

I tumble out of bed if I’m not on the floor already from some turbulent dream or sheer clumsiness. I look out onto East Mountain Ave where bikes are waiting to be driven, and bats lay lonely on the grass. Oficios, then outside. I am suddenly energized, as if the song shook me awake. In Gardner, dad signed us up for basketball or soccer on these weekend mornings, or lazily searched the grocery aisles until the cleaning was coincidentally over. “Dos horas pa la compra?” mom exclaimed, as we cleared the trunk of plastic bags. Albert walked barefoot toward the house, veins popping out of his neck as he balanced a string of bags on each arm. He’d take the risk of a hernia over the need for a second trip. “Mira, si tu ve la fila que habia..” my dad would respond, and no one could confirm that it wasn’t true.

At the small Mexican Cantina, my order of tacos rests in front of me, clashing down over Ana Gabriel’s voice. I smile at the image of mom, using the broom as her microphone, and then laugh, oddly to myself, at the fact that I’m hearing only the singer’s voice for the very first time.