Pulled Pork Sandwiches

“Let’s go Lisa!!” moms voice shrieks behind me. Dad stands behind the plate, his fingers wrapping tensely around the metal fence in anticipation. Not the safest practice, but it gives him comfort. “I’ll buy you a sandwich if you hit a home run,” Albert bribes. I laugh a little behind my helmet at the thought of him paying his debt with mom’s money for a lunch I’d need anyway. How many pulled pork sandwiches could I have in one day? The tiny concession stand in Colombus, Ohio, just happened to be the best I’ve ever tasted. The light, thinly shredded strips of meat were trimmed of fat and bathed in a sweet and tart barbecue sauce, staining my lips in a savory comfort. I would hit the ball anywhere for another one.

“Throw your hands at the ball,” Albert encouraged as I stepped towards the plate. For years I watched him hit, his hands exploding in a swift motion from his back shoulder to the ball, guided with his hips and ending with his back toes dug deep into our lawn. “You have to squish the bug.” He’d explained, channeling the information from my dad to me. “Look, I’ll show you.” He’d demonstrate for hours, as I fed him baseballs and ran deep into the neighbors yard to retrieve them. “Can I hit now? Pleasssse?” I’d beg, wanting to show him that I understood. “Well, you have to get me out first,” he’d respond. “There’s three outs in every inning.” 

I raked the dust beneath my feet to mark my place in the batter’s box, then tapped my bat to the outside corner of the plate. Every player had their ritual, and this was mine, stollen long ago from my brother. The sun struck down in its mid day anger, scattering little beads of sweat on my face. This was Nationals, we were down to single elimination, and the Virginia Stars were returning champs. No pressure. 

I twisted my hands around the bat handle in a tightening grip as I waited for the first pitch. “Be patient,” my dad both advised and embodied. My breath slowed and I felt it fill the corners of my back. My mom’s words reached me in an elevated whisper, as if a thought had accidentally escaped her, “You got this.” My body followed a dance I’d studied for so long, not needing guidance or thought. The ball met my bat at it’s thick center, and in a simple sweet kiss, it said good bye. I rounded the bases at my leisure as a spectator threw the ball in from the other side of center field. My team awaited me at home plate, but I looked up, instead, at my family, smiling and cheering in the stands, thinking to myself, so when’s lunch?

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. 

Cherry Chapstick

I smell you in a stick of cherry chapstick. 

“Does anyone have chapstick?” I ask as we all cram into the car. I’ve lost mine, probably for the fifth time this week, and my lips burn raw against the blistering cold. Dad has his thick blue hat on, which lays like a box on top of his head with two round ear muffs draping down. I doubt he can even hear me. Mom shuffles towards the car, three bags in one hand, cream of wheat in the other. Is this all for one day of work?? She struggles up the snow covered driveway as dad slowly inches closer and closer down the road. He thinks that waiting for her in the street is more efficient, but it takes an hour for mom, who is already late, to unhook each heel from the ice. As she sits in the car, we drown in a sea of perfume, so potent I’m tempted to crack a window. 

“I really need some chapstick,” I whine, because I’m their kid, and that’s my job. Mom searches through her coat, then her purse, with its endless pockets that are stuffed to the brim. Some days she finds it stuffed between her wallet, some days in a pile of Maria cookie crumbs at the bottom of her lunch bag. “Toma,” she says, pushing her hand back without turning. I grab it and coat my lips over and over again, as if each time the chapstick passes over me it will sink deeper into my skin for extra moisture. “Diablo, te lo va comer,” my dad comments. “I’ll show you how to use it,” he states, then takes out his black, unscented chapstick, one hand on the steering wheel. He touches it once to his top lip and once to his bottom lip. “See, this chapstick will last me a whole year,” he adds. I laugh as he barely touches it. “Wait, you had chapstick this whole time?” I ask rhetorically. “Yea, I can’t lend it to you, you’ll lose it before we leave the driveway.” How rude, I think, rolling my eyes, though it’s probably true. 

We ride to Haverhill High long before homeroom starts, the sky is dark and the city is bare of life. Like rides to Melinda’s, so early I never remembered getting there, or trips to the YMCA before Williamsport opened its eyes, I sit staring out the window half asleep. As the day starts, my dad threatening to leave my mom behind, or Albert with one shoe on and no backpack, I am off to a new start, my lips smothering me in a scent of cherry chapstick. 

Unfit Feet (writing exercise 2013)

My feet are two bulky hyperextensions of my legs that aymmetrically carry the weight of my body. My left sits comfortably at an 8.5, while my right extends forward, righteously claiming its place at a size 9. I waver between these sizes, shifting my weight like house walls resting cautiously on a tilted foundation. My feet have their own identities, while as a pair, they reject any set standard of society.

For most of my life, I have satisfied my right, always taking the larger shoe. This decision has left me half barefoot running to first base, or crushing litter in playgrounds with the naked, unprotected flesh of my left foot. I ran, never that fast, leaving behind the evidence that half of me had no desire to move forward, but chose to linger in that limbo that precedes full grown adulthood. Although more embarrassing, it’s much better than pleasing my left. Leaving one foot dancing in the open space of a pair of heels, womanhood’s many curses, has almost led to a broken ankle. Instead, I bear the burden of my fully body’s weight pushing relentlessly on the toes of my right foot. The pressure tightening around the front of my shoe has left my whole foot numb after a night of dancing, and left me shocked that not one toe was broken.

In attempts to avoid the bursting blisters and scars, I have often contemplated shoplifting; switching around the shoes in the box so that the mismatched pair would personally suit my body’s disparity. It’s a perfect solution, besides the jail time of course. The thought of carrying myself in absolute comfort is as imaginable as flip flops being accepted at one of Boston’s hottest night clubs. Until that movement sets in, I’ll continue to move awkwardly through life, satisfying only one extremity at a time. 

Havana Nights

The August heat in Boston was a weighted blanket that everyone tried to breath under. Havana, with its lack of air conditioning, was no different. Dancers led the heat in waves of frantic momentum, pushing it onto everyone around them. Rapid turns and body rolls gave birth to an unexpected mist of sweat. Though it sounds repugnant, the scene of bare limbs sharing steam gave air to an enticing latin sex appeal. It was Salsa Saturdays and the ballroom was at capacity, or so I’d hoped. I’d chosen my outfit thinking, “which has the least amount of clothing,”  a thought opposing my usual style. “Boring” is what my friends called it. “If I had your body,” my cousin Karina always said, “I’’d wear as little as I could.” I always laughed at the compliment, thinking, but don’t you already? 

The dress I wore was one my friend had given me after gaining the “dental school fifteen.” It was a tube top style maroon dress with a full exposed back, all connected with thin, black netting. A piece I would come to wear more than once, but one I’d never buy on my own. It scrunched around my hips and hugged by butt tight enough to stay in place when my legs became slick with sweat, or when i was twirled in endless circles, through risky dips, or when men tried that old school move of dancing with their leg between mine, to hike up my thigh. It was stretchy and form fitting, but best of all, I could breathe. 

Two shots of whiskey, my crew (the girls, friends, and fam— we were rolling deep), and Marc Anthony singing me sweet melodies del amor and i was burning holes on the dance floor. I floated from partner to partner, laughing at my own clumsiness and lack of rhythm. “Just follow the man,” my mom reminded me growing up, a lesson every Dominican girl would learn. She’d taught my brother and me bachata and merengue steps on evenings in our living room; Maria’s own school of dance. My hips, however, were not a ball in socket joint, they were fixed to my legs and no ethnic or genetic power would save me. “Just listen to the beat,”  she would say. What beat? I’d think with frustration.I used a metronome during piano lessons to keep me at pace. I listened to the backstreet boys. How could I hear a single beat through clashing bongos and tamboras? “Una tabla,” my mom would call me, and at one point she gave up.

At Havana, everything changed. I surrendered to the beat, and I followed. I didn’t care for the steps, moves, or routines, I simply let my body flow as a reflection of the man who led me. Most times, we’d move fluidly as one. Often I’d turn in the wrong direction, or step on a toe or two. I found it more fun that way, more simple, and free. 

I danced that night with young new beginners, with men from Guatemala to Ecuador, with a widower well into his eighties, with my cousins, friends, and with so many random guys that their faces all blurred together. A ton of quick, meaningless ballads. Then he asked me to dance. I had seen him on the dance floor, who hadn’t. But in front of me he was taller than I expected, broad up top, with soft dark eyes and my a contagious smile.  “Would you like to dance?” he asked. I nodded yes and quickly placed my hand in his.

I can’t tell you what song was playing, or how many songs we danced to, just the feeling of  my arms stretched up, gripping the rigged corners of his back. Of how he dipped me so close to the ground that I feared for my life. His arms, strong under the small of my back, never budged, and I always landed safely, inches above the floor. I laughed from the adrenaline rush, laughed at his need to fan off so often, at dancing on opposite beats, at his surprised expression when he told me that his shirt was soaked, and I proposed he take it off. I was forward, as I’d always been, and embodied what he would later share as his favorite quote, “Fortune favors the bold.” 

The club was ours, everyone else had faded into the walls. I clung to him like we’d come to Havana together, as if there were no one else to dance with, no one left in the world at all. Finished dancing, we sat on open stools, dehydrated and with shaky legs. The energy that hummed between us masked any signs of exhaustion. We talked and laughed until our lips connected and danced as freely as our bodies had a couple hours before.

My brother approached us. Albert was there, wow I’d forgotten. He said, “Hey, we’re all leaving, are you going to stay?”

“Yea, I’m going to stay,” I answered mindlessly, not realizing it was close to 2am. 

Seeing my brother sucked me back into a reality that I’d escaped from. It was almost 2 am! I got up just minutes after they’d left, and ordered myself an Uber home. We exchanged numbers, and I added yet another “Mike” into the contacts on my phone. With one last kiss I left Havana, re-emerging into the chaos of a Boston summer night. My knees had almost given out while waiting for my ride, my heels cut deep into my feet from the constant weight of my body, but I was light and still floating after starting a dance that would last for years

Grand, Frozen Canyon (from my travel journal)

 The sun slowly draws out the colors of the Grand Canyon. Reds, oranges, and purple shades blend and reflect back combinations of untold stories. The mile long vertical drop holds animals undiscovered, vegetation left unnamed, and people whose memories are left clinging to missing person’s signs. The view is vast, the air is still, and all is so perfectly beautiful. I breathe it in and let it fill me, hoping to carry pieces of it forever. Tracking up in April’s midday sun is a blessing. The air is cool, the sun beats on my face, and the world is my playground. Kim and Joe bounce from rock to rock, dodging mounds of donkey droppings. I feel light and giddy, like when my dad used to push me on the tire swinging our backyard. The world is vast and open around me, and I am free.

As we near our first of many mini peaks, the wind begins to sway us. Clouds roll in and rapidly the canyon disappears, hiding underneath a thick blanket of white fog. We pick up the pace, but nature does too. A cool mist begins to spray my face. My hair begins to curl. Rain falls heavily, pulling me down as I fight the incline. On our descent we skipped down the path, jumping from one step to the next. Now, I hug the mountain side, feeling every corner of my foot press sturdily into mud. Any skid could land me in the pit of the canyon, just one misplaced step and I might never make it home. It’s exciting! There’s a rush over me that fuels my need to survive. My senses are heightened and despite my 40lb bag, I am agile.

Hail. Hail starts to prick our skin with it’s sharp edges pressing through our jackets. The temperature is dropping drastically as we move upward, and my hands and toes are numb. I tire from the weight mother nature has thrown on me, and I’m panting. I know I'm out of breath because I can see it in a small cloud forming in front of me with every exhale. It is cold and it is snowing.

I wear a coat of white at the top of the South Kaibob trail, and it blends perfectly with my complexion. We’re ecstatic. We made it! We’re safe on solid ground! Kim and I are shivering, convulsing almost. I can hear my teeth chattering and feel my core vibrating uncontrollably. As we hop on the bus Kim reflects a shade of blue, and I a yellowish green. We strip off our wet clothes, transitioning to new dry clothes from inside our packs My head hurts, my eyes, I feel dizzy. I start eating nervously; a protein bar, cliff bar, chocolate, a whole bag of jerky. I need the energy, without it I might never warm up. Joe is cold, but not like us. He wraps himself around us, transferring his body heat to me and Kim. No one says anything. I hear Kim’s teeth colliding and hope they don’t break. I lose the erratic rhythm of my breath. There are other people on the bus headed to the Visitor’s Center, but I can’t see them and wouldn’t turn to if I could.

Joe beings to sing Hallelujah in this raspy, blues-like voice. “Once there was a God above, and all I ever learned from love…” I don’t think he fully knows the words, but the sound is soothing and there is beauty again in a moment hopelessness. It caries me away from my soft, wet seat, from the gray, meek bus, from my frail and freezing body, all the way home. To my parent’s bed. To my mother, who radiates heat when I lay next to her. This tiny woman floating in my father’s tank top and summer shorts, curled up and sinking into the pit of their queen size bed. She rolls up so tight, like Albert when he used to hide in the dryer. She’s the size of a child but this heat seeps out of her and forms a forcefield around me. It’s a shield I hide under when the winter chills pierce my bones. It wraps around me and could block out any force of nature, any gunman, any bad dream or thought. I can feel her soft, clammy hands pulling me closer. I remember her chest lifting and dropping against my back, and I know we are still connected. My shoulders drop, my jaw stops moving, and finally, I can relax. I’m not going to die, not today. I let go of my anxieties and physical anguish because I know that one day, maybe not soon, but one day I will be there again with my mother, warm and protected on my safe little corner of the bed.

Foreign Romance (from June 2012)

I was standing against the rail that surrounded Klub Lavka, letting the breeze from the Vltava River run through my hair and cool me down. I had left the club, telling Pedro, “I need some fresh air.” A lie that he recognized as a subtle way of luring him away from the groups of friends we each came with. He followed me outside, and stood behind me, one arm wrapped around my waist. We gazed at the Prague Castle, which was perched at the top of a hill, overlooking the city. It was a sight that in my three weeks of staying in Prague, I could not grow used to. Pedro had been living there for a year, and I could see the way the scene completely captivated him, shifting his attention away from me. The view was relieving. It was proof that something beautiful could stand past the brutalities of war and time. The gothic and renaissance structures were physical remnants of different rulers, and the towers precautionary marks of a state once at war. However, the illuminated castle reflected in Pedro’s eyes combined the elements common to most fairytales, creating a perfectly harmonious portrait.

Inside, we had spotted each other instantly, locking eyes when I walked onto the overpopulated dance floor. The group of girls I was with saw him too, hoping to spark his interest. He came up from behind me and asked where I was from, the Spanish rolling off his tongue in a romantic serenade. For weeks Czech speaking natives and German tourists had surrounded me. It was comforting to have a language that I knew. It wasn’t just the Spanish though, it was the brush of a hand, the flirty smile, and light caress that I understood and had once been familiar with. 

He was from Portugal, but spoke a little Spanish. I was flattered that he might have thought I was from Spain, but then again, we were at a Latin Festival. The girls and I had wandered in the winding maze-like roads of Old Town, searching for a new club or lounge before we found Klub Lavka. Like Prague, it was a hidden gem, standing among the larger music clubs adjacent to the Charles Bridge. For hours we walked on uneven cobblestone roads that left our feet sore with pain. We had stopped at local pubs, and self-medicating with pints of Bernard or Pilsner Urquell. The salsa music lured us in, but was only appealing with a partner.

After our first dance, Pedro and I were a couple. Dancing only with each other, and cautioning each other when we were going to take a break to the bathroom or to talk to a friend. When I returned, I was looking for him and he was there waiting for me to take on the next song. He showed me dances from Portugal, never laughing as I struggled to match the smooth movements of his hips. The Spanish made it difficult to communicate since it was both our second languages, but it put us on a level playing field, comfortably emphasizing our immersion in a foreign place. 

On the terrace, we rapidly covered every topic, as if in an interview. He had moved to Prague after falling in love with the city on his semester abroad there. I was taking a summer course at Charles University, but contemplated making the same, impulsive move. He smiled and said, “You should visit Portugal.” It was the first thing I thought when I saw his long slender frame, when I found myself fighting to turn away from his big brown eyes. I replied, “Take me.” He smiled at that, revealing dimples that carved into his sun kissed skin. 

Our bodies were two opposing magnets gradually pulling each other in close. He asked if I knew the history of Prague. It’s stories and myths of love that gave rise to the Locks of Love over the canals, where couples engraved their names on locks, dispensing of the key. Of course I visited the sight, and saw the viral romance around the city. Although the Czech people did not greet you on the street or indulge in superficial conversation, lovers were posted everywhere, entangled in their affections. I’d seen teenagers making out on the metro, and middle-aged couples tonguing on benches. The city was romantic and overtly sexual. It was one of the greatest factors in my culture shock, but as I grew used to it, I also grew envious.

The sun began to peak out from behind the castle, painting the sky with light pinks and orange. Daylight replaced the light posts that accompanied the statues of saints lining each side of the Charles Bridge. Crowds of people poured into the streets and gravitated towards the food stands that awaited them. Groups of friends and newly found lovers passed by, yelling to overcome the hearing damage caused by overblown club speakers. The clash of languages, German, Czech, Spanish, and others I couldn’t identify, formed the dissonant sound of chaos. They migrated towards the metro station, Staromestska, dragging with them the aroma of freshly cut rotisserie chicken that filled their gyros and kebabs. It was clear that the clubs were closing. How much longer could we hide from our friends?

Before we parted, we had merged into one moving figure. My back was pressed against the rail from the pressure of his weight. He asked, “Why did I meet you three days before you're leaving? Where were you last week?” I didn’t answer, not because it was a rhetorical question, but because before I could his lips were closing in over mine. We were dancing again, moving our mouths in a smooth rhythm that he guided. It was our first kiss, but unfortunately, it said good-bye.

As my friends pulled me away, our romance ended. We did not exchange Facebook info, email, or phone numbers. We did not taint the night with the next day’s small talk or the complications of a relationship. 

For my remaining time in Prague, I would scan the crowd in pubs and on the tightly packed trams, wondering if fate would reunite us. The thought of seeing Pedro in the day made me nervous. Maybe the light would expose my distorted perception of this "perfect" man. The mystery of him that I enjoyed could be lost in the idleness of conversation. This was just a vacation, just a small exploration of a foreign territory. Would I have enjoyed Prague the same if I was consumed by the every day hassle of work? I fell in love with the city, and with the idea of Pedro because of their aesthetics, and that was enough for me.

Ride to Zion (Journal Excerpt 4/20/16)

Dawn rings through my body with the gentle nudge of sunlight. Birds chirp frantically and the cool breeze carries dew onto the open areas of our sleeping bags. I am awake. It’s probably quarter after 5 or nearing 6, I can’t be sure. Today’s our day to road trip to Zion, and the earlier we’re up, the better.

I stumble lazily out of our $30 K-mart tent and perch by the nearest tree. I haven’t yet mastered the ability to pee standing up, with urine either landing on my boots or splashing back to may ankles and pants. At this point I don’t really care; it’s masked in the stench I carry from the past 2 days. Kim and Joe rise and collectively we break down the tents and clean up Campsite 4. With us we carry food, trash, and our own waste. Our lives get crammed into Chief, our once pristine and uninsured Chevy Impala.

The route through Arizona resembles every road trip movie I saw growing up. The freeway winds and inclines in segments, its wide arms wrap around erected mounds of red, jagged rock. At eye level there are acres and acres of bare land, of red clay littered with mounds of hay and asymmetrical cacti. I’m behind the wheel now, my arms rested on the open window sill, and eyes focused on the multi-tiered mountain range. From top to bottom the colors shift from white to pink then red to brown, each representing centuries of molding and erosion. 

This is freedom. Without realizing it, I’m going 90MPH. My adrenaline rises and my fears and anxieties fall behind me. I’m flying. In the valley I feel small, like a tiny element that could be projected at any time. I grip the steering wheel tightly like I was 5 again, bike riding with my dad. It’s shocking to think I was once small enough to fit on the bar at the center of his bike. I sat there, feet dangling, cradled between his giant arms as he biked up and down East Mountain Avenue and South Side Park. At age 9, I don’t think he could even carry me anymore. 

“Seven Years” by Lucas Graham comes one. We’ve hit a rare spot where there’s actually FM signal. I sing a long with it, it now being one of my favorite songs. “Soon I’ll be 60 years old, my daddy got 61. Remember life and then your life becomes a better one…” The soothing melody fills the car. I think of my grandfather, of my dad, of my life flying past me as fast as the shrubs lining this narrowing road. I picture Papa hiking down to Skeleton Peak with me, he’d always join any adventure .He’d be proud of me going 90MPH right now, just as he was when I handled the wheel at 14 with steady hands and fearlessness. 

I don’t have many older memories with him since he started to slip from us around that time. My dad would be here too if I’d let him come. “…Soon I’ll be 60 years old, will I think the world is cold or will I have a lot of children who can warm me up?” I wonder now, as I have before, if my kids will have limited memories with their grandfather, or if my dad will teach them how to throw a ball, like he did for me. I think of late night karate sessions with my dad twisting my arms to escape an attackers grasp. “Body weight forward,” he said, “keep balanced, and elbows over fists if you’re close enough.” I’ve never fought before, but I’ll always know how. 

I see my dad gripping the fence wires behind home plate in what my mom calls his “weekend uniform"; a gray Nike tank, blue cargo, shorts and loafers. Every game he’d stand there watching, bouncing between stillness and anxious pacing. I wonder how many games he’ll catch, or if he’ll be there to bitch out coaches for benching my kids like Papa had complained to Coach Goodale. “I came here to see her play,” he said in his broken English, “and you have her here on the bench.” I don't fully remember how the conversation ended, all I know is that I was on the field the very next inning.

Pulling into Zion was like driving through “A Land Before Time.” Long patches of green lay between orange, conical shaped mountains. Goats stood awkwardly on tree branches to either side of us. Directing the car around the sharply curved cliffs was a challenge, since my eyes constantly diverted to the scenery around me. This is not real,  I thought. The gates of Zion National Park resembled those from Jurassic Park, sealing the outside world from this preserved ancient land. I honestly expected a dinosaur to pop out from behind the trees. 

We passed the main campground and Visitor’s Center. We actually passed everything, missing all directory signs due to our distractions. The campgrounds were flat even beds of grinded red rock covered by a large wooden canopy. Older couples lounged on fold out chairs, reclining after a long day’s hike. I could see my mom and dad vacationing here, foolishly decked out in wide brim safari hats and knee high hiking socks, lost and frantic to make it back before sundown. “It’s all a part of the adventure,” by dad would say laughing while my mom would curse to herself, to the trees, and to everything around her. 

I laughed to myself while Kim freaked out about not having a campsite. This would be the funniest family vacation. I thought back to our night at the monastery in Sorrento. My dad mocked the nuns and Jesus sculptures, leaving Albert and me rolling in laughter until our stomachs were sculpted and sore. My mom wanted to laugh, we could see it, but she held back in her dedication to Catholicism. This was our ongoing family dynamic; mom serious and grounding, dad testing our self control in public. Mom giving us lectures on drugs and alcohol, dad slipping us tequila shots at the New Years party throughout high school. It was a balance, and it worked. Right?

Zion’s beauty swept around me and left me with a sudden wave of clarity. Suddenly I felt light. Time formed lines down the sides of each mountain peak, breaking it into solid pieces marked by periods only known by those who’d been present.  I thought of the segments that I’d formed and broken up by years and random phases. They stood sturdy in my memories and radiated in my character, my work ethic, and my daily habits. I thought of dad, who channeled Papa’s fearless, adventurous, “in-the-moment” attitude. I channel it too; that’s what got me to Zion in the first place. Somehow, I knew, at that moment, that my kids, nieces, and nephews would have so much of my father, whether they knew it or not. I could see myself twirling around in a laced white wedding dress, laughing with my dad at our lack of rhythm. I imagined him throwing his crocs at my mischievous brats, him telling them stories of their crazy grandma and rebellious mother. I could hear him calling them bambini after juggling through a list of wrong names, and him giving them their first beer around 7 years old, just like Papa had given me.

El Campo

It’s been six months since I stood in the mud. I had been on this road hundreds of times as a child visiting my family. The town had a name, but I knew it as El Campo. It’s the deep countryside in the Dominican Republic where most of its plantains are grown, along with tobacco, coffee beans, and cocoa. I was there with my brother, parents, grandma, and uncle. I had convinced my parents to go on a vacation since it was spring break and I hadn’t seen the sun in months, or my family in years. 

We traveled down this narrow road, the same road that my cousins and I turned into a baseball field when we were little.  We stopped at several houses, first at my Tio Heriberto’s to see the new addition he’d been working on. His house was a mansion in this area, made of cement, with two floors, and several acres of prosperous land. Most of the homes were made of stacked cinder blocks and tin roofs.  They still used the earth as their foundation, the sun as light, and barrels of stored water for drinking and bathing. There was no source of heat, but then again it was mid-March and the short distance we walked already had me sweating.  

Next, we went to Tata’s house. I didn’t know her. She isn’t a relative or family friend, just a neighbor I guess. My mother walked up to Tata, who looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Mi niña,” she cried. She hugged my mom, who started to cry, too. They tried to talk, but Tata was sobbing heavily as if she’d lost a loved one. I guess she had, in a way, since she hadn’t seen my mother in twenty years. When she left, she was still swaying between adolescence and adulthood. My father had taken her away from here, returning to the U.S. with the medical degree that he came for, and with a family. When I was growing up, she’d tease me about living in the Dominican Republic, saying we were moving just to see how I’d react. I never considered that she might have wanted her old life back. Suddenly, I started to cry too. 

Our last stop was at my great aunt and uncle’s house. This is a place I remembered from several family gatherings. Joining around the fire, breathing in the smell of smoked pork and burnt wood that would stain our clothes for hours. I was seven, watching the swine rotate over the flames with my uncle’s guidance. He turned the long, wooden skewer that penetrated the pig’s mouth, awkwardly dislocating its jaw, and then piercing through its back. Slices of limes were cut to top off slabs of fresh meat that my family hastily devoured. My mother asked me if I wanted to have some. Although cut up it resembled the oregano and garlic flavored pork roast that my mother made every Christmas, I couldn’t. Not with those eyes still fixed towards whatever had last captured its attention, or with its hairs still on end, poking up through its now crispy skin.  I knew that meat food came from animals, but I had never imagined eating it off the corpse like a predator in the wild. At seven, I asked, “How did that pig swallow such a large stick?” And they’ll never let me live it down. 

My mom went into this house alone. Several of her aunts and uncles had become physically or mentally ill, so it was a better idea for us to stay outside. That didn’t matter because they all came outside anyway, barefoot and covered in mud, and bombarded her. They hugged her, kissed her, cried, and pulled her, each trying to get their own alone time in. Many of them were wearing clothes I recognized: my mother’s old dresses, my dads sweaters, my t-shirts. It reminded me of the boxes in my living room that my mom was constantly filling. I’d clean out whatever didn’t fit me every year, and this is where it ended up. 

As my mom reconnected with her family, my dad told my brother and me about each of them. One of her cousins had been born with deformities, and two were mentally disabled. Problems he associated with their poverty and lack of care. I stood in the middle of the muddy road, watching my mother through the wired fence that separated us. My mother, who was wearing jean shorts and a new Calvin Klein shirt, who wouldn’t let me leave a bathroom without washing my hands, who couldn’t go to work with her nails chipped, was home. She grew up here, on this road, with these people.

I had heard all of the stories, every parent tells them (right?)– I walked ten miles to school each way, all my clothes were hand me downs, etc. I remembered how my mother told me about the nights she went to bed hungry, and how she picked coffee beans to help her mother buy dinner. I thought of these stories all as one in the same, as if parents took a course and were directed to say that. Here I was, though, in El Campo, which was so familiar to me, watching my mother as if she were a stranger. 

There were times I thought my mother was evil, literally meant to prevent anything fun in my life. Why would she pick me up at midnight at every slumber party, or call me in before sundown on summer days? Why couldn’t another parent bring me to a concert, or to anything? It wasn’t fair. That day in March, on our long, silent car ride back to my abuela’s house in Santo Domingo, I wondered if the answers were hidden between the cinder block walls of that house, or somewhere in the fields of El Campo. Is it why, at nine, I could perfectly replicate her arroz con pollo, or why in college I would continue to do clothe drives?  

The next day, my mother, who had a bag for clothes and a bag for shoes, who wouldn’t wear the same dress to two different events, who had been strolling in the mud a day before, took us to a resort. We lay by the pool, like the other tourists, absorbing the rays from the blazing, tropical sun. Breaking the silence, my mother said, “You know, that’s where I used to go when I came here on vacation.” Feeling a flush of guilt as I thought of El Campo, I responded, “Well, we can go back if you want.” From behind her dark, round sunglasses, she scanned our area. There were groups of college students sitting in the pool with drinks in each hand. Kids ran towards the beach, followed by parents carrying buckets, shovels, and bottles of sun block.  In a soft, low, tone, she simply answered, “No, I’ve spent too much time there already.” Instead, for the next few days, we took advantage of the pool, free drinks, and buffet, uncertain if we were enjoying ourselves at all. 

Bottled Water (written for a former English class)

Bottled water sits motionless within the confinement of its cylindrical or often rectangular plastic bottle. It forcibly resembles a colorless solid, sitting comfortably on desks, in refrigerators, and on multi-colored counter tops. What covers most of our earth and runs through us in its untamed fluidity is captured in this manmade creation. We carry around this most vital piece of nature, as if we have some measureable amount of control over its distribution; eight, 16, 32 ounces. We treat it as if it weren't dripping freely off the rooftops on a warm January day, overflowing the rivers' banks in the first weeks of spring, or pouring over us in the lustful days of June. It is as free as the animalistic love we chose to domesticate; confined within the most popular labels in society: girlfriend, fiancé, wife. When committed, love is trapped within the same confined scope until, although able to move, sits perfectly still. It is two, once free spirited lovers, dancing around a familiarly drawn out comfort zone. Or parents, stuck inside a routine that has rendered them companions, stripped of passion and desire. We love, unconditionally, regardless of our situation. We love those who have betrayed us, we love multiples at a time, and we can even love those we haven’t met yet. We render that passion as such a rarity that we are driven to stamp our label on it, and claim it ours. Rather than let love run free, in its naturally rapturous manner, we selfishly carry it with us until it is as stale as the bottled water that litters our purses, backpacks, and car trunks. 

Morning Run

Love is:
running
through lavender washed side streets,
drowning
in stretching orange sun rays,
savoring
freshly sodden grass blades,
hearing
every breath through pulsing veins,
vibrating
with every subtle heart beat,
feeling
the filling warmth of silence.

The Heart of A Child (written for my brother)

           
"His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly anymore because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless" (Ernest Hemingway). For some reason unknown to me, society associates maturity and growth with the realization that we live in a tainted world in which all our endeavors are futile and trapped within our own mortality. As children we are told that we can do anything, be anything we want. Yet as adults we are continuously reprimanded for dreaming beyond the confinements of society's man made limits. Self awareness is taught to recognize the world as it is, rather than how it could be, logic is used to banish the need for emotions, rather than to acknowledge and appropriately express them. We believe that wisdom comes with age, but isn't the most profound wisdom in the heart of a child? Only a child can see the endless opportunities the world offers him, can truly believe in self actualization, can think logically without losing his ability to love. We were created in this blissful simplicity, talented, and perfect all in our own, undeniable way. Only once we started trying did we lose what was so natural and effortless to us: to dream.

Dream big and never grow up.
-your sister

The Passionate Life (written for my brother)

The Passionate Life

"There is no passion to be found playing small- in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living" Nelson Mandela. We live on a little blue planet that floats in infinite space, yet daily, we dwell on the impossibilities that surround us. There is no God, we say, world peace is unattainable, they tell us, it's too hard, we tell ourselves. Only with passion can we expand. Passion, passio (Latin) "to suffer" is what it means to love to the extremity that causes pain, a constant anxiety to appease, which only through action can be alleviated. Whether it is a mother protecting her child, a professor molding young minds, or a doctor saving the life of his patient, passion is what drives our efforts. It allows us to dismiss logic to the extent to which we abolish all impossibilities, tapping into our imagination to develop ideas that often, are not only insane, but are great. We look for our passions, in our jobs and in textbooks, trying to identify what it is we love; what sparks that "fire" everyone talks about. Seldom do we reflect on the solutions we've already made, our greatest anxieties, or the solutions we've already created to alleviate them. Seldom do we reflect on what makes us suffer to discover what we truly love, instead we linger in our logic and our comfort, settling for a life of complacency.

You will find your passion, and you will be great. Never settle.
-your sister

Make A Difference (written for my brother)

"You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you" (Frederick Buechner). We are all made of moments, of negative and positive experiences that have molded our perception of life, of humanity, and our own value of self. All that is, has been since long before we were put here, and is only influenced through our interactions with each other. You carry a piece of everyone who has ever touched you. You may clean like your mother, write like that high school teacher that was deeply inspiring, comfort the way a stranger once comforted you in a time of need. We are pieces of others, yet we are greater than the sum of our parts. We have the power to give away fragments of ourselves and remain whole. So do it. Spend an extra minute to ask about someone's day, donate that dollar that you may have saved for your morning coffee, empower those without guidance. We make up the world that we live in, and a world lives inside of all of us. So who's to say that one person can't change the world? Who's to say that person isn't you?