Pennies Everywhere

change has come

2008-11-05T19:26:00.006-07:00

Today I feel the same relentless surge of emotions that I felt after 9/11. Something equally unimaginable has occurred here in America, only this time it is deep pride and amazed awe that move me to tears. My tears are tears of joy. For the first time in my life I can say I am truly proud to be an American. I want to pledge allegiance to my flag again. I want to sing the Star Spangled Banner at the top of my lungs. Thank you, America, for finally choosing someone based on his promise and not on the color of his skin. Thank you for choosing hope over fear, words over war, and inspiration over desperation. I get tears in my eyes all over again when I see Obama's soft, glittering eyes on the cover of today's Arizona Daily Star.

Last night Michael said that he has not seen this kind fervor for a leader and his ideals since Bobby Kennedy in 1968. I have never had any faith in a political leader in my lifetime. Martin Luther King, Jr., JFK, Bobby Kennedy...they are all pages in a history I took no part in. What heros have there been for my generation? My heros have all been writers who have challenged the myths of our America, who have inspired me to open my eyes, to question my own judgments, and to view others with more compassion and empathy. Now we will actually have a president who will, I believe, do the same. He symbolizes balance and a return to rational discourse. He represents us, a nation of mixed races, cultures, religions, and creeds.

I am inspired to write again. I am inspired to give back to my country again. Mr. Obama, you are the hero of my generation. May you be guided to serve as you have promised. May you fulfill that promise of change. May you and your family be protected from harm. I will be so proud to call you my president in 76 days.

one art

2008-10-30T09:16:00.007-07:00

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.
Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, bit it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

~ Elizabeth Bishop, 1976

Loss is swirling through my head these days. How many things have I lost in my lifetime? And how much do I really miss those things? I have been fortunate thus far not to lose someone I love dearly, aside from the loss of my first love and my grandmother who died at 84. Those losses were inevitable and perhaps expected.

Right now I face the loss of a home I love dearly. I have always known that I would not live here forever yet I wasn't prepared to leave this home so soon. I keep reminding myself to feel gratitude for having been able to live here at all, for having my health and my family and a job that puts food on the table. There are worse losses than this. There are people who are suffering deeper losses: safety, freedom, shelter, ability to take care of oneself and one's family, nourishment, health. What are my losses in comparison?

I am thankful and I am grieving, too. I am grieving a loss that hasn't happened yet, thus I am not living in the present moment. Waves of fear are tossing me about like a raft on a turbulent sea. I have lost my equanimity. Perhaps my greatest comfort right now is knowing that this, too, shall pass.

autumn leaves

2008-10-26T07:19:00.010-07:00

Yesterday, Michael and I drove up to Summerhaven on Mt. Lemmon to see the only bit of fall foliage that we get in Tucson. We hiked the ski lift trail and asked the ski lift operator at the top if we could pay him for a half-trip down the mountain. He shook his head and told us he'd let us ride for free. So we had a quiet 7-minute ride down the mountain and a gorgeous view of the cleft of Redfield Canyon and the Galiuro mountains in the distance.

We missed the major autumn colors by about two weeks. We saw mostly lemon-yellow aspens and a few red oak leaves littering the trail. We were quietly celebrating the completion of the remodeling and upgrades to our house while at the same time mourning the fact that it is going up for sale today. It's appropriate that the house is going up for sale in autumn, the season of change and letting go.

villa luna rica

2008-06-15T15:44:00.004-07:00

Villa Luna Rica, June 2007

I started a new blog a few weeks ago. I know that I rarely post to this one as it is, but I wanted something separate and new to chronicle the life of our home, which is rather special. You can read about it here.

my two fathers

2008-06-15T07:26:00.006-07:00

Papi & Sam at happy hour

Here are my two fathers, enjoying a ritual happy hour together which entails sitting outside at dusk with a stiff drink in one hand and a Cuban cigar in the other and watching the world quiet down as the sun sinks below the horizon.

These two men have next to nothing in common, aside from my mother (the fiery Colombian woman who ensnared both their hearts for different reasons), their shared role of father to my sister and me, and their daily anticipation of happy hour.

My biological father is Paul, aka Papi or Pito. I inherited from him certain verbal mannerisms, a love of photography and the night sky, the way I walk, and an anxiety about money that tranlates into stinginess. As a child, I dreaded asking him questions because I would either get: A) a bewildering far-fetched answer that was made up on the spot or B) some long-winded explanation which included an unrelated history of something else and only confused me more. He is also something of a McGyver, always able to think of a solution outside the box. He carries with him at all times about a half a pound of keys and tools on his keychain. I think he took the Boy Scout motto "Be Prepared" to heart, because he's pretty much prepared for anything at all times. I remember him pulling a mini can opener out of his pocket once at a school event, when my teacher realized there was no way to open the cans of juice one of the parents had brought. I was proud then of my father's foresight.

My stepfather is Sam. I inherited from him a love of books and good food, my liberal politics, a passion for travel, and a lack of desire to work very hard which translates into an appreciation for loafing. We had many fierce arguments at the dinner table about world events and he frequently prodded me to learn more about the topic at hand before opening my mouth. He made a pittance working for the city government but he made sure that his family never felt the pinch. I marvel now that we went so many places and experienced so many things on his shoestring budget. He would never skimp on good food and one of the pleasures of my childhood was being treated to a fine meal at the restaurant of my choice, whether to celebrate my birthday or a good report card.

There is so much more I can say about these two men who shaped who I am by their example. I suppose the only thing more I can say today is this: Happy Father's Day, Papi and Sam. I love you both.

new every morning

2008-01-10T11:17:00.002-07:00

Every day is a fresh beginning,
Listen my soul to the glad refrain.
And, spite of old sorrows
And older sinning,
Troubles forecasted
And possible pain,
Take heart with the day and begin again.

~ Susan Coolidge

the way of the typewriter

2007-07-06T16:02:00.001-07:00

Booboo & Lulu

I've finally given in. I've pulled my last stubborn and trailing limb into the 21st century with the rest of me. I bought a new car. And not just any new car, but a hybrid.

I hadn't intended for this to happen—not yet anyway. Michael and I left home one Saturday morning for our usual ritual of coffee, breakfast, and driving around town scoping real estate, except this time we decided to change course and head to the car dealerships instead. Just for fun. Just to test drive a few cars and see what was out there. We came home hours later, exhausted, in two separate blue cars.

I had mixed feelings about buying a brand new car. On the one hand, Lulu (my '73 VW Bug) is a great car. She's fully paid for, runs great, is cheap to insure and maintain, and gives me little grief. She has air conditioning and a brand new CD/MP3 stereo system. And she's really cute. I feel that she accurately reflects my own identity: playful, adventurous, and outside-the-box.

The new Prius is great, too. It requires very little maintenance, gets great gas mileage, has lots of room and a usable cargo space, is eerily quiet, and everything works. She's basically the opposite of a classic VW. I've traded in personality for reliability and fuel-efficiency (as well as a big car payment!)

At the end of the first week with the Prius, I came home from work, threw myself on the couch and burst into tears. I had been wondering all week if I was doing the right thing. I had seen numerous blue Priuses all over town. One of them was even parked next to mine at the movie theater and it took me a second to figure out which was which. I realized I was now driving a rather unremarkable "normal" car. Then there was the hefty car payment and the fact that now I was actually in debt for something. (I've been 100% debt-free ever since I paid off my student loan last year.) Every day I would come home from work and see Lulu parked in the "guest parking" area, looking abandoned and forlorn. My fabulous little vintage car was going the way of the typewriter in a computer-filled world. I never thought a car could break my heart.

Michael was all patience and understanding. He let me cry and assured me that we could sell the Prius whenever we wanted. We could keep Lulu, too. He joked that we should name the Prius Booboo as in "Oops! What were we thinking?!"

In spite of my sentimentality, I'm very practical; it doesn't make sense to keep Lulu if I'm rarely going to drive her and I don't need her. It would be better for her to be with someone who would drive her and love her as I have.

I know it's time for a "real" car. A car that I can drive over mountains without wondering if she'll overheat. A car that lets me hear myself think. A car that doesn't smell like gas fumes and scorched dust. A car that is safe. A car with room. A car that will maybe carry kids someday.

I'm keeping the Prius and my identity and selling Lulu. I hope I can find her a good home.

epitaph

2007-05-04T08:29:00.001-07:00

Or, she did nothing.

Yesterday, I read this post by Keri Smith, and thought YES! This is what I've meant all along.

I believe in doing nothing. Not doing nothing, as in vegetating on the couch with a bag of chips in front of the TV all day, but doing nothing, as in slowing down, savoring, experiencing, and not pushing to control, compete, manipulate and succeed in the American sense of the word.

As a child I was always very competitive and had everything mapped out for my future. I was an excellent student, usually getting straight A's on my report cards and liked by my teachers. When I grew up, I planned to become a marine biologist (so I could scuba dive all day), a pyschologist (so I could help people with their problems), an Olympic swimmer, and a writer.

I began swimming competitively at the age of 10, which required 6-8 hours of practice a week. Practices were fun at first, but then they became repetitive and gruelling. When I didn't place in the top three at several swim meets, I gave up. What did I want to be a champion swimmer for? What I loved was the feel of gliding through the water, the freedom of movement and weightlessness of it. I felt like a mermaid. I always loved being in the water, but once swimming became work, something I needed to do in order to win, I lost interest in swimming competitively. It wasn't fun.

When I went to college and told my advisor I planned to major in biology, she came up with an outline of courses I would need to take my first semester: chemistry, biology, calculus, and the required freshman humanities course. I balked, but gave it a try. After the first week of sitting through excruciatingly dull classes about numbers and chemical compositions and data, I dropped chemistry and calculus and signed up for a third-year Spanish literature class. I kept biology because I needed to study a science for one year, but I quickly discovered that I hated sitting in a lab for four hours and looking at squirmy blobs under a microscope.

My junior year, I declared myself a Literature major. I loved reading stories and I loved talking about them and interpreting them. I loved writing but didn't really love writing term papers. The idea of pressing forward with my studies to become an academic horrified me. I had no desire to narrow my focus to a specific genre or writer or theory. I didn't want to have to compete for a job in academia or deal with university politics and committees. Ugh. Too much hassle. Too much work.

I was drawn to jobs that allowed me to earn a living while creating a life. I had time to do the things I loved: explore my environment, discover beauty, write in my journal, take classes, laugh with friends, go hiking, read novels, ride my bike, paint, meet people, take photographs, dance, travel. I had no desire for jobs that would allow me to climb some kind of ladder to "success." Those jobs usually meant I would have to work long hours, wear a suit, write reports and sit in meetings for hours. For what? More money? More things? A sense of security?

It is so easy in our culture to get caught up in the drive for money and success. This is the way of capitalism, the way we have been taught and the way we teach our children. We believe that more is better, so we sacrifice being in the name of having. Our national past-times are shopping and watching television. In spite of advanced technologies that allow us to instantly connect with people anywhere in the world, we are so utterly disconnected from the people right next to us and the patch of earth we inhabit in any given moment.

This is something I struggle with: how do I live in this culture and not be a part of the rat race? How can I live simply, maintain my integrity, give back to my community, and be more attuned to nature and its cycles?

time for beauty

2007-04-18T08:26:00.001-07:00

Birthday Bouquet from My Sister

Today is my 33rd birthday and all is well in my world if not in the world at large.

I found this article by chance and it resonated with me and how I try to live my life. The simple but profound question--Do you have time for beauty?--is one that I try to answer YES! to on a daily basis, but too often, I think I fail.

I think about how much I take for granted, how all too often I miss what is right before my eyes. This is why the Annie Dillard quote is one of the most inspiring for me; it's a reminder to keep my eyes open, to see the beauty in each moment, and the gifts the universe is offering for free.

Today I am 33. I am blessed with a husband, family, and friends who love me deeply. I am blessed with sunshine and flowers and cats yowling outside my window at 5:00 a.m. I am blessed with work that is meaningful. I am blessed with another day of living and seeing.

happiness is. . .

2007-03-16T20:34:00.001-07:00

. . .saying I do.

March 3, 2007

[click here for more wedding pictures]

sisters

2007-02-01T19:28:00.001-07:00

Today I found this photo of me and my sister in my dad's digital family album. It captures the essence of the word sisters for me.

It is 1981 and we are living in Boulder, Colorado, in the biggest and coldest house we've ever lived in. It has three floors and a cavernous basement. Our parents don't have enough furniture to fill it and can barely afford to heat it.

My sister is wading deeper into the choppy waters of adolescence. She lines her eyes with thick, black eyeliner and shuts herself in her room to daydream and listen to records. I am in the second grade. In spite of our age difference, we still play Barbies and Office. Though we argue and torment each other as siblings do, we are close. We get up early Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, tucked beneath my grandmother's afghan. We are rumpled from sleep. My sister twists her body sideways to make room for me on the couch.

It amazes me how close we are, in spite of the fact that we we are five years apart and have spent most of our lives living in different states. Still, we grew up together from scratch. We've witnessed each other's journeys. In spite of time and distance, this is how it always is between us.

unraveling

2007-01-29T21:03:00.001-07:00

The sweater piece I spent
three weeks knitting with care
was three sizes too big

I had no choice but to unravel it
that single thread of yarn
for yards and yards

untangling
unwinding
undoing

All of that work for this:
a lump of frizzled yarn
what's left of my heart

I think of those years spent
weaving my life with another's
stitching days into the fabric of years
only to discover
it doesn't fit

snow in the desert

2007-01-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

Photo by Brandye Ferguson

Last night during troupe practice, the studio manager came in to tell us that it was snowing outside and she thought we might want to see it. We all scrambled for our coats and headed to the studio up front with giant windows looking out over Sixth Avenue. The snow was coming down in enormous flurries. Brandye brought her camera and took this photo of my Bug, Lulu, which happened to be parked just below. I got to drive home in slush with an inch of snow on my hood and foggy windows.

The last time it snowed this hard in Tucson, it was 1986 and I was in the 7th grade. It is so rare to get snow in the Sonoran desert. How surreal to see saguaros and palo verde trees dusted with white. We complain of the brutal heat of summer so much that it is jarring to experience the bitter cold of winter. I had to laugh when I saw today's Tucson Citizen headline: "Snow Paralyzes City." The headline photo showed two children laughing and playing in the snow. One of them was wearing shorts. Although it only snowed an inch or so, apparently a lot of people were "snowed in" this morning and the local school districts gave the kids a snow day.

I love how a little snow in the desert can turn things upside down. Unfortunately, I did not get a snow day.

a day with snizzle

2007-01-20T22:27:00.001-07:00

Today I spent the day with my friend Lise and her nearly-three-year-old son, who she affectionately calls her snizzle. Lise and I have been friends since she was 12 and I was 11. We used to laugh hysterically at the things her 5-year-old brother would do. Now we laugh at Joshua. In a good way.

Joshua is the main subject of my photographic endeavors. I could follow him all day with the camera, capturing his expressions and moments of discovery. I have been photographing him since he was a day old. It's amazing to see how he's grown into himself. He loves the camera and starts showing off whenever it comes out.

Today I photographed him jumping on the bed, getting tickled, fingerpainting, eating an orange, running around butt naked (except for his socks), and

falling asleep in the midst of eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This little snizzle is too much for me sometimes.

my sister makes a mess

2007-01-19T23:50:00.001-07:00

[Written by my sister, Evelyn, after I asked her about how to change things on my blog.]

I called. She fussed. She said, "Hmmm. No bother really...it would be interesting to figure out." Thus, we wait and see in the morning.

11 things i can't live without

2007-01-16T19:43:00.001-07:00

(not necessarily in order:)

dance
meaningful relationships
sunshine
water
laughter
solitude
home
love
beauty
health
integrity

If I had to eliminate eight of them, one by one, which would be the first to go? Which three would I hold tight to?

There have been times in my life when I have lived without some of these by choice. And times when I had no choice but to live without them. (At least it felt that way.)

I suppose there is always a choice.

What surprises me is my own resilience. Knowing that if (or when) I must live without something I value, I will adapt.

passport i

2006-09-11T19:29:00.001-07:00

My mother is 21 years old. This is her first passport picture. She is preparing to leave her home, her mother, her family, her language, her culture, her country and basically, life as she knows it to work as a nanny for an unknown Colombian couple living in Washington, D.C. She is going to America, where she can choose her own life. The possibilities thrill her and terrify her. She is going to America in spite of her mother's pleas and her brother's threats. No one can stop her.

She leaves on August 12, 1967.

What she doesn't know is, she will live with a couple who take advantage of her and mistreat her. She will not be prepared for the snow and cold. She will meet a Puerto Rican girl whose family rescues her and takes her in as one of their own. She will meet my father on a blind double date and marry him in San Antonio. They will not understand each other very well. They will drive across the desert to San Diego, where she will meet her new American family. They will begin their life together in an apartment complex in dusty Lancaster, California.

This will be the first year of her life in America.

my brother-in-law is a rockstar

2006-09-04T17:43:00.001-07:00

I was fifteen when he and my sister were first dating in college. They knew each other back in high school. He claims he was in love with her then. They were voted "Most Artistic" by their senior class. In college, she started taking the train to New York City on certain weekends to explore the city with him. They played and laughed and discovered art together. He made pieces of art for her and hid secret messages in them. Her toes wiggled when she was with him.

When I lived in Italy, he sent me funny letters and drawings and once, a tape of his band's songs. His letters revealed how crazy in love he was with my sister. They broke up towards the end of college. She moved away to Arizona and he to Florida. They lived their separate lives for nearly 8 years. One day he wrote her a letter and when she read it, she called him. They were married within a year.

He is a talented artist, the lead singer in a metal band, and a web designer among other things. He is über playful and has a loud, raucous laugh which he frequently bursts into, often with a mouthful of food. He is generous, funny, considerate, and a badass brother-in-law, as well as husband, son, and father. And today is his 37th birthday. Happy birthday, G!

how I discovered i was in the wrong major

2006-08-28T19:50:00.001-07:00

Harder, Monica and Sativa Saposnek. "Observation and Analysis of Heart Rate in the Frog." Biology 101 Lab Report, Reed College (1992): 3.

I am mortified in retrospect that Sativa and I actually handed this in as our lab report.

And yet I remember how much fun we had writing this "Materials and Methods" section, how little we actually understood, and how much we hated analysing data and putting it into language as dry and tasteless as a salt-free cracker. Not to mention, we were at Reed—an environment which fed our intellects as it fueled our rebellion against them. We were learning how to wade through the boggiest theories and come out the other end with a decent paper in hand and our sides aching from laughter or tears or both. Unfortunately, we had to dissect a few frogs along the way.

This is the document that cemented our friendship. We had taken turns all night at her computer trying to write it, not understanding how to analyse and interpret our data correctly. We were exhausted. At one point, I broke down crying I was so frustrated and stuck. Sativa calmed me, ordered me to bed and took over. Sometime later, I awoke to her crumpled at the foot of my bed, stifling her own sobs. I stumbled to her side and burst into tears which sent us both into fits of screeching, crawling, hysterical laughter.

Somehow, we got the lab report finished and turned in on time. Somehow, we got a B on it. Somehow, we weren't thrown out of Bio101 for academic insolence. And somehow, I decided to major in Literature.

atomic butterfly

2006-08-22T20:23:00.001-07:00

My first performance out in the tribal world. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be dancing on a stage before hundreds of people, I would have grimaced and proclaimed their insanity.

Since China, I have learned to appreciate obscurity, to not draw attention to myself or stand out in a crowd. Not out of fear, but rather out of a desire for peace. I have wanted neither praise nor criticism, scrutiny nor speculation. I think it really freaked me out in China how much attention I got and yet how alienated I felt.

And yet here I am, dancing with fabulous women in a fabulous troupe. Only three of us could go to the festival, so we had ourselves a little roadtrip and a lot of fun. We wore bright butterfly colors and danced with light props that Beth created. We didn't get a huge audience reaction, but it didn't matter. We had fun just being up there together and dancing. That's how I wanted it to be and fortunately, that's how it has been.

dear diary, 1984

2006-06-16T23:54:00.001-07:00

eulogy for loretta

2006-06-08T12:26:00.001-07:00

Michael brought her home one sunny afternoon in March, 2002. He had been driving home when he passed her parked in someone's driveway with a FOR SALE sign in her windshield. He knocked at the door, took her for a test drive and offered the owner $1700 in cash.

I was standing in the driveway when he pulled up with a grin on his face. "Isn't she great?" he said, more as a statement than a question. She was 26 years old, had a cracked windshield, rimless headlights, no radio or A/C, and pink upholstery. She smelled like the '70s and gasoline. I wasn't too impressed, though she was kind of cute.

I drove her for the first time in a shopping mall parking lot with Michael beside me explaining her quirks as I repeatedly tried to get her into first gear and stalled her. I had to work to stop her and steer her. She had her own way of doing things. And she took her time.

I didn't have a car and soon claimed her as my own. I drove her, took care of her, and adorned her with color. Over time, a collection of little plastic animal heads ringed the windshield. A spillproof bottle of bubbles came to live wedged between the seatbelt release buckle and the driver's seat. The glovebox and dash displayed various magnets and a bright yellow sunflower. A strand of colorful beads and bells dangled from the rearview mirror beside the scapulario my mother gave me for protection, brought from Colombia and blessed in the Señor de los Milagros Basílica. A Marlboro matchbook I found proclaiming Even Communists Are Free to Smoke was clipped to the ashtray. Behind the backseat I carried some tools, a quart of oil, a sunflower umbrella, and some VW manuals I long ago gave up trying to comprehend.

I named her Loretta. If she were a woman, she would have been a fiesty waitress in a small-town diner wearing rhinestone cats-eye glasses with her name embroidered in flowery script on her uniform. She was the kind of car that had no pretensions about what she was: a simple old car with nothing flashy or fast about her, but solid and dependable. She embodied for me the essence of what the Japanese call wabi-sabi: the beauty of modest, imperfect, impermanent, and unconventional objects.

We had many adventures around town. People would notice her, ask me what year she was ('76) and then eagerly tell me their own "when I had a Bug" stories. Children would point and their mouths would become little "O"s and sometimes they would ask me shyly about the animals on the windshield. I received many smiles and waves and questions. I was flashed the peace sign and beeped at by other VW owners in a gesture of solidarity that only VW owners display to other VW owners. I suddenly belonged to a unique car culture vastly different from the one of high-tech convenience and speed I lived in.

And then one day I was rear-ended while I was stopped at a light, on my way to give a presentation for work. I was fine, but Loretta's engine box was crushed. My good friends came and rescued us both, towing Loretta back to my place on their trailer. For weeks I walked by her and she seemed to still be smiling at me, as if she knew I would soon be taking her to the shop to get her fixed. But the insurance company told me it would cost more to fix her than she was worth. How do you explain to an insurance agent what a car like Loretta is really worth?

I cleaned her out and said goodbye and the insurance company towed her away to their auto auction lot, where she would be auctioned off to the highest bidder who most likely would use her for parts.

She was exactly 30 years old when she met her end, though I don't like to think of it as her end. Pieces of her will likely end up in other old Bugs. And now I have my own "when I had a Bug" stories to tell at the gas pump.

Goodbye, Loretta. You were fabulous.

bones and dust

2006-06-03T15:33:00.001-07:00

October 2004: Havana, Cuba

On one of my wanderings around Havana, I visited the Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón, a huge cemetary filled with gleaming white above-ground graves and crumbling crypts. I have always enjoyed exploring cemetaries and I make a point to visit at least one whenever I travel abroad. I am curious about how a people buries its dead. And I like to imagine the lives that were lived and lost before I ever came into existence.

Strolling through the Necropolis, I found the graves of some Cuban martyrs and Cecelia Valdez, a famous heroine from a Cuban novel of the same name which I had studied in college. I never knew she was an actual person.

As I was heading back to the main entrance of the cemetary, I passed a building which was filled with small concrete boxes, stacked precariously on top of each other. I knew what they were, and my morbid curiosity drew me to the entrance. There was a little old man outside, hacking away at the weeds with his machete. I peered inside and saw some of the boxes stacked on the floor. Some of them had no lids. I inched closer, my skin beginning to prickle. I peeked inside one of the boxes. Was that a pelvis? Yes. And a femur. Bones. Human bones. Of course. It was a cemetary. But why were they out like this, stacked in boxes?

I went outside and asked the old man. He seemed pleased to have the opportunity to take a break and show me around. He explained that in Cuba, there isn't enough room to bury the dead (just like in Colombia.) They are buried for only two years, then dug up so someone else can use the burial plot for two years. If the family has money, then the bones are taken to a private place. If not, the bones are stacked in these boxes awaiting burial in a mass grave.

As he was explaining this, we were walking amidst the aisles of boxes, each labeled with the name of its occupant and the date of death. All the dates were from the late 1990s to 2002. The old man lifted the lids from some of the boxes and showed me the contents: black bones and bits of deteriorated cloth. We turned a corner and he cursed. Someone or something had knocked down a stack of boxes. There were bones all over the floor, covered with black dust which I took to be what was left of the rotted flesh. He grabbed a skull which had yellowed tufts of hair still stuck to it and placed it on the lid of another box.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio! I thought.

The old man turned to me. "You'd better enjoy your life as much as you can. That’s all we have. Life is for living, for loving, for drinking, for dancing. Enjoy it now because this is what you will become. This is what we all become. Bones and dust."

"Yes, I know," I said, staring at the skull. There were the eye sockets, covered with a black crust of dust. Who was this person? What kind of life had he or she lived? Where did his or her spirit go? I shivered. "I try."

Then he began to scoop up armfuls of bones with his bare hands. I watched him, stunned. For him it was as natural as scooping up rocks or dirty clothes. These were people, or what was left of people, anyway. He brushed past me and as he did so, he grabbed my arm to steady himself. I looked at my arm, at the black ashy prints of his fingers he had left there. It somehow felt wrong to just brush the dust of another human being away. I decided not to brush the dust away. To just leave it until I took my cold shower that night.

I felt marked, somehow blessed.

i am the door

2006-06-03T14:56:00.001-07:00

She woke up that morning just as her voice was putting on its scarf and heading out the door. She tried to protest, but no words would come. She scrambled out of bed and grabbed her voice’s sleeve, but her voice just frowned in silence and shook her off.

She panicked. Why was her voice leaving? Where was it going? She couldn’t ask these questions, only beg her voice with pleading eyes to say something, give some explanation. But it didn’t. Her voice turned away from her and stalked out the door.

She slumped on the doorstep and cried silently, wondering how she was going to get along without her voice. When her voice reached the mailbox, it turned one last time and nodded farewell. Her voice did not speak, but she heard the words nonetheless: You can always write.