Death Cab For Cutie - The New Year (Official Video)

Red Napkins.

I'm doing it again, avoiding myself. I haven't wanted to write because there's too much to be said and I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing it. My Moleskine has lost its allure, it's become too much of a liability it seems. So this is all I have, but even sitting down has seemed difficult. Strenuous. Undesirable. 


I want to think that I'm at the age now that I know all families are fucked up, at least to some extent. And mine is no different. But even knowing that, even being somewhat aware of what's been happening in Virginia with my sister and parents, I was still thrown when I showed up from the airport. I guess it couldn't have waited, these things never wait for "the right time," as if that existed. But I thought it wouldn't have come until after my bags had been packed away in some forgotten corner, until after we'd carefully placed our red napkins on the white table cloth before clutching our bellies to signify Christmas dinner had been completed. 


Rather we sat in silence, our heads bowed over mother's finest China pretending the place setting for my sister's boyfriend - the one with the kid, the one who'd done time, the one who sneaks over in the middle of the night thinking we won't notice - hadn't been removed. After all this was family time. A rare occasion. Not one privy to the likes of him. I shift in my seat, uncomfortable in my skin. I want to defend my parents to decision, but it's Christmas.


Isn't this a time of giving? One moment in which all feuds are called off so that in the shallow hours of truce, inhibition is at last possible? I choose instead to say nothing and eat slowly, trying to at least save the moment for myself by savoring my father's turkey and stuffing which I haven't had for over 2 years. From across the table my sister stifles her sobs into that red napkin. One my mother never intended us to use. 


It's all for decoration. It always has been. 


Dammit, why can I turn my fucking brain off? Give it a rest. I hate how quickly it jumps to those images and chooses to scream "HERE IT IS! LOOK, REMEMBER THIS!" as if it enjoys how much pain I'm in from one moment to the next. I let my eyes roll shut and take a long breathe inward. My brother makes a comment, something along the lines of describing how horrible this whole ordeal has turned out to be. Or how unhappy he is. Or how much he hates it here. And suddenly I realize it was never about Christmas. 


It was some desperate attempt for normalcy. Something that seems to have alluded us since my father left for Iraq in 2008. 


I put my fork down, and reach for my mother's hand, shaking it gently. From across the other, I take my sister's. The toxicity ends now.


I refuse. We are not untouchable and we can never think we are.


We can not condemn. We can not pretend. We are not unforgivable. 


The pain spreads in waves. It burns just below the surface of the skin like a shot of medicine entering the blood stream. Hot and quick. Ceaseless until at last disappearing among the magic that makes us run. Quiet for now, but ever present. In times like this, it folds in on itself, creating pockets that erupt without warning. Suddenly I want to vanish more than anything. I want to buy a plane ticket and send myself away from this so I will never again have to feel it like I do now. 


I exhale. It seems I've forgotten how to breathe. 


There will be no plane ticket. Not for some time. So I return to my lunch in front of me, now cold. Picking up my knife and fork, I trim the fat from my ham and dip a piece in mashed potatoes. My red napkin laid neatly across my lap, ready to catch whatever it is I may or may not drop.

I Want to know what love is - Foreigner

Something has changed, the dynamic has been altered. When I started this job, I felt invincible, that I was finally on the path of change: both for myself and some of the most deserving people in the world (children). But now, headed into what will be my 5th month in the classroom, I feel off. I've mentioned before that I know part of this is because I am being burned out...but there's something else there. Something lingering at the end of the day I can't quite put my finger on. 

The girls seem distant. There are more car rides in silence, more plans made that exclude me or my input. I know it shouldn't matter, that I should be confident in my ability to work alone if need be, but it bothers me that what was such a well-oiled machine just a month ago has suddenly run out of steam. I know that under the circumstances - having had to work together through the two weeks I was out recovering - that naturally they would have bonded. But I just find that it's another reason why I'm second guessing myself. 

Marco told me about a job at Holy Names that had opened up, an admissions counselor. I'd start a 40 grand, free room and tuition, full benefits. But I'd be stuck.

I know I shouldn't look at it like that, but I can't help but feel slightly caged at the thought of being here another, what? 2, maybe 3 years? Yeah, I'd get a free masters out of it (depending on when I could even start), and I wouldn't have to be here to listen to Marco gripping about me finding somewhere else to live. Both pluses in my book....but I always go back to that length of commitment in the bay area and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I thought I had a plan: to see this through, get my scholarship award at the end, get some great life-long friends out of this and then move east and settle down around the family for awhile. Yet, I hadn't anticipated this sudden change of heart on my co-workers part, or constantly feeling in a tired haze day and night, or getting a car accident that wiped me out financially and will for sometime now that they found me 100% at fault and how am I supposed to pull this off on less than $1,000 a month? Jesus Christ, this is hard. So do I take the offer? I mean they haven't made an offer yet, but they sound incredibly interested.

And it's a free masters, and 40 GRAND A YEAR. Fuck. 

But I'd be living at Holy Names again. Maybe in the same room as before...That's another thing. The memories of that place. 

I don't know, I don't know what to do. I know in my parents eyes I'd look like an idiot for turning this down. 

What would my supervisors say? What about the kids? Will it make a difference whols at the front of the classroom? They all like Blythe better anyhow, I'm too stern with them. 

Maybe I should leave, maybe it doesn't matter in the end. 

I don't know, I don't know what to do.

Praise

Praise Allah, Buddha, Christ. 
Praise what has made us.
Praise Mother Ocean.
Praise the follies of all men.
Praise self-awareness, dyed saffron yellow.
Praise the children, whose hopes have not yet come.
Praise the tulle fog.
Praise the harvest.
Praise those in strife. And those in abundance.
Praise what I cannot see.


On the wind comes the music of the world dressed in some inexplicable wanderlust. 


Praise my blindness: 
For I call out in the night,
Waiting still for your knowledge. 

Cowl = Completed

Nearly a year (and multiple plane trips) later, I've finally completed the cowl I had originally set out to make for Prague in January of last year. 


And oh boy, is it fucking sweet <3

[undecided]

What is it you intended to do
the day you left?
What point
did you wish to make
when through a filthy
chain link fence
you wound your fingers through mine
and told me you loved me
as you watched me cry
and try to find it, somewhere, within myself
to be the first to let go. 


You were always too much of a coward.


I'm still trying to decide
what it is you wanted me to be.
an image, far off
and half drunk
that I can never seem to put back together.
But whose ghost
will never again escape
the hazy outsides of my eye sight. 


Floating.


At odds with gravity
and the woman I aim to be.


Better:


In the birch trees of my heart,
a desolate winter has settled.
Among the grey moon light they stand,
collectively defeated and
clicking the black and white
of their spines together 
in some desperate attempt
to start a fire
that may never come again.


The birds no longer sing your name.
Spring refuses to walk my earth.
My bravery is gone, my hands old
and unforgiving.


They are looking for the tortoise shell
you once wore around your neck.
That was three harvests ago,
when they found it among the wild 
flower fields of your chest
and where they once slept in reassurance. 


Instead, cast from the oceans
of your arrogant face,
a stone is found. 
Uneven. Warped. Discolored.
Infinitely bound by beauty,
and that which I was compelled to return to you.


It seems that in the conquests
of my appetite for your skin,
I have allowed those birches -
that were born from your love and
which kept me tethered to you - 
to set themselves ablaze. 


And my God, what a sight to behold!


Come, let us dance forever
in the smoke and death and sex
of what briefly existed between us.
For I've grown tired of chasing
the half-ghost idea
of what it is you wanted me to be.
An image,
drunk on the pomegranate seeds
of your mouth,
that will never again escape
the hazy boundaries of my sight.


Floating and careening.


At odds with gravity,
and the woman I will always wish to be.

It very well may be one of the hardest things having to tell someone that you can't help their kid anymore. It isn't against them personally, as hypocritical as that may seem, but rather a safety issue. That you can't have someone who's a physical threat in your classroom. 


You want to say it's out of your hands, that you tried your hardest, that you're torn between helping them with what they need and teaching them that there are serious consequences for serious actions in life. Not just when you're 6, but always. But your Spanish doesn't reach that far, and you yourself are trying hard not to cry when the words hit and you see tears in mother's eyes. Her son at your sweater tail, pulling hard, begging for a second chance. 


It's minimal to say you feel defeated. This is what you're here for, after all isn't it? To teach them! Not just about words and how to string them along or say them right. To teach them how to be kind, polite, to line up quietly and eat their snack without making a mess. 


To assimilate. 


So what do I say to the ones who color outside the lines? Who still draw themselves without faces or arms and legs? Who give up on themselves, tell themselves they're stupid because that's all they can do? 


How do I begin to justify the mistakes I might not be able to fix? 

Unit 2412

Nothing like revisiting old journal entries to put you in a weird mood. Seeing who you were written in the page in such a vulnerable way, even I feel embarrassed at moments peering in so uninvited. I know I wrote the journals for me to remember, but I also wrote them to forget. 


It's incredible and eerie how little things change. How the big risks that failed still haunt me years after. How they seem to slip in between each carefully printed line until during these moments of nostalgia I realize


I was never as brave as I could have been. And that regardless of what I've tried, things are as they seem: empty, void of love. A kiss on the cheek as a means of goodbye. 


So I put them back in the boxes carefully, lock the door, and will myself to never look back again. 

Destination X

I was told at the end of August when our trainings were into full swing that teachers, often of the green horn variety, fall victim to a terrible lapse of the body and mind referred to as burnout. Signs of burnout being anything from losing your shit with the kids over absolutely nothing or just being mentally checked out and not performing at the level your class had seen at the beginning of the year. Burnout can be a result from not sleeping properly or eating well, over-exerting yourself, or just not having enough support from staff. Either way, we were told that above anything else, self-care was a must to avoid "hitting our wall" and staying on track up until June when school would be out for summer break. 


Now, here's my problem with this so far. For one, it seems that multiple persons involved in that nice little fluff pep-talk about maintaining self-care are now apart of why we're working long hours and/or doing outside assignments that require sacrificing those few waking hours we have to ourselves when we get home and not necessarily getting any credit for it. Don't be mistaken: I'm grateful that the organization(s) I am "volunteered" by are willing to throw so much good stuff at us that will help us become better teachers in the long run, but let's be real. Give credit where credit is due. If I'm going to be working on lesson planning from 8 to 9 pm and then writing on the discussion board about phonological awareness and where my kids are in their's from 9 to 10, then let me put down two more hours on my worksheet folks. That simple. Not to mention I'm super behind in hours after my accident and any little bit will help....Please and thanks. 


With that said, I suppose it's only fair to admit I'm feeling a little bit of burnout myself. And as mentioned before, it's coming from a few different things. For one, I'm more than ready to put this accident behind me. Between having to make statements, waiting on pins and needles for the police report to surface and put someone at fault, and getting the stink eye from the staff at my physical therapy place for admittedly not wanting to give the full amount of injury coverage my policy allows (because it's uncomfortable saying, "Oh yeah sure, I have $100,000 racked up, so you just charged me whatever the fuck you want. It's all gravy, B.), and having to blow what little money I did have saved on yet another down payment for a car isn't exactly my cup of tea. 


Another thing is (as you most likely gleamed from the rant in paragraph 2), I'm working too. Damn. Hard. Let me tell you folks, for the wonderful "living stipend" of approximately $950 dollars a month you receive four meetings/trainings a week, most of which seem absolutely pointless because half your team doesn't show up at all or on time or just chooses to bitch and moan rather than listen up to what we have to do next, having to sit in traffic to and from work every day, getting to scarf down your lunch while you scramble to put all your materials together for the day, yell at a child for scratching lines with her pencil into a book that belongs to the teacher who was kind enough to let you borrow her room for your after school program FOR THE SECOND TIME, and go home only to have to prep during dinner because lord knows you don't have the time to do it all during that one hour a week they allotted you in the schedule. Sound wonderful? Okay, maybe part of it is. If it wasn't, then I wouldn't still be doing it obviously....


Lastly, I have that itch. No, not the "you should probably get that checked out" kind of itch - or my common tattoo itch. That itch to leave. It seems in these few months, my fight reaction has slowly and surely been overcome by my flight one. My infatuation with California, in particular Oakland, has faded and been replaced with feelings of repulse, anger, disappointment, and inevitably regret. Why did I put myself in this situation? Yeah, the opportunity to work with kids like I am is relatively few and far between with my lack of experience and albeit my bitching and moaning, I do love my job. I love my kids, most of the time anyway, and I'm proud to be apart of seeing them do better. Maybe not all of them will succeed, but at least I can say I tried. I did something, anything, to get them back on the right track. But at the end of the day when I put my key in the lock to my brother's apartment, I feel embarrassed. How could I have ever thought it was going to be possible? To save the world and save some money at the same time? It's a joke. This country wasn't built on a foundation to save others. After all, there's only room for one: me. And if you think I'm wrong, tell all the people who have been living in front of city hall in downtown in their own filth otherwise. Or NPR who thinks that the majority is so fed up with Left wings and Right wings that we're demanding a third party. 


I can't do it anymore. I don't have the stamina or the humility to continue to live this way. I'm not saying I want to drive a BMW and vacation in the French Rivera, but I do want something to show for the work put into this, my life. The college degree that I busted my ass to get, the years following of working one dead-end job to the next, sending out what must have been a thousand applications over that time begging and pleading for the chance to prove myself. And now that I have that chance, where has it gotten me? 


As part of a way to get some supplemental income and rebuild my nest egg, I found a telecommuting gig on Craigslist where I'd write reading guides to popular fiction and non-fiction titles. My first assignment was Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Easily one of my favorite books in the past, I chose it knowing it was a quick read and couldn't be that difficult to break down. Turns out it was a quick read, although less quick to be broken down, but the one thing I got aside from my measly %150 buck pay was the chance to really delve into McCandless' story like I hadn't allowed myself to the first time I picked it up. I can't remember when I read it or for what reason, nor do I remember ever noticing all the similarities between Chris and myself or even Krakauer and myself. But within the week and a half it took to finish the project, I was convinced it wasn't a coincidence that I'd been given this book.


So maybe that sounds a little cheesy, even borderline hokey, fine. Either way, dreams of Italy and Greece this coming July vanished, and in their place came grandeur images of Yosemite, the Rockies, the Mojave, the Oregon coast, the Appalachians....My entire life I've flown from West to East Coast dozens upon dozens of times, connecting the dots between when I've chosen to live and most likely where I should live. Always this big disconnect leading a constant nagging that something was missing. A feeling only quelled now when I'm at home, present with my parents. If I learned anything from that accident it was that I am blatantly choosing to live where I want and not where I should: closer to the both of them. 


I plan on leaving at the end of June, when I've completed my term of service. Head back East and end up somewhere that feels better. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that. I don't know if I'll end up in Leesburg, Virginia, but it'll be somewhere that isn't 3,000 miles away. How I'm planning on getting there?


Driving. Fuck it. I have this car for a reason right? Italy and Greece can wait. I want to start planning this out so I can do it right. Hit the road solo, see friends along and the way and (probably via couchsurfers) make some new ones. I don't have the slightest intention of becoming some mountaineer woodswoman so that I can lose myself in the brush, kill a moose, and wind up dead in an abandoned bus. Not by any means. I do plan on taking my time, however, exploring all that which I've chosen to ignore 30,000 miles up in the air until I finally get to where I'm going. Where that is, I'm not completely sure.


But it wasn't never about the destination, was it? 

:happy dance:

I've done it: completed my first extended writing job (and kindasorta my first ebook). It was a pain the ass, and didn't pay shit (only 150 bucks and 15% royalties), but it's a start. I have to admit it felt pretty nice to put the last touches on everything and click share in google docs knowing that it's going to end up on someone's device out there as a tool to use for their benefit, maybe even spark some creative juices of their own. 


Long stretch, but hey, a happy dance is in order regardless.


Tomorrow comes a long overdue post about some mental marinating I've been stewing in while working on the project. More to come, stay tuned. 

Maybe it was too much to take on NaNoWriMo, be hired to write knock-off ebook versions of cliffsnotes and teach at the same time. 


I was hoping that wouldn't have been an excuse, but it seems it's gotten the best of me. Maybe I can catch up on my word count in a couple of weeks when the kids are out for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to the rest. 


That perpetual tired that I thought I left behind in September has reappeared since the accident. I find myself drifting when during independent reading when the wind is running its course through the 6 graders gardens behind my room while inside 12 small bodies mouth-breath through their books. My hands are chapped from excessive washing and the biting November air. 


Winter is here and I find myself wishing I could go back to that small single room in Meadowlands when I could sit in silence for hours, curled up in my twin bed alone. The silence only accentuated by the occasional pang of my radiator struggling to break the cold or creek of uneven floor board as a freshman sneaked past the nuns and into her boyfriend's room.  


My back hurts, my knees ache, and my right ankle is swollen to the size of a small apple by the time I get home.  


I should work but all I can think of is sleep now that I'm full. 

Sigur Ros - Glósóli

Fields of Teslara

The dreams always started the same way. A cold, dark concrete room. An open expanse, endless even, so vast its breadth made her stomach drop as if she was looking over a steep cliff. Her body was present but inaccessible to her except her eyes. 


And there she stood, as if for hours, watching. Scanning for some sign of an end to the slabs of gray to no avail. Then in the midst of her mental drowning, a window directly in front of her slides open bathing her in a single ray of filthy florescent light. It is then in an attempt to to shield her eyes that she regains domain of her being only to realize she has been shackled along what would be the room's back wall. she panics momentarily, twisting each wrist and ankle until the skin beneath each cuff is raw and bloody, but her eyes quickly track back to that window. Where before there was only blinding light, now there are faces. Writhing to fit in that small rectangular square so they may stare back at her. 


In some dreams, the people on the other side are doctors taking notes feverously. In others, the window never opens. Still in others, she never resists the chains nor does she ever see her body. Rather she remained omnipresent, affected only by that never ending expanse. 


They began on the night of her father's death. He had moved his family to one of the sister islands of Teslara, a small sanctuary called Dantia, to live among what last few natives still existed. It was a move purely motivated by the desire to remove them from the political unrest churning below Teslara's surface. 

Here goes nothing...

Can't make any promises it'll be good, or completed for that matter, but I'm throwing caution to the wind and going for it. NaNoWriMo 2011, here I come!

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/lavidagitana

Radiohead - Black Star (Acoustic)

Our Talk

I wrote this a few years back for my thesis, and revisited it recently to see if it still settled with me like it did before. Seeing as how it has, I thought I'd share it...maybe get some feedback if anyone's willing. And I have no idea why it's all weird looking when I post it, but whatever...

Sitting on the back porch of our somnolent Florida home, we talk. Never late into the night because she has to be up at 3 AM to work security at the nearby Southwest Florida International Airport, but late enough that we feel a sense of finish to the day. We talk until my mouth becomes dry and hers filled with the tail of smoke from yet another cigarette. She's started smoking again, no doubt the cause of her incessantly coughing and which makes me wish I were older so I could have kids. Will they know her? But rather than say something of what feels like some irrational fear, I resort to hiding her pack of Marlboros. Maybe wait until she comes home before smoking one myself, pretending to be alarmed when she stands in front of the sliding glass door looking embarrassed. Ashamed.

My mother is sick. Sick in the sense that I'm afraid of how old she is and how old she's become. And my fear of such a sickness has arrested me since I was little, when I would sneak into her room at night to watch her breathe, watch the caves of her blankets fill with her belly as she inhaled deeply from a place I could never reach or fix if broken. Watch her breathe so that I could sleep one more night knowing that I'd have her in the morning.

The last few nights we've talked of uncertainty. I'm afraid of graduating and being forced to go without a set schedule. She reminds me of how I've always wanted to travel to Ireland and of the 1,500 dollars I saved before quitting my job to come home. "You could just buy a one way ticket," she ventures, "maybe live with one of the people you worked with from Dublin." I drag my feet along the paled Persian rug my mother has brought from Morocco. It seemed while the house belonged to her family, the lanai is her escape, its very air tasting of cheap coffee. A combination of the things she loved most from her travels: wrought iron keys from Spain, aluminum decorations from Jamaica, ornate umbrellas from India.  I want to tell her how I'm growing restless in California and nee d out, but that if I
were to go, I may not come back.

"Your father and I would help. It would be good for you, Mariel." The guilt cuts across the top of my body like a flash of sunburn. I quickly change the subject to her potential loneliness. I'll be gone soon as will my younger sister, Kalena. And as I listen to my mother, her voice slow and rich with her Puerto Rican accent, I hear a sadness from lower than the throat where lie the daily troubles, washed clean with the night. It comes from the bottom of her stomach, waiting like some rusted bomb, hitting each rib as she leans forward and begins to cough again. It's a sadness that seems as endless as her sickness, but one she's come to terms with. One she's forgiven and insists she can manage.

I feel disconnected, so I tell her of when I would sneak into her room when I was little to watch her sleep when overcome with a sudden fear of her death. She smiles to herself, rubbing her throat gently as she begins to rock in her chair, willing the words from somewhere else than within. "Yo tambien. I would do the same with your abuela when I was young, especially on the nights she was upset. I was always afraid I may never be forgiven and so I would sit by her bed and wait until she would wake up to tell her I was sorry, even if it wasn't my fault. Watching, listening, waiting. Always waiting, it seemed." For a moment we avert our eyes from one another. She stares into the neighbors' palms she herself cut. She runs her hands along the arms of her chair, the blisters from working with a machete raw and exposed against the damp wood. Thinking, maybe, about how the couple was upset from lacking a sense of privacy the plants were intended to provide in being overgrown.

She knew the old Mexican man who cuts the grass would have done it for an extra ten, maybe fifteen dollars, but she wanted to do it herself. Her hands insisted upon feeling the weight of the soiled curved blade cut its uneven teeth into the under belly of each tree. Their fronds littering the yard's divide like the orphaned children of some poorly planned massacre. Then, one by one, she would drag them to the street for the garbage man to take away. The work is what she needs, not the results. It reminds her of who she was before she was our mother. Instead, I stare absently into the house, letting my spine rake itself along the back of my wrought iron chair as I inhale. I suddenly feel the need to understand that I'm breathing again. I watch our two cats find temporary comfort from the oppressive humidity by spreading out on the tiles beneath the baby grand in the living room, which has taken my mother seven years to pay off.

"I'll miss you," my mother says, standing up to hug me. She smells of earth and smoke and rose water. The skin of her discolored arm feel displaced at the back of my neck, the fat slid along the top of the bone like the fat beneath the skin of a broiled chicken breast. I want to remember her as the flamenco dancer from the pictures that she keeps tied in a box in her closet. Her back a never-ending question mark, hands forever poised like doves. I want to remember her struggles and her triumphs. I want to remember how twice, my abuela had to fly to Madrid to nurse her back to health because all my mother could afford to eat was a broth filled with whatever vegetables she could find. I want to remember that she was the first and only Puerto Rican to dance in Spain's national ballet, despite the women who spit in her face for taking what they as Spanish citizens believed was theirs.

"I know. Me too. I'll miss you too." I wrap my arms around her awkwardly in place of standing up. Her thin dress is wet from sweat. She exhales the last of her cigarette from the left corner of her mouth before moving aside to fix something she sees as out of place - a pool towel my father has draped over the back of a chair, or an incense holder filled with ash. Anything until the pain of our inability to steal a bit of one another's strength from such an act of compassion passes. Then, carefully, she lowers herself back into her rocking chair. Pèpè, the younger of our two cats, is drawn from beneath the piano, interested in the sudden commotion between my mother and me. Through the glass, I watch as his mouth opens and closes, the pink of his tongue an eyesore against the black of his coat, his cries to join us lost in the anguish of a Macaw across the street that calls out to his owner to be held. Too weak to be heard, he paces, his eyes like two pools of expanding oil, as again and again I'm lost in the brief gasps of silent air collecting in the wet of his mouth.

"Have you fed the cats?" I ask, and get up to let Pèpè out.

"Sí." The response quiet, lost in my mother.

The conversation has grown tired. It's now when it seems my mother would rather simply sit and stare into the faded sky beyond her. Beyond the neighbors' palms. Beyond the sickness and sadness. She begins to cough and this time I get up and stand beside her until it subsides. We watch as Pèpè makes his way to the edge of the large screen surrounding the pool. Here two large moths have come to rest and we listen as his voice cracks, his long whiskers carrying the moon's dirty light. I'm afraid this will turn into the foundation of what may be salvaged of our talk. I'm afraid of the sadness. I'm afraid of her age and the fact that I'm running out of time. I'm always running out of time. What about kids? Will they know her?

"Mamí, do you miss abuela?" I ask, desperate to regain ground that I'm convinced is lost.

"I can still hear her breathing."

I think I understand.

"Can you believe they actually complained about me cutting their palms?" She begins to rock again, pointing beyond where I can see. Beyond everything. And then, if only briefly, the sadness is lifted.

Nothing.

So this is what it's resorted to: sitting alone, a dog curled up between each leg, mouse moving haphazardly across a makeshift book-desk. The sound of construction on the canal out back competing with the TV in the next room. 


It's simply astronomical how alone I feel at this moment. 


In the years I've spent here, nearly 3,000 miles from my mother and father, the space has never been much of a thought until now. In the hours following the accident, after Marco had guided me onto the couch and quiet finally settled, I was surrounded with the aftermath: Who was I supposed to call first? OPD or my insurance? Where was my car and purse? What was I supposed to do about the pain until I could get a prescription? How would the staff fair with my kids? What about my lesson plans, the worksheets, the activities? 


It had taken hours to determine I had survived relatively unscathed only to undo what little courage I had left in 15 minutes. 


I laid back and closed my eyes tightly, taking my mind to our porch in Puerto Rico. Feet hanging over the edge as a storm sweeps across the lawn, rain tangled with yagrumo leaves and red petals from my abuela's flamboyan. From within the house I can hear my mother's soft laugh as she sits with my father, the smell of fresh coffee slipping out along the kitchen's cool tiles. In the distance, lightening strikes an open expanse of the forest. I grasp desperately at the image and the peace it invokes, hoping to slip away into a dream and stay there awhile longer.


But the sound of rain is already fading quickly, the corners of the photograph folding in on themselves. I open my eyes, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars plastered to my brother's living room ceiling, prolonging all the calls and explanations. 


I wish more than anything, more than being back in that dream, that my mother could walk out from some door and run her hands through my hair. Whisper to me in Spanish that it will be alright, that I survived the worst. To take it one day at a time. I take a deep breath to find some resolve but begin to cough as the strain is too much for my sternum. 


I want to be strong, to know that in a few months this will all be forgotten and life will resume as it always has, but nothing comes to me aside from the aches and pains that I know will only be worse tomorrow. 


I take a shower and order Chinese. I put in Young Frankenstein and smoke a bowl, trying for some sort of normalcy. Some sort of relief, but like everything else, it doesn't come. 


The days following are hollow. Trekking between OPD and the impound leave me exhausted and bitter. I pay the fees to get my things out of the car which they won't allow me to see. Everything thrown into a dusty black trash bag, including my lunch and the empty case for the Vince Guaraldi CD I'd just bought a few days prior on Haight in the city. The guy said he couldn't get the engine to turn to spit it out, it was stuck in the dash for now. I wish I was well enough to be apart of Occupy Oakland, to bring about the change the city desperately needs. 


Instead I unpack the trash bag, throw away my lunch, and smoke another bowl. Checking my phone for texts or emails, some link to the outside world of friends I would hope would call on me. Reach out. 


Nothing. 


A few co-workers have checked in. My two site teachers bring me food on Thursday and homemade cards from the students. 


That was two days ago


Maybe people are busy. Maybe this is a result of all those walls I've built up thinking I didn't need anyone. Maybe I wasn't as good of a friend as I had believed to be. Maybe people are too lazy. Maybe they don't care as much as they say they do. I feel half compelled to take the battery out of my phone and disconnect completely, but I don't. I hope that maybe with enough time someone will call. 


I know there's something I should be doing. My doctor wants me to start taking physical therapy. Relying on the cane for my right ankle has left my back, neck, and shoulders weaker. But all I can imagine is how easy it would be to leave this place. Disappear again. Everyone would understand - I could blame it on fear, on the need to be with family to heal. Anything to escape this overwhelming sense of emptiness and failure. 


The kids. I can't leave the kids. Not without finishing what I've set out to do yet. 


I'm not sure how to move forward from this. How to fight the anger and disappointment in those who haven't stepped forward and the overwhelming desire to push everyone out all together, the wanting to leave California for good only to truly never look back again. How to avoid the thoughts of what could be different if only I had...


So this is what it feels like, to be alone. The small dog stirs, staring up at me for a moment before stretching and moving to the edge of the bed. Waiting. Coaxing me out from under the covers. I cradle her momentarily, taking in her smell and the saltiness of her coat before stepping out to make lunch for the both of us. 

Flor da Vida - Hamilton de Holanda

826 Valencia.

It was a day like any other for the past 2 and a half months. 


Ripe with the possibility for either monotony or disaster, which ever decided to show itself first.


I was looking for an entrace to 880 South, weaving in and out through lower East Oakland. The morning had already been rough, our meeting at ICS unfruitful. I was thinking of how I could catch up on service hours while out for the kids Thanksgiving break and had written 826 Valencia across the top of my left palm as a reminder to check in with the nonprofit for volunteer opportunities. I reached up to put my visor down, the ink standing out against my white skin like an eye sore when I spotted the sign.


Left, I needed to turn left. My eyes scanned the lights ahead. Green.


I paused at the intersection momentarily, waiting to see if it were clear before I began a careful turn. 


That's when I saw him. A blue BMW, late model, descending upon me from the overpass which had momentarily blocked him from view. My mind reeled trying to piece together its next action. I instinctually veered right, hoping he would see me in time and swerve to avoid the collision that was imminent. 


Nothing slowed down as I thought it would have. 


I thought it would hurt. 


I thought I might die. 


I screamed impulsively. An ugly gutteral sound. 


I don't know if I put my hands up to protect my face from the airbags or if the visor had acted as a guard. Everything smelled like burning plastic. My eyes rolled open and from across the street a crowd had already formed. 


A man was yelling at me through my windshield, pulling widly at my door to yank it open at the sight of smoke. The door opened, the cold afternoon air spilling in, the sound of voices and car horns evading the small space. 


Why did this happen? Why now? I looked down at my hands. 826 Valencia. Was that really so long ago that I wrote that? My head felt like it was rubber, unable to support itself. 


I felt a tug at my hand, directing my gaze to the man next to me. Jim. He was on the phone with 911 he said. He would stay with me until help arrived he said, the voice on the line directing him.


What year was it? He asked.
Where did I work? How old was I? Where was I headed? Where was I going?


I was drifting, suddenly exhausted. I felt another tug to stay awake. The shock, now fading, brought on tears. Another tug, this time for comfort. 


I handed him my phone to call my coworkers. To call my brother. I tried to stay lucid, stare out into the faces who were watching me like some science experiment gone wrong.


A fish bowl with two half-dead betas. 


The police came first, directing traffic. Next the firefighters. And then the EMTs. One was behind me, supporting my head as we waited for the gurney. 


His birthday was July 22nd, 1971. 16 years and 3 days before mine. I never saw his face. He tried to collect my hair into a bun to avoid getting caught in the neck brace. 


Next came Geoff. A young EMT with blue eyes and brown hair. He slid me onto the board, bringing me out into the intersection to strap me down, working fast and quietly, his hands cold to the touch.


The sky above me was clear, brilliant, endless. I was drifting again, but this time it was okay. Geoff told me to close my eyes and relax. 


Because I blacked out, I was trauma 2. I told Geoff I was afriad. He didn't hear me. He hummed to himself waiting for the ambulance to pass over railroad tracks before slidding the IV in and patting my arm gently. He prepared me to expect a lot of people in the Trauma exam room, it was a learning hospital. He would go with me as far as he could he said.


The hospital was freezing. The sound of muddled voices mixing with the hum of machines and tearing cloth. Cloth?


My clothes. I tried to tip my neck forward in my brace to watch as two sharp scissors began their ascent through every layer beginning with my jeans. All of it was coming off. I lay naked on the examination table for all to see.


All the burns. The bruises. The swelling. Along with the past scars, stretch marks, fat...


A nurse appeared with two warm blankets. Melissa. Melissa Jackson. 


For two hours Melissa took me through my CT scans and EKG reading. She commended me for my bravery and my tattoos. 


For another 6 I waited on the results. Finally able to use the bathroom, I shook of my gown letting it fall aside as I stood over the sink mirror. Black mascera pooled around my cheeks like oil, hair missing from where the tape and velcro had pulled it away. The burns had already started to blister, bruises along my chest and pelvis from the seatbelt slowly surfacing. My right ankle swollen to the size of an apple. 


I looked at my hands, still intact. 826 Valencia. 


How long had it been? How long would I be here? The tears threatened to come again, but I pushed them back and dressed myself. 


Outside Marco stood by my bed with the social worker assigned to my case. I lay down, taking hold of Marco's hand as I settled, ready to begin to process of picking up the pieces.


It had started as all other days have for the past 2 and a half months. Today, disaster showed up first.

Brown paper packages tied up with string...

Okay, not quite. However, I took these past few days to recognize the little things in my life that really make my heart sing. They include:


1. Packages of any kind and hand written sentiments in general.


2. Finding new Puerto Rican food in the bay area unexpectedly that isn't incredibly over-priced or ultra super pretentious. And painted my ultra super favorite color.

3. Also unexpectedly finding a Vince Guaraldi Trio CD used for $3.99 next door to listen to on the way home.


4. Mr. Darcy :swoon:


5. Getting a call from my parents on their holiday to Argentina for their 30th anniversary after just arriving to Iguazu to say they wish I was there to write their story.


6. Getting a pat on the back/high five while on the BART wearing my Americorps shirt.


7. Sharing a Blue Moon with a HUGE slice of orange with an old friend.


8. Opening a savings account and (if I calculated correctly)realizing I may have enough money to make Italy and Greece a possibility this coming summer. 


9. The sound of train horns in the distance.


10. Coming home to a room with a made bed and that smells of clean, folded laundry. 


11. Google Chrome. Even if is on my poor excuse of a wanna-be laptop HP mini :grumble:.

Bon Iver - I Can't Make You Love Me/Nick of Time

1000 mil

It's 11:25 in the morning, and I can honestly say this is the least productive I've been since August. 

And holy shit does it feel epic. 

That's right. I'm still in my sweatpants, my hair is an absolute mess from showering at 12 am and not bothering to put anything in it, the bandaid on my burn looks disgusting (I changed it just after I saw that, don't fret), and I'm here. Writing. Sipping on boiling hot chamomile tea and taking tablets of trader joe's 1000 milligram of vitamin C to the face because I'm positive I've finally caught what Lopez was spreading around the apartment. 

And holy shit does it feel epic. Minus...the possibly getting sick part. Fucking Lopez.

Last night was well-needed. It's been so long since I've been around such a plethora of creativity, I couldn't help but feel I'd discovered the fountain of youth. There were musicians, old timers and green horns. There were writers, mostly there for Rich's sake, and artists. All drunk or strung out. All shaking hands and talking the good ol' days. All in this small, dilapidated bar far from downtown San Francisco and the usual yuppies.

The perfect petri dish if you will. 

After hours of decorating and scrambling about to put the final touches on what would be the 4th annual Frisco Freakout, I tucked myself into what would be the merch spot and sat. 


Watching. 


The smell of vegan chilli clashing with the weed seeping from the staff's private room above the kitchen. There's a pause as the next band sets up, I take my earplugs out and scan faces, taking mental notes of all the John Lennons and Bob Weirs weaving through one another. I feel out of place momentarily. I'm not with the band, I'm not even really with Rich who put all this together. I'm just here. 

The young married couple at the table next to mine smile. 

This one really does look like John Lennon. 

They run a literary magazine out of their apartment in North Oakland off the MLK. He took a short story class with Rich at City College. I thumb through and happen upon one his poems. It's good, really fucking good. We get to talking about what the process has been like to start Drift. The struggle to get the word out - literally, the cost to print in black and white versus color, the fear of pursuing an MFA rather than a Masters and getting pigeon-holed by passion rather than logic. We exchange war stories on editing. I'm introduced to their friend visiting from Australia. 

Someone who's interested in a subscription approaches the table, so we step aside. His eyes are a phenomenal blue-green that close every so slightly when he smiles. He tells me that he's just returned from a cross country trip of the lower 48 and up through Canada. 

We talk school, we're both elementary school teachers. He encourages me to get my credentials and move to Melbourne. We compare Americans to Australians. We discover we're both incredibly severe on our own countries. He makes fun of Americans for saying Koala bear, when in fact they're not bears, but marsupials - pouch and all. I chastise him from driving on the wrong side of the road. He tells me that his favorite author at the moment is John Krakauer, I tell him he should read Dave Eggers. He mentions he was going to volunteer at 826 Valencia. He brings me a Blue Moon as I man the merch table. We go in for a high five which reverts to an awkward in between greeting gone wrong: hand over thumb. We laugh. He tries to teach me to snap my fingers together as shake we hands. Mine are too small in his and I can't make it without having to throw my whole body into the motion. 

Electricity, he calls it.

Feelings of belonging are suddenly insignificant. 

Replaced instead with a desire to no longer be stagnant with myself. To find my motorcycle and map and conquer whatever it is I was meant to discover. To not be so afraid of what life is outside of what I've programmed myself to think it is. After all, I'm meant to be here, at this exact moment. 

The drive home into Oakland is quiet, nearly intoxicating. I decide after dropping the three off that I'll take the 13 and skyline home. From the top I pause, starring out from what seems to be where the Earth meets infinite space. 

The bay looks on fire, surrounded by the red of light pollution.

I dance in its shadow, celebrating this burst of self-realization. 


After all, I was meant to be here. At this exact moment.