The Kindness of Neighbors
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: November 5, 2009
I ate pumpkin pie for lunch. And my trash and recyclables are taken out.
This may not be headline news, but for me, both of these things are Big Deals.
One week ago yesterday, I was in a particularly delightful therapy session. It’s a strange thing to be in therapy because it’s part of my academic requirements for becoming a Master’s-degreed therapist—not because of a particular concern or problem I need help with. For one, I felt no pressing need to hurry toward trusting her, even though I liked her. But life, as life tends to do, happened. And over the months, I had plenty to talk about. The difficulties of being a parent. The heartache of losing loved ones. The ways I am resilient and creative, hard-working and brave.
Pain was a side note. Something I’d mention in passing or something commented upon when I winced or moved stiffly. Pain, however, had not been a side note in my everyday life. Still, when the pain is chronic and constant, it’s sometimes difficult to tease out its influence.
I only started to do that fully when it began to subside.
I found a remarkable chiropractor, referred by friends who saw how pain–when poured into a life already brimming with responsibilities–was severely hampering my quality of life. These same friends have offered to watch my son for an hour here and there. Brought me pasta or sent me home with leftovers. Sent me text messages asking how I’m feeling.
About a month ago, I had my first visit with the acupuncturist at the clinic. There’s a package deal priced far below the going rate that made it somewhat affordable for me. When I arrived, I saw the desk on the right—for chiropractic care. I signed in on the left as my heart sank: No way I could afford chiropractic care, I thought. Still, hope refused to die, and I made my way over to the right and asked about pricing.
I couldn’t believe it, but the visits were more than “affordably priced.” Bought in a package of four, each visit costs about $18. They worked me into the doctor’s schedule that morning, and I was changed.
Although I experienced soreness and some discomfort, my pain levels went from an average of about 6-8 on a 10-point scale to between 2-3 and within weeks, I was experiencing whole HOURS pain-free.
And so, I found myself last Wednesday talking to my therapist about healing. Marveling how connected our bodies, minds, and spirits are. How healing has always occurred in all regions simultaneously for me.
And as I made my way back west on the I-10, I noticed that my hips—which usually hurt when I am driving—were not hurting.
Unfortunately, I only noticed after I was rear-ended at low-speed, and they immediately began to hurt.
Whiplash. Muscle spasms. A week of grinding my teeth through routine daily tasks, trying desperately to sit behind a computer long enough to read articles and write papers. Insomnia. Prescription-strength Advil 24/7.
It was like those pain-free hours, those entire days of not taking 800 mg of Advil, never happened.
That pumpkin pie I ate was lunch. Yesterday in therapy, I cried, my voice choking on anger and tears, about the cumulative effect of pain, exhaustion, and stress.
Life as a full-time single mama is non-stop. There is no quitting time. No break. No relief shift. No paycheck. Only bills, isolation, and the very real, very important needs of a child who can only count on you. The story of the day before roared out of me like rushing water from a rain-swollen river. Tried to plan ahead. Soup in the crockpot for later. Irritated child because my class makes me home later than usual. No time, no money to eat. Hours of traffic. No parking. The relentless pain reignited from the collision. The food processor so heavy to my pain-wracked muscles. The hot soupy mess seeping out the sides because I was so tired. So tired. The child who wouldn’t get in the bathtub. Pouring in heavy cream, but too much. Soup that tasted all wrong, but my belly so empty. 6’o clock and still two papers to write before the next day…
And really, that was only the most dramatic part of my day. There were plenty of smaller things before that.
Still, my neighbor happened to come upstairs. She helped me mop up the soggy mess. Put away a few dishes cluttering the tiny counter. Helped me take out the scalding hot processor blade.
I tried to push aside thoughts of the dirty floor, cluttered kitchen, overflowing trash.
I wanted to point out why… justify it. I’d mopped just Sunday, but the floor gets dirty so fast—seven-year old crumbs and spills trampled on for two days. I couldn’t reach up to put dishes away without sharp pains traveling from neck to fingertips. I’d run out of garbage bags and needed to go to the store, but there was no time, no time.
I was so busy fighting shame that I don’t think I properly felt, or conveyed, how deeply grateful I was to have company when the tides of pain and exhaustion were threatening to pull me under.
She brought me a slice of pumpkin pie today. And as I filled her in on the aftermath of the accident, she offered, “I can spend 30 minutes cleaning for you…”
“No, no!” I insisted, practically cutting her off. I mentally surveyed the groceries still in bags because it was too much to get through the store, get the groceries upstairs, AND put away anything but the fridge items. The kid-toothpaste clinging to the bathroom sink. The shoes that I wearily kicked off but didn’t put away… Still, that would be far too embarrassing.
She insisted, as good people do, to at least let her do something. So she collected the carnage from a hurried kid-breakfast and a harried mama too rushed to make him clean it up, the uneaten pizza crust from last night’s kid-dinner, and helped me transfer the trash from paper bags to a sturdier garbage bag that would make the trip down the stairs, out the gate, around the corner, to the alley where the dumpster lives. She did it without a hint of judgment. Without a hint of you-owe-me.
And so, I write this to acknowledge not only the intensity of my struggle. But to honor the precious moments of connection and kindness made possible by the kindness of a neighbor.
What I didn’t tell you
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: November 3, 2009
My heart wasn’t in my last post. I wrote it because the story felt unfinished… the last I’d written about my garden was how I thought I’d killed the whole thing. I felt so utterly responsible. Guilty, even. I’d done something stupid and now my whole garden, all that work, all that love, was wasted.
But it turned out that it was something else. Maybe the heat? Maybe the soil condition? Because the problem continued with new growth, as well. Brown, crunchy tips. But the problem seems to have cleared up since the weather’s been cooler.
Typical. I’m prone to think bad things happen because of something I’ve done wrong. Without even trying, I immediately start “problem-solving” to figure out how it was my fault.
It doesn’t take a licensed shrink to figure out that this guilt has roots in feeling powerless that reach up from the dark depths of childhood. And I don’t need to tell you in detail how I felt powerless as a child for you to imagine.
But I will say I grew up in a hard-core Jesus-loving household. My father is still very involved in evangelical churches, although I left long ago. Still, decades of programming spring up under stress.
Back pain? Must be because I’m at fault somehow. And there are plenty of doctors and armchair experts to agree. I sleep wrong. Sit wrong. Don’t exercise too much. Am too hard on my body. Am too stationary. Do the wrong exercises. Have emotional issues.
Take your pick. I tried on all of them, and while I can see the merit in moderate exercise, sleeping in a back-friendly position, and doing work to ensure I’m emotionally healthy… well, ultimately? It comes down to bad things that have happened to my body. It’s outside my control. There’s nothing I could have done to prevent it.
Much like that garden.
It’s easier to type the words than it is for them to seep down deep into the soil of my psyche and travel up into my thoughts and actions. It’s sometimes confusing–when do I have the power/culpability and when is something truly beyond my control?
It’s a blurry, constantly-moving line of distinction, one I often can’t discern until afterward–when it becomes clear that I didn’t kill my garden, but not totally clear as to what did. And what my role in it was.
Blooming Flowers, Thriving Weeds
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: November 2, 2009
My garden’s been through some upheaval since I last wrote. My topsy turvy tomato plant didn’t survive (RIP), although it gave us about three small-ish tomatoes that were quite tasty. I planted a few seeds of Mexican Midget cherry tomato and had a flourishing, sturdy vine about two feet high until the gusty fall winds came and beat it into a weary, broken little thing.
I had a golden fingerling potato sprouting in my vegetable drawer and on a whim, I planted it. Now I have two adorable little stalks, although I have yet to google the reproductive habits of potatoes. Who knows if I’ll get anything edible out of those little sprouts!
Another round of tiny lettuces have sprouted–I never planted more but we’ve been through about 3 rounds where they grow, die, then another wave pops up. The last two we lost to caterpillars. I didn’t realize this–my son/bug expert did. He insisted the black spots were caterpillar poop. I, being a doubting Thomas, didn’t buy it… until he discovered more than a dozen bright green caterpillars on the lettuce babies!
I bought a tomato plant from Trader Joe’s, complete with tons of ripening tomatoes. It continued to put out tomatoes for about a month, even as it browned up and got real crunchy.At the same time, I bought a thriving basil to replace the near-dead one on our patio.
The dill didn’t make it. Nor did the cilantro. But there’s a healthy chive that I hate to cut, since it’s so happy there.
And this mint plant–the fourth one, I believe, is actually doing okay! I’d heard it’s impossible to kill mint–that it’ll take over the whole danged place if you let it. But I couldn’t keep mint alive for anything. But I put it into the same pot as the dying basil, and now they’re both happy. Guess they just needed some plant-cousin company.
And the little guys that looked so happy?
Weeds. 
Yep, weeds. We faithfully watered and cooed those weeds into happy adulthood. They were like spider legs spreading out from a reddish center and on the ends were wispy paintbrush tails.
So we trashed the weeds, finally, and my son planted some wildflower seeds he’d found at the park in a packet that said Earth Day Seeds.
And now in the weed planter zip-tied to the railing, we have a giant sunflower that’s as high as my head. We can see it clearly from the kitchen table when we sit down to eat.
Oya’s Winds
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: October 27, 2009
The wind is brush-tapping the palm tree against my window. Outside, the palm’s graceful branches are at eye-level. Crows, woodpeckers, even hummingbirds come to visit sometimes. Resting, hovering. Not tonight, I mean. Just sometimes. It makes for pleasant computer time to look out and see them.
Today in class, I sat close to the huge glass windows to hear the wind better. I leaned into the glass, wishing I were outside.
“This weather is horrible,” I heard a classmate say into her cell phone.
I smiled at gusts flattening the grass toward the west, like the bouncing of drumsticks as they drum roll brraaaaa-taaa-taaa-taaaaa. The tree branches swishing back and forth, keeping time. Across the wide city street, the iron gates of the cemetery stood resolute and still in contrast.
We watched a clip of a movie to see “a good depiction of what a bippolar manic episode looks like.” In it, a young Richard Gere takes all his money out of his account, sweeps the bank teller off her feet, and stands in the aisle at the symphony, a private smile of rapture on his face.
Much like mine as I stood against the glass while everyone else sat watching.
He hurls down the aisle as the music swells, jumping onto stage and conducting the orchestra, then conducting the conductor. I laughed in glee.
And thought about the notes I’d written on the very helpful lecture outline.
So basically, extreme emotions are pathological. If you express too much, it’s mental illness. If you don’t fit the “normal” range, you’re crazy.
Everybody in the U.S. could probably fit the criteria for mania–impusivity, compulsive spending, feelings of grandiosity and invincibility, delusions about the world. Except the actual diagnosing is reserved mostly for women, queer and trans folks, people of color…
Almost everyone’s depressed, my professor says. Lost of psychologists think it’s because of faulty thoughts–no mention of social ills like poverty, racism, violence, isolation, break down of social connectedness.
I forget where I saw it exactly, but I remembered the chart of symptoms of mental illness in one column and characteristics of women (according to an expert of the time) in the next. They were almost identical.
In the clip, they carry him out of the symphony hall and into a stark hospital room, strapping his arms and legs down as he pleads with them to let him go.
My professor gave him a 4 for “severe with psychosis” mania. I argued that he didn’t do anything except jump on stage at a place where that’s not the accepted thing to do, and he only “escalated” when four dudes were strapping him to a bed against his will.
Once I was part of a planning committee. I wanted to know about the power dynamics–how the chips would fall if the students wanted X and the faculty wanted Y. I never did get answers, but I did get a scolding about my wounded inner child projecting my issues with authority onto the faculty.
“Have you heard of Seligman’s shuttle box?” my professor asked us today. No, I hadn’t. They took dogs, maybe pigs, and shocked them with electricity when they opened the door of the box. The researchers did it many times. When they put them in a box with no shocker and opened the door, the dogs and pigs didn’t move.
Learned helplessness, he said.
Post traumatic stress response, I said.
Too many of us have tried to get out of that box and rewarded by a strong zap of electrical current. Many of us can’t see opened doors without thinking of that horrible zap and think, Oh it’s not so bad in this box, I guess.
I suppose that’s what most of my professors and classmates think therapy is about. Showing the opened door and saying, “See? There’s no zapper now. You can walk out!”
The problem is, the experiment never ended. We never know when they’ll put that zapper back on. We’ve learned the hard way. You can walk out the door sometimes, but not every time. It’s hard to know when it’s safe.
Still, the lucky ones survive. We find a window to stand next to and we smile into the wind to drown out the litany of ways a person can be counted crazy in this society.
Walking to my car, I crunched as many big yellow leaves with my feet as I could. As I walked home, my long, red skirt poof up delightfully. On the drive home, I watched in glee as Oya’s winds whipped crunchy fall leaves and random trash up into the air to twirl lightly back to earth. I admired the fallen branches along the streets. I thought about how miniature these winds of her’s are in contrast to her mightiest.
Oya’s winds are winds of window-rocking (or shattering!) change. Her whirlwinds scoop up nature’s gifts and human garbage alike, and when they float–or crash–back to earth, we find a new landscape before us.
She shakes things up. Literally! Sometimes things are destroyed, and we get angry or feel helpless. But is destruction bad? Can nature be called bad for messing up our human “progress” that strips the earth of its beauty and resources and erects civilization? Can a wagging finger in the face to remember who’s really boss be a reminder? A call to humility? What does it take for folks with grandiose ideas of development to stop amassing, investing, building, and chopping down–and start looking around at fallen branches and saying “Wow“?
I myself could use a little less progress and a bit more standing in humbled awe of nature’s power.
Cat Puke: A Trauma Parable
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: October 22, 2009
I got home from class late enough for the streets to be pretty quiet but still early enough to score a parking spot only several blocks away. The first thing I noticed upon opening the front door was a small pile of cat puke. I ignored it for the moment, since there was a check to write and light but caring conversation to engage in with the babysitter before she left.
And then I entered my room/the living room to find another pile of cat puke.
You might be wondering what cat puke has to do with God–but just hang on a second. I hope it’ll be worth it. 
My two cats are old and delightfully lazy–somewhere around 13 years old is the estimate. Litter mates, Sully and Lulu are very much bonded. I found them through Craig’s List. A guy was moving in with his girlfriend and she was allergic. Sully and Lulu had been staying with his friend for about a year, and they were very frightened of people. It seems they’d basically had no attention whatsoever except for once a week when he came to change the cat box and refill their food and water. I got the feeling the friend wasn’t too happy they were there and didn’t participate in their care at all.
When they came home with us, Lulu refused to get out from under the bed for over a month. Sully, the more adventurous of the two, would hang out with her for awhile, then come out to explore and get to know us, periodically going to check on his sister and curl up with her under the bed. Over about three years’ time, she began spending more time on the beds instead of under them, although she’s been known to stare blankly at inanimate objects for long periods of time.
And while Lulu was the shy, skittish, and slightly nutty one, Sully was the puker and the toilet-brush eater.
Yes, I know. I couldn’t figure it out either.
He would inhale his food so quickly that most of it came back up again. I was cleaning up puke every day, sometimes several times a day, and honestly it was wearing on me. I once took him to a vet. In addition to telling me that he was too fat and was SURE to get diabetes (!), she suggested giving him only a tablespoon or two of food, waiting 15 minutes, then giving him more.
As a single mama with multiple cats, working full-time, and going to school, I nodded and smiled and tried it for about 4 days before giving up. It didn’t stop the vomiting, anyway.
Over time, I realized that the toilet brush would be pulled from its little holder. It took me awhile to figure out what was happening. The wind? The seven-year old? The root cause of unexpectedly moved objects is hard to ascertain in my household. But eventually I caught Sully in the bathroom, chewing on the bristles.
And over time, a pattern began to emerge. If the food in the bowl was low enough to see the bottom, he panicked. And when he panicked, he scarfed down his food and/or started chewing on the toilet brush.
But before noticing that pattern, both my son and I would find ourselves frustrated by the vomit and the disgusting chewing habit. There seemed to be absolutely no reason why Sully was acting so strangely, and absolutely nothing we could do to stop it. I found myself embarrassed at the piles of cat puke that sometimes greeted visitors before I had a chance to clean it up. I tried not to scold him out of frustration and reminded my son that yelling at him wouldn’t help.
Last night, though, I was only mildly bothered. There was cat puke on the floor. It wasn’t exactly a lovely sight, and I’d rather the babysitter not had to see it. But the image that prevailed was not of the embarrasing pile of puke on the carpet, but the image of a younger Sully, scared, alone, and hungry, and not sure when he’d get his bowl refilled.
After saying goodbye to the babysitter, I turned to my trusty Clorox disinfecting wipes. And then refilled the food bowl. I’d already switched to a toilet brush with no bristles and a closed holder.
Fat Cats
Skip! No really, I mean it!
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: October 14, 2009
Skip!
When I come home from my evening class, it’s really quite late. And in Long Beach, a late return home=no parking anywhere near your humble abode, at least if you’re one of the many unfortunate folks with no parking space or garage.
no, really... I mean it!
Cloudy and Chili, 69° F
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: October 12, 2009
It’s a cloudy and overcast day in Long Beach. The entire sky is packed with huge, dense-looking clouds in varying shades of gray and almost-white. It’s the kind of day with a breezy bite, that feels colder than the actual temperature. I lit my candle for Eshu this morning, and the sharp smell of the sulfur and burning wood prompted sparked a longing in me for the delightful warmth and coziness of a fireplace.
I made some café con leche to warm me up instead, byspassing the Yuban that I bought for emergencies, when I was in between cans of Café Bustelo. And I decided to make some chili.
Californians call it “Texas chili,” but, being from Texas, I just call it chili. It’s my mom’s recipe, one that she got from her grandma. I wonder if she got it from her grandmother, too. How far back does chili go, do you think?
It’s the perfect comfort food, at least for carnivores. It’s one of the foods that I can eat all the leftovers, no matter how much, and still enjoy it.
I threw away almost 3 pounds of hamburger meat. I hadn’t noticed the expiration when I’d bought it half-price, although I should have. When I tore open the plastic wrap to take a tentative sniff, there was no doubt that it was unsalvageable. I thought for sure I’d burst into tears, before I’d actually opened it. It’s just been a hard couple of weeks, and spoiled meat is the kind of thing I could imagine being the proverbial straw that breaks the dam of frustrated tears. My neck is driving me nuts–I can’t really turn it to the right and I won’t even start up again with my uninsurance woes, but really, when a person is in excruciating pain and there aren’t any feasible options to get out of pain? It’s a little overwhelming.
But I didn’t cry. And I remembered the frozen hamburger from the freezer. I did cry when I chopped onions though. Someone told me recently, probably my precocious son, that it’s a defense mechanism–onions let off a potent tear-inducing chemical to remain intact. I don’t know why that matters now, but it seems important somehow.
So my hands chopped and swiped at the tears rolling down my cheeks, and now the tiny onion squares are waiting patiently for the meat to get unfrozen so I can feed my belly. And my soul.
=====
Mom’s Chili, with a bit of Her Daughter’s Creative License
1 lb. hamburger
1/2 large onion
16 oz. can of diced tomatoes (with the juice)
8 oz. can of tomato sauce
3 oz. (1/2 small can) of tomato paste
1 can, more or less of beans (pinto, kidneys, whatever)
3 heaping teaspoons chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp or less Lawry’s seasoned salt
a pinch or two crushed red pepper
a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce
a shake or two of cayenne
salt & pepper to taste
(All seasonings can be adjusted to taste. That’s why God made wooden spoons… for the tastin’ process!)
- Brown the hamburger together with the onions and garlic.
- Drain.
- Open all the cans and dump it all in except the tomato paste–that goes in last.
- Add all the seasonings.
- Turn it up to medium high and let it bubble real good, then turn it down to simmer for as long as you’ve got.
- Taste test along the way, adding more of whatever the tongue desires.
- About 15-30 minutes before serving, add the tomato paste so it thickens up a bit.
- Serve the ole fashioned way, on a bed of Fritos and sprinkled with shredded cheddar cheese and diced onions.
Bomba West Coast
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: September 28, 2009
My querida hermanita blogger Dripping River Water shared this lovely link with me this morning:
I got excited all over again. Yesterday I was at a “meeting.” That’s what my son calls any type of work-type thing where he has to keep himself busy while adults get together and talk and plan, sometimes seriously, sometimes with laughter and food. It changes with the people. The meeting yesterday was the kind with laughter and food–and meeting new people. Latin America infuses all of us who were at that meeting, apparent in our outdoor dining room, the food, the children playing close by, the gentle chiding and guiding by any adult to any child.
Our work was woven into a ongoing pattern of planning, eating and refilling coffee cups, talking about other things that eventually relate to the planning, meeting new people and exclaiming over shared contacts and similar work, dreaming, and back to planning.
This is the kind of work that sustains me. It is relationships-in-action. The best kind of work.
I met Gabi, and as I spoke to my comadre, I overheard her easily slipping between English and Spanish. Caught a Caribbean “ehte” [este]. And then I heard her say “bomba.”
My head whipped up from my seated conversation to where she was standing. Jumping into the other conversation, I couldn’t stop myself. “Did you just say bomba?!”
Yes, she did. Turns out, there’s a bomba group in LA, and they’re just coming back from a short break and want to add a few dancers.
She described this to me as I sat completely still. Tears formed in my eyes without my permission. “I never thought I’d find a bomba group on the West Coast,” I choked.”I thought I’d have to wait til I made my way to the East Coast.”
Noting my emotional response, Gabi said she’d cried when she heard about it, too.
I’ve never danced bomba before. But the rhythms compel me. I am a retired dancer with a damaged back. I’d long given up on dancing seriously, performing. I take basic yoga. I hope to make it through enough hours sitting at a computer to write my papers, do my research, answer my email.
But gracias a dios, even though I can do much less than I ever could, I am getting stronger. I have slipped disks, scar tissue, muscle spasms, and some undiagnosed fibromyalgia and some myofascial pain syndrome to boot. But my body wants to move.
Not long ago, I dared to whisper a prayer, a hope, a dream–a goal for my healing. “I just want to dance. Somehow.”
I knew I’d probably not compete in ballroom again. I knew I’d definitely not again take classical ballet, much less perform it. And I remain uninterested in folk dancing of any culture to which I do not belong by blood.
But bomba… bomba is the dance of my blood. I am mixed, yes, but when I dance, I am pura boricua. A long time ago, when I salsa danced at least three times a week, sometimes I would dance with someone new, some Latino gentleman with a strong lead and a sparkle in his eye, he would exclaim in surprise at my dancing. The words slightly differing, but the message still the same: you dance like you’re Latina, but you look white. I don’t remember my answer–this was when I “was white”–sort-of. It was always a confusing thing: I was white. But not. Somehow Latin, but really Spanish. Puerto Rican family, but not Puerto Rican (somehow!).
Now (on the rare occasion I get to dance) I laugh and point to my caderas and ask which part they think is Puerto Rican. I like to watch their confusion melt into puzzled understanding. I look white to many people on first glance.
I interviewed informally with the group’s leader on the phone today, trying not to squeal too much. He was politely tolerant and possibly amused. He asked if I were Puerto Rican. I said yes, mixed. He said I was not the only one. Puerto Rican and Equadorian, Puerto Rican and El Salvadoren, Puerto Rican and Peruvian… and a girl, also in Long Beach, Puerto Rican and white.
It inspired hope in me enough to tolerate my fears. Of being the only one whose Spanish is atrocious and halting. Of being the only one with pale skin, freckles, and light brown hair. Of being chased out of rehearsal by a mob screaming “Get out of here, you white girl!”
It is a joke, yes, but at the bottom of my heart, it is the worst case scenario that makes my palms sweat. I doubt anyone would do any chasing and screaming, but imagined whispers and side-eye looks would feel the same.
Of course, the reality is almost always completely the opposite. At my dear friend’s party recently, I sat with her cousins, eating piles of Filipino food. She is Mexican, her husband Filipino, her beautiful and juicy baby boy turning 2 years old. I said her name. Not with the American ARRRR but the proper rolling Spanish R. Her cousin remarked on it, curious, asking if I spoke Spanish. No, I said, I didn’t grow up speaking it.
“What are you?” her cousin asked me.
“NO WAY!” she said. Her other cousin, with equally wide eyes, exclaimed, “You look straight up white girl,” then sucked in air, hoping I wasn’t offended. I wasn’t. I look straight up white girl to lots of people.
I smiled privately when I heard punctuations throughtout the party conversation softly spoken. “Ella es puertorriqueña!” followed by a friendly exclamation of surprise.
The rehearsal/lesson was planned for tonight. My comadres both offered to watch my son so my feet can dance and my skirts and swirl. Cancelled, something about a changed lock and a key that doesn’t work, so we’ll have to wait for Thursday. My comadre’s offer still stands.
The soles of my feet are twitching in anticipation. My long skirts coaxing me toward swirling them.
Autumn Equinox, a Scream, and a Star
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: September 23, 2009
I was leaving the coffee shop, hanging up with a colleague asking a logistical question about the meeting I was headed to, letting the door close softly behind me.
She screamed. The kind of scream in a movie when she’s spied a terrible sight, something unspeakable–half mad with rage, disbelief, sorrow.
I jumped a mile and moved quickly out of her way.
Her eyes were wide open as her mouth, her breasts, a lighter brown than her usually-exposed skin, twisting and jumping as she tumbled through the door. My heart pounded in my ears, and I clutched my arms tight around me as if to hold myself in.
She continued running, her cotton v-neck dress three solid colors: brown, green, and a neutral color I cannot properly recall. Gray? Rust? The green at the bottom matched her flowing pants but not her lavender flip-flops.
She ran across the street, catching the last seconds of the crosswalk’s blinking Yield hand. When I turned back, concerned for her, wondering, she had somehow crossed again and was sitting at the bus stop, head in her hands.
When I pulled out of the parking lot, driving in her direction, she was gone.
That afternoon, I sat in a meeting overcome by nausea. I’m not saying it has anything to do with the screaming woman. Or the meeting.
Later I was reminded of the power of community. Of loving, direct, powerful community. I sipped my tea and the reverberations of the scream subsided.
“Let’s celebrate,” I said when I picked up my son. I was hungry, and our kitchen needs lots of cleaning to make it a place where cooking can take place again. Feeling reckless, I let him choose the restaurant we have no business patronizing with my thin wallet. Sometimes, it’s more than I can bear to cook a meal on top of everything else.
He chose barbeque, exactly what I’d been craving. Well, he chose barbeque after I vetoed McDonald’s and Burger King, that is. You’d think we had fast food regularly by the number of times he states his preference for it.
We ordered our food, finding out Tuesday night kids eat free. This is no small gift, in Los Angeles County. Kid meals can cost the price of a regular meal elsewhere in our country.
A few bites in, the nausea hit me again. I tried valiantly to keep eating, but I couldn’t. The server saw me blanching and brought the check right away.
Still, I enjoyed my son’s company, and after we were home, my stomach calmed enough for me to read a book for pleasure (not school!) until I was sleepy.
We’d spent the last weekend of summer alternately swimming in a pool and lounging on the beach. Monday, I bought the book-for-pleasure and a copy of Psychology Today, just for fun. Then I spent the day reading and dozing on the beach, noting the difference between Long Beach and San Diego, where we’d spent our weekend. I mourned the line of trash that marked the ghost of the morning’s high tide, the breakwater’s miniature waves, and the harbor-pollutant murkiness of the water. The waves off Coronado Island had nearly knocked me down as I giggled. I could see my feet beneath the water when I made it past the break line.
Still, it’s my beach. Home. And I swim in it despite my best judgment.
Autumn Equinox. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the events of my day, not that I can tell. But the crescent moon hung bright in the sky dark with heavy clouds. And as I drove home from dinner, doubled slightly at the waist with a faint scream reverberating still, I saw a shooting star as bright as that crescent, although I cannot explain it.
Moppin’ and Prayin’
Posted by: Lucy Marrero on: September 14, 2009
I can’t pinpoint exactly when mopping and praying became two parts of the same thing. It might have started out of convenience–setting aside time to tend to my boveda and get the house clean in the same time period. Maybe I filed away the information that Oshun doesn’t enter a dirty house.
However it started, it’s evolved along the way.
I’m not so good at sitting still. And I’m not all that great with prayers, either. But I’m good at mopping.
There were many years I told folks loudly that I hated housecleaning. I’m not a Martha Stewart kind of girl, I’d say. There were years I avoided cooking, too. Mostly during a time, years ago, before I’d come into myself as an adult and as a woman. Housecleaning meant weakness, and goodness knows, I didn’t have a lot of room to appear weaker. I was already “too girly”– heels, skirts, makeup. Flirty and feminine. I already had to fight tooth and nail to be taken seriously–in a male-dominated field at work and in my relationships.
But through my journey to myself, I learned to appreciate the domestic sphere as I learned to appreciate my femme-ininity. Cooking and cleaning are expressions of love, and I choose carefully the folks on the receiving end of that love. There’s a certain look in someone’s eye–a certain way they compliment in disbelief: “But why did you clean that? You didn’t have to…” I have learned, often the hard way, how to tell if my “feminine” expressions of love are treasured and valued or a green light for devaluation and mistreatment.
It started in my last apartment, in LA. We had a big kitchen, and the mopping took awhile. I liked to do it when my roommate was gone. I tried not to think about whether or not she’d done her share of the housework, tried to concentrate on the pleasure of mopping.
I take all the stuff out first. The trash can, the stool so my son can reach the sink. The chairs, the tiny table. I sweep, even though the necessity sometimes annoys me, satisfied to note the amount of crap that slides from the dustpan into the trash.
I change the water in the glasses on my boveda. Light incense. Turn on some music. Sometimes it’s my playlist of songs that move or inspire me. Sometimes it’s salsa, and sometimes it’s just my favorite songs all thrown together.
I squirt a little colonia into the hot water and a few squirts of dishwashing soap and mop from one corner to the other, singing or silent.
I don’t pray while I mop. Not with words anyway. But it seems like a clean floor is an offering anyway. An invitation. A welcome. A thank-you.
Sometimes it feels more spiritual than the oraciones I say afterward, sitting. I think my muertos are okay with that.
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