tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4385621517739418012023-11-16T04:23:18.475-08:00palomasSarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-42537182145554162013-04-09T12:43:00.000-07:002013-04-09T12:43:54.057-07:00Rants & Raves of Becoming a Writer
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think
you were born that way</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">. - Ernest Hemingway<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
have a whopping 519-page novel sitting on my desk… unpublished. When I look
back on it, it sucks—written with all the callow grace of an amateur—but the
fact that for an entire decade I had the disciplined commitment to write it is somewhat
impressive. I have other unpublished stories that, in efforts to truly
understand my protagonists, I’ve nearly sacrificed my sanity to write. I’ve morphed
into the mindset of a dying bum in the Tenderloin, a coke-addicted suburbia
housewife, and an old and lonely widow who just wants to sing karaoke, to name
a few. If it weren’t for that voice in my head that feels the incessant need to
narrate every mundane and exciting detail in life (from standing in line at the
grocery store to those fleeting seconds just before a man jumps off a bridge), I’d
have quit writing a long time ago. The ego can only take so much, after all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Just
before I arrived to that ‘fuck it’ point in life, I received an unexpected
success: I got accepted to grad school, into the creative writing program at
Mills College. Me—<i>grad school</i>! The
punk teen from Chula Vista who used to ‘Abacadaba’ my way through Scantrons had
made it into <i>grad school</i>. I was as thrilled as Honey Boo Boo on her birthday. Would a
prestigious education open doors to getting published and becoming a successful
novelist? Would a professor tell me that maybe my stories would have a better
chance if all of my protagonists weren’t depressing lunatics?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-indent: 0.5in;">My "acceptance glee" was short
lived. Fear and self-doubt began to seep like poison through my body as I
realized one thing: I got into grad school…and I was terrified.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Next
Week: The ‘oh shit’ feeling continues…in a public performance space<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-61782657447651719692013-03-18T16:16:00.001-07:002013-03-18T16:21:54.524-07:00Haircut<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I’d spent months on crutches, and even
more months hobbling around on a cane after breaking off a piece of cartilage
in my kneecap. Even though I can walk on my own now, I recently decided two
things about myself: one, that I’m no longer the invincible 32-year old I once
was, and two: that I wanted to cut off all my hair—both of which had everything
and nothing to do with one another. </div>
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I
showed the picture to my hairstylist: Halle Berry in an edgy pixie ‘do, with
strands of hair spiking out in every different direction. “I want to look like <i>her</i>,” I said.</div>
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My
hairstylist hesitated. “Are you sure? It’s really…<i>short</i>.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> I insisted. She tied my hair in
three ponytails—one in the back and two on the side—and in three quick snips, the last six months of the hair I'd been wearing fell to the floor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> As I sat very still in the chair, I watched in
the mirror as handfuls of hair rained down all around, the ends of the curls
looped like cat tails. </span><span style="text-indent: 48px;">I’d been sick of my hair for so long, sagging and drooping with half-assed curls. I'd even began slicking it into a ponytail, embarrassed that my dull hair would reveal the vulnerable truth of how I really felt about myself.</span><span style="text-indent: 48px;"> </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> Meticulously, my stylist cut, snipped and razed. “Is
this length short enough?” she asked.</span></div>
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“No.
Shorter,” I said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She
cut, snipped, razed some more. “How ‘bout now?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No—<i>shorter</i>.”</div>
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She
cut, snipped, razed some more; she cut and cut, until there was hardly anything
left at all. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-73629826189216913272013-03-13T15:34:00.001-07:002013-03-13T15:34:35.689-07:00A Puppet for Lily
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The first time I saw her she was
rummaging through the trash, high out of her mind on god knows what. When she
found what she’d been looking for—a soiled shred of plastic bag—she tied it in
her hair like a bow. She began clawing savagely at her face, as if bugs were
crawling underneath her skin, and that’s when she turned and I saw it: bursting
out from underneath her cutoff top was a huge belly…she was at least six months
pregnant.</div>
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I saw her again about a month
later. The sun had barely reached its zenith of the afternoon when I recognized
her on the street—a different piece of trash bow-tied in her hair—and not
pregnant. Did she have a crack baby? lose it? abort it? I barely had time to
wonder because I was forced to hop back clear across the sidewalk. With fingers
down her throat she was spewing vomit all across Mission Street, the entire
crowd at the bus-stop her audience. She was crying hysterically and tried to
wipe her face but only smeared the puke that had been dribbling from her
mouth. Ironically, I’d just said goodbye to my friend Lily who’d
revealed—gushing with excitement—that she was pregnant. We’d left a baby
boutique minutes before, wondering if the little creature swimming inside her would
prefer a piggy puppet or a lop-eared bunny once it was born. </div>
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Steering clear of the puke puddle, I
suddenly crossed the street heading back towards the baby boutique. Tears bubbled at the brim of my eyes without spilling down. <i>The piggy puppet</i>, I said over and over, the words reeling silently
round in my mouth. Lily had to have the piggy puppet for her baby—she had to.</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-9707756760576629372012-06-22T14:15:00.000-07:002012-06-22T14:15:31.065-07:00Dinner at Daniel's<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Dinner at my dear friend Daniel’s
house was a feast for the soul. He whipped up a Cali-Asian fusion of silver
rice noodles soaking in spicy green curry sauce, fresh veggies seasoning every
bite. Daniel is a brilliant writer, the topic of our many conversations. His
style is raw and poetic, blocks of words brimming with emotions that linger with
you long after you’ve put the pages down. Hours passed like minutes between us until
the next thing I knew, it was time to go home. This is where I knew things
would get tricky. Daniel lives in a super sketchy part of town. From his
kitchen, we’d looked down at the streets where sparks of lighters flickered
above crack pipes. Skeletal women roamed the streets, looking for men to feed
their bodies to so they could feed their habit. If I had the power to, I’d
blink and the neighborhood would be a welcoming place for folks to call home.
For now I had to worry about actually getting home. “I can walk you to the train
station,” Daniel offered, and I graciously accepted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
turned out, walking down the street in Daniel’s neighborhood was easy. We chatted
effortlessly as life carried on around us. Sure I received a couple of stolen
glances, but not one word was said to me—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not
one</i>. No one drooled a “hey baby” at me or blew any whistles my way. Men did
not click their tongues at me as if I were a cat. People weren’t just seeing
me; they were seeing me walk with a 6-foot tall confident man through his
neighborhood. I felt a strange and lovely sense of protection. Even in broad daylight, I'm always on guard. What a peculiar privilege men have to
walk so freely through the streets…are half of them even aware of this
entitlement?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At
the top of the train station, I stalled my goodbye. A McDonald’s coffee cup had
gotten stuck in a crack at the top of the escalator. Each rising step pushed the
cup continuously before flattening out underneath the massive wheel in
motion. The cup kept rolling and rolling in perfect circles. It was just a piece of trash but I
couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I wanted to feel that way. I wanted to stay in
that feeling forever with Daniel, that strange secure sense of invincibility in
an exuberant world of chaos. I’m not saying men don’t have their own set of
fears, but being violated by someone forcefully stronger than them isn’t likely
the same reality that women carry with them everyday. I’ve been mugged before; my mugger
flung me fiercely into the wall of a corner-store before I collapsed to the
ground, wriggling desperately on a sidewalk soaked of piss and spilt beer. Another
time a man touched my crotch late at night when I was walking to the train
station after work—just walked by and glided his finger over me as if I were a
piece of fruit at the market he’d suddenly changed his mind on. He laughed when
I screamed back at him—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">laughed</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
waved goodbye as the escalator carried me underground, trying to keep the
strange high that Daniel had left me with. I couldn’t believe it. I’d walked
through the ghetto at the heart of witching hour and I wasn’t even harassed—I
wasn’t even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">afraid</i>. I couldn’t wait
to tell my ruca how good it felt to be me at that moment: a lighthearted
freeness that a child might feel before life warps them. When I got to the
bottom of the station, a young man was screaming on his cell phone about just
having gotten evicted, and what the fuck was he going to do? And why the fuck
wasn’t whoever he was calling answering his phone?! Cursing, strings of spit
dangled from his lips as I walked past him, the only person in his sight or
mine. The station agent booth was empty. Outside sounds drowned away in the
roar of ambulance sirens from the streets. An ominous emotion flickered across the
man’s eyes as he sized me up, too obviously fitting a scenario in his head. My
safe-house feeling vanished. The protection, the security, it had all disappeared
now and I was back to “normal.” Bluffing fearlessness, I squared my shoulders broadly
as I hurried past him down the stairs. In that very moment, I envied Daniel as
much as I loved him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
train blasted through the station, ready to take me back home where I’d soon be
with my ruca and the cats. I hardly flinched as the train delivered a fervent
gust of chilled night air through the tunnel. My mind was somewhere else. I
couldn’t get the image of the coffee cup out of my head, it was all I could
think about. It had rolled and rolled at the top of the escalator, stuck like a
perfect wheel in motion…it could’ve gone on forever. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-80695567484775788212012-06-08T14:01:00.003-07:002012-06-08T14:11:32.330-07:00The Studio on York Street<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The ruca and I used to live in a
studio on York Street. The ruca lived there first but I went with her to see
the open house one Saturday afternoon. We weren’t living together yet, we were
still “dating;” still getting used to trying pet-names with each other like
‘baby’ and ‘mi amor;’ still getting used to the awkward primitive questions like,
“how do you like your steak cooked?” (Me: medium-rare, ruca: well done.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
York Street was lined with trees,
an older, quieter part of the Mission where cats blinked out at you from
windows and hopscotch covered sidewalks in rainbow-colored chalk. After the
ruca scored the spot, we painted the kitchen a magnificent pink and green
watermelon theme, and the bathroom a bright yellow marigold against a cobalt
blue. The Frida Kahlo house, we called it. She was just settling in when my
winds changed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My younger sister had gotten sick
with pneumonia. For weeks she’d struggled in ICU, weak as a baby bird with a
50/50 chance of surviving. I moved back to San Diego to nurse her back to
health until slowly, gradually, she bloomed back to life. After six months I returned
to the city and into the studio with the ruca, where I learned how to live with
someone else other than family for the first time. I’d been living with my older
sister in the city before that, who didn’t seem to mind that I left clothes
trailed from one room to another like Hansel and Gretel’s path of pebbles.
Cohabitation was challenging, especially since our bedroom/living room was supposed
to fit all of our clothes in a closet the size of a pantry, and we both had
enough <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tacones</i> to open our own shoe
shop. Then there was the getting to know each other phase all over again. We
were in the honeymoon stage when I’d left, and for six months had talked on the
phone every night about our separate lives. Now I was in bed next to her, hogging
the bed-sheets. She asked me once, appalled: “Do you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> sleep in till 11?” To which I answered, “When I work till
one in the morning, yes…and I guess the days I don’t, too.” </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Our landlords were “witches” who
practiced some kind of magic and lived in the two units upstairs from us. They
were nice enough but I knew not to touch the strange ornaments I found in the
back yard, should I begin to grow an extra toe or something. And I suspected
that the cryptic mosaic on the bathroom floor was not just some whacky art
piece in bad taste. I made sure rent was always paid on time. The house was
also cold—very cold. Shivering in the morning, I would bundle in ridiculous
layers like I was hitting the ski slopes in Tahoe, then walk outside to a seventy-degree
day. I wanted the house to be warm and flooded with smells of food, so I began
to practice my cooking more than ever. The ruca turned me onto <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Los Tigres del Norte</i> and I blasted the
album incessantly while I cooked and “experimented” in the kitchen (although to
this day, I don’t think I will ever attempt to make bell-pepper soup again, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yuck</i>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There was a taco van a few blocks
away that sold cheap and tasty tacos, dripping in chile. Sometimes I’d walk
around the neighborhood, letting my mind write the way it does when I let it
run free. At the time, I was still deciding if I should be a writer or go to
nursing school. What kind of life was a struggling writer anyway? I listened closely
to my thoughts on these walks. They said I was happy even though I didn’t fully
feel settled. My life was on the cusp of so many transitions; all I wanted was
for the waves to crash so I could finally feel some peace. I knew we wouldn’t
stay at the York Street studio forever but being there made me realize that
for the very first time, I wanted a place for us to call home, and I wanted it
with the ruca.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The other day I was driving in the
neighborhood with my cousin who was visiting from out of town. I took a detour,
driving down good ol’ York Street for no apparent reason at all. For all the
monumental transformations that took place inside the tiny studio, it just
looked like any other ordinary house from the outside. The tree out front had
grown, its branches shaggy and full, and the building had been painted in fresh
bright coats. An entire world I once lived in rushed back to me: the cold Frida
Kahlo House filled with warm smells of food, a struggling writer struggling with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">being</i> a writer, too many shoes and
snoring till noon. I pointed out the house to my cousin. “The ruca and I used
to live there,” I said, the fact sounding as plain as saying the sky is blue.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My cousin joined my gaze. Her
fingertips tapped on the window, as if trying to touch another era of time
that had long past. “Oh,” she said, a curious smile on her lips. “How
nice.”</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-24578321106476175052012-05-11T13:32:00.000-07:002012-05-11T13:32:39.621-07:00The Full Moon<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU4M1SyA-1cycZw1pXudG1Z1A5n01eCn2k5UORE-HItaoI9oFTJGRFGfk5e7GAP2BaDkfLwhEH2J7-XezgrrOTlLOetgQzLTR4A4DHzzBqCpkWa1RLq3xtBrkfqaY3NwHKforan4uFGz0/s1600/600+waxing_moon_tommys_park_jan2012DSCF5422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU4M1SyA-1cycZw1pXudG1Z1A5n01eCn2k5UORE-HItaoI9oFTJGRFGfk5e7GAP2BaDkfLwhEH2J7-XezgrrOTlLOetgQzLTR4A4DHzzBqCpkWa1RLq3xtBrkfqaY3NwHKforan4uFGz0/s320/600+waxing_moon_tommys_park_jan2012DSCF5422.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I watched the moon grow from a
skinny sliver in the sky to a full-blown marvel illuminating above. On the
night of the full moon, I was going to do my first reading at an open mic. It
was a season closer—a guaranteed packed house—and writers and performers have
five minutes to dock from their 15 minutes of fame in trying to win over the
crowd. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I contemplated this event many
times as I gazed up at the sky, the lunar light a visual calendar for my
upcoming night. In my day-dreams, I would have an epic performance. My words
would flow effortlessly as I read aloud a five-page excerpt from my novel.
Everyone would laugh at the funny points, especially the part when my
protagonist meets her landlord’s stuffed Chihuahua, Vegas. When I finished, the
crowd’s fervid laughter would light up the room and I would read the audience’s
eyes like open books. They would be thinking, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This girl’s got something. She is someone to look out for</i>. My
fantastical daydreams had soared madly all month, shooting up like an arrow
that never falls down. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The morning of the performance I
woke up with a pain in my chest, as if someone had taken a lead pipe and bashed
the inside of my ribcage. I trembled in fetal position. What was wrong with me?
Was I having a freakish asthma attack? Had I swallowed stones for breakfast? The
pain only worsened as I opened my laptop to prepare. I tried reading my first
paragraph aloud and keeled over in pain, tears oozing involuntarily out of my
clenched shut eyes. If I weren’t only 31 and healthy as a horse, I’d have
thought I was having a heart attack. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Isn’t it obvious? You’re having anxiety
about tonight,” my ruca counseled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Anxiety? Don’t be ridiculous,” I
scoffed. “What’s so big about reading to a packed house full of nearly a
hundred people for the very first…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ugh</i>,”
I cringed. Just at the mention of it, a new surge of torment had shot through
me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The ruca shook her head. “You don’t
have to do this tonight if you’re not emotionally ready.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“But I have to go—I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">need</i> to go!” I insisted stubbornly. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
For the next hour and a half I
attempted sitting up in bed to read my work only to fall back down, contorting
miserably in pain like a bad double in an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Exorcist</i>
scene. My mental will hashed out a long battle with my physical will, but in
the end, it was my body that called the shots. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m not going to make it</i>, I decided. And as soon as I realized it,
the pain began to magically and gradually alleviate from my chest, only proving
my ruca’s point exactly: I wasn’t having a freakish asthma attack—I was having
a terrible case of nerves about my very first performance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
After this realization, I took up a
whole new battle and began to beat myself up ruthlessly for not making the
show. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m a failure, I’m a coward, I’m a
royal and world-class wuss</i>. I exhausted myself until I finally called a
truce between my tender emotions and my ball-busting ego, who, when it comes to writing, is about as kind to me as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glee’s</i> coach Sue. I’m hard on
myself in every other aspect of my life…why couldn’t I let this one anxiety attack
slide? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I spent the night in the comfort of
my Frisco family’s house eating homemade strawberry shortcake and watching TV
and movies, until my laughter no longer followed cue to the laugh-track and was
indeed my own. The full moon burst out in the sky, growing brighter as the
night grew darker. It wasn’t even a mocking reminder for not being at the show;
instead its magnificent fullness seemed to grant me a strange sense of comfort.
I supposed my own hopes were like the moon in many ways. Sometimes when I
feel so depleted, a light in the sky fills itself back up, a glowing blaze that
lights the way. There will be other open mics and other performances to go to.
And for now, I'll have to be at peace with that much. </div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-55628903008065046832012-05-03T15:25:00.000-07:002012-05-03T16:14:40.042-07:00Miami Beet<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It was a Saturday afternoon and the
nail shop was as psychotic as ever. Women toiled with remote controls to their
spa chairs—“How do you get it to knead and roll at the same time?” A teenager shouted on her phone that some girl was “hella stupid—ohmygod, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hella</i> stupid.” Shards of fingernails were
free-flying from the tip of electric files, making mini chainsaw sounding
screeches through the air, while dialogue between the Vietnamese technicians
was nothing less than frantic. One of the technicians was begging a little girl
to stay still so she could paint her toes, while her mother shouted in a heavy
British accent: “I need to be out of here in 15 minutes—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fifteen</i>!” Fans spewed on wet nails, shiny, twinkling like diamonds,
and the women getting dried sat tall and regal, just as proud as if there were indeed
jewels at their fingertips. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
For the last hour and a half, I’d
been trying to keep a centered zen composure. But I waited forty minutes longer
than quoted and when I finally got a seat, I soaked my fingertips in soapy
lukewarm water while my technician, Mai, did an eyebrow wax for someone. By the
time she came back, my fingertips were shriveled prunes in the cold dead liquid—and
the girl next to me on the phone had—omg!—hella not shut up the entire time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“You pay now before I paint,” Mai
instructed, in her thick Vietnamese accent that I’ve come to comprehend
fluently. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I shelled out the cash for my
manicure. Ten bucks with tip money wasn’t much, but it also wasn’t nothing
either. Especially if you do this once a week; forty bucks a month is at least
a week’s worth of groceries, and here I was, applying it to the beauty at my
fingertips. Today’s color was Miami Beet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The shop went back to its normal
chaos: “Mommy! I want my toes puh-pul!” the little girl began to throw a
tantrum. “Is that your final coat? I really have to be leaving soon,” the
mother rolled her eyes. A horrific shriek erupted from the waxing room. A lady who was old enough to be my
grandmother was laughing uncontrollably as her feet were getting exfoliated. “So
I was like ohmygod, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i>, that’s
like hella whack for reals, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seriously</i>?”
“Then we’re going to a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">party</i>
tonight…” “Excuse me? Can I get a flower on my toe? I don’t care, just paint
something pretty.” “How much longer for a wax?!” “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You’re</i> going to do my nails? I think I’ll wait for Mai, no
offense.” “I need change for a ten!” “You want half hour foot massage? Twenty
dollars extra.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Mai finished the second topcoat on
my nails and that’s when I looked at them for the first time. The color was
stunning, the darkened fuchsia complimenting beautifully against my morena
skin. I stared at them mesmerized, waiting for them to dry completely as the
chaos continued to tornado all around me. The entire rest of the day, I would
flash my nails in front of me at any opportune moment: pulling hairs out of my
face that weren’t there, touching up my lip-gloss just to line a pretty painted
finger around my lips. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Gone were the tugging hang-nails
around my cuticles, gone was the roughness and jagged edges of my nails that had
accumulated during my work-week. Judging by my hands, there was no sign of the
stress I put on them from my bartending job that drives me more neurotic than
this nail-shop, but nevertheless pays my rent, pays my bills—pays me the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">time</i> to let me write while I’m waiting for
my actual writing career to take off. I felt many things at that moment, but what I liked most was the feeling that I <i>didn't</i> feel: like a frustrated and bitter bartender who sometimes hides my calloused worked fingers in my pockets.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“You come back next week, I give you new manicure,” Mai pointed at me, once I was dry and stood to leave.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Yes,” I promised, almost outside
where the sunny afternoon I’d missed was now waning. I waved goodbye to the estrogen entropy, dazzling my fabulous Miami Beet nails. “I’ll be here! I’ll see you then.”</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-87486814863599936822012-04-24T17:24:00.000-07:002012-04-24T17:24:15.659-07:00The Rejection Letter<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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The letter came. I’d been waiting
months for it. I tried to predict what my reaction would be when the moment of
truth became real. Would I burst out into tears and slobber sloppily onto my
pillow, or jump up and down like Bob Barker just called my name on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Price is Right</i>? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
When the letter finally arrived, it
almost seemed surreal. I was trying to be polite but I snatched the envelope
out of the mailman’s hands (who knew I’d been waiting for it), and dashed
inside. My blustering energy had left the cats curious enough to stir awake from
their naps. I looked at the envelope for one whole second before tearing it
open, although carefully enough not to rip the letter itself. My throat had
dried up like I’d just swallowed a stick of chalk. My hands were shaking like
Momma needed a drink. I felt as if my entire destiny lay in the words before
me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I read the letter. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The words ‘unfortunately,’ ‘we
encourage you next time’ and ‘thank you’ (for nothing) jumped out at the page.
I’d been rejected. I didn’t get into the MFA in Creative Writing program I’d
applied to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As you can guess, dear reader, my
reaction was not one of Bob Barker’s fans ecstatic to the point of a seizure.
My go-to self-soothing words of, “it wasn’t meant to be,” and “it’s not that
your work wasn’t good, you just have to keep trying,” failed me. What if I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wanted</i> something to be—really, really
badly? And furthermore, if my work really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i>
good, then why wasn’t it good <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enough</i>?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Although my ego felt like it’d been
run over by a dump truck, I looked at the time. I had to go to work. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My co-worker, another bartender
who’s been bartending longer than I’ve been alive (seriously—37 years) noticed
something was wrong as soon as I clocked in. “What’s the matter?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Nothing,” I shrugged.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“C’mon, you can tell the old man,”
he prodded. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I sang like a canary: the letter,
waiting months for it, the rejection and feeling like a world-class loser.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Toughen up, kid. You don’t want to
go to some stupid school that won’t take you anyway! What would cheer you up?
How ‘bout a slice of carrot cake?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“I don’t want carrot cake.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Too bad, I know it’s your
favorite. Listen, you can’t give up; you have to keep applying for as many
things as possible. And above all—you have to keep writing! You don’t want to
end up an old and cranky bartender like me, do you?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I looked at him. He was pointing
his muddler at me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The ruca picked me up from work and
surprised me with a box of chocolates, and besitos all over my face. I stayed
home that weekend and watched back-to-back episodes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Office</i> on Netflix and emotionally ate myself into an oblivion.
It was great.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
On my next writing day, I stared at
my computer long and hard without turning it on. For days, all my emotions had
been fluttering inside my chest, like butterflies rapping their wings inside me
to escape. I recalled an old Ernest Hemingway quote: “There is nothing to
writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Finally, I sat down
with my computer. The cats cuddled up all around me. I began to write, my
emotions bleeding out onto pages and pages. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It was beautiful. It was savage. And
going forward, it was my only choice.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-81175611204808957012012-03-23T15:29:00.000-07:002012-03-23T15:29:12.935-07:00Friday Night Pizza<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Friday nights of my childhood were spent doing many things: watching
TGIF shows on TV like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Full</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">House</i>, telling ghost stories to my
friends over sleepovers and, of course, going out for pizza. Filippi’s Pizza
Grotto was our favorite family stomping ground; my sisters and I played
tic-tac-toe on Mom’s scratch paper while we waited for what seemed like forever
for pizza. Dad would ask what pizza toppings we all wanted, and even though I
didn’t care for it I would request sausage—just because my older sister hated
it and would predictably glare at me from across the table. My dad would try to
teach us how to eat spaghetti with a spoon, and my mom would wipe at my face
with a napkin and tsk, “Oh, sweetie!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Nostalgia won the best of me when
my dad asked last week where I wanted to eat while I was back home visiting. It
was Friday night—duh, pizza. My mom had gone to an event and we’d forgotten to
take my sister’s wheelchair out of her car trunk, so I helped my younger handicapped
sister walk step by step from the car curb into the restaurant, missing the “pizza
window” out front. My dad used to lift me up to this pizza window to see a huge
kitchen full of cooks spinning wheels of floured dough, and catching them with
the spindle of their forefingers. Gazing into this window held the same
fascination as magic to a kid. I shrugged off my slight disappointment. I was
too old to be awestruck by some silly pizza window now anyway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Inside, we sat in a bright room that
had been built as an add-on years later that struck no spark of familiarity in
me at all. It was not the same dim-lit room filled with garlands of garlic, and
glowing red candles on the red and white checkered tablecloths. It was a bright
room filled with families singing “happy birthday, cha-cha-cha!” and men staring
up at the basketball games on T.V. Looking around me, I sipped on wine—something
else I also never experienced as a kid. We were in the same restaurant I’d
known all through my childhood, but everything felt so…different.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The food was just as good as I
remembered: salad soaked in vinaigrette and strings of cheese pulling from each
bite of pizza, the sauce a bright zest of tomatoes. We slurped up spaghetti and
swallowed down raviolis, dipping buttered bread in the leftover plates of sauce.
All of a sudden, my dad hollered out across the dining room: “M<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">auricio</span>!” Over to us walked one of the
waiters; a lanky man with a square jaw and wavy hair tied back in a ponytail.
My dad was excited. “You used to wait on us all the time! These are my girls,
they’re grown now.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My sister thrust out her hand to
Mauricio, although it looked like she was waiting for it to be kissed rather
than shaken. “I Laura,” she giggled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I followed my sister’s lead. “Hello,” I said, my voice
sounding suddenly shy. “I remember you, too.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My dad helped Laura walk out of the
restaurant. He didn’t have to drive up to the curb since he’d parked in the
first space on the side reserved for take-out orders. That’s when we saw the pizza
window. I was awestruck all over again as the men were busy at work in the
kitchen. Even Laura stopped to stare, pressing her tiny fingertips like
suctions on the glass. One of the cooks pointed at her and tossed the
saucer-like dough extra high in the air just for her. She grinned, satisfied at
the special treatment. As we turned the corner to the parking lot, I remembered
the one thing I’d almost forgotten: the oven’s fan, blowing its scorching pizza
fumes into the thick cold of night. How strong is the sense of smell! It’s a
phenomenon beyond the simple base of sight because you feel it explode and
burst through every waking cell in your body. After dinner, the sweet coolness
of spumoni had put all my hunger pangs to rest, and still, my mouth began to
flood as I stood beneath the fan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The rain began just as we left,
cascading down on the windshield as my dad drove us home. “It was great to see
Mauricio,” my dad chatted, the windshield wipers squeaking against the glass. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I nodded. “You know, he looked
exactly the same. Just…older.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I thought about this as the car splashed out sheets of rain beneath its tires. Almost everything had been the same...just older. </span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><!--EndFragment-->
</span><br />Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-67476645818525862332012-03-16T08:43:00.001-07:002012-03-16T08:43:20.083-07:00Man's Best Friend<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0RUgVxnmVGfaZr92SAGntVS9iuaBibGEy48EXMjgK7i2I1jlNLi8ZJc4lOF8fc2YQf__-P2xZqFsT9Q_hGtyjC3VeLH5Wzd_YY5jRG_5jKftYgTHOaUKAGWkbADpnRvOr2VroMRq-5w/s1600/dog+foto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0RUgVxnmVGfaZr92SAGntVS9iuaBibGEy48EXMjgK7i2I1jlNLi8ZJc4lOF8fc2YQf__-P2xZqFsT9Q_hGtyjC3VeLH5Wzd_YY5jRG_5jKftYgTHOaUKAGWkbADpnRvOr2VroMRq-5w/s320/dog+foto.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It was one of those idealistic days
that birthdays are made of. Out of the clamor of city traffic and past the
towering peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge, the ruca and I were off to meet our
friend Corrie for her birthday celebration. First we chucked oysters at Tomales
Bay and swallowed them down whole, soaked in lemon and stinging of chipotle. Then
we explored the notorious “pond” that Corrie has forever been bragging about: a
magnificent mouth of water under a canopy of trees that reflects on its scintillating
surface. Later we stopped for more wine to catch the sunset on the beach,
although darkness seemed to be devouring away day’s light faster than we could
move. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
While Corrie and I waited outside
the liquor store for our friends, a tall lumbering homeless man, as big and
solid as a redwood tree, walked decidedly up to us. Half of his face was filled
with a cotton fluff of beard, and a rather large belly fit snug against his red
plaid coat. (If I were a kid I might’ve screeched out, “Santa Clause!”)
“Whatchu got there?” he asked Corrie, whose tiny black Chihuahua was poking out
of her jacket. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s my dog,” Corrie answered, hardly intimidated by the
man’s titanic size. She unzipped her jacket, and out popped Ceelie: a tiny
black Napoleon-minded dog who not only has mind control over Corrie’s pit-bull,
but likes to cuddle with cats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“Aww,” the man marveled. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Corrie and I exchanged glances,
registering that the man, albeit all size, was harmless—a gentle giant. Corrie held
the dog in the air, its legs dangling beneath her like swings. “Would you like
to hold her, Sir?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
His face lighting up, he handled
Ceelie delicately, as if she might break in his massive hands. Excited at the new
guest, Ceelie wagged her tail and licked his nose. The man tickled with
laughter as she nuzzled her tiny black snout into his chest. “She’s so <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">soft</i>,” he gushed, and I couldn’t help but
think of Lennie from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of Mice and Men</i>;
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s so soft, George</i>.” Imitating
Corrie, he zipped up his coat, and Ceelie stuck her head out from the top;
warm, content. “She <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">likes</i> me,” he
croaked. The words could’ve come from a child.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We stood very still in the moment’s
harmony, enjoying the unlikely bond between the two. Our friends came racing out
behind us suddenly, carrying with them a rush of anxiety as the last of the sun’s
light began to spill away. “Let’s go!” they called out, and the man’s face
crushed, his zen shattered like glass. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“We’re going to catch the sunset,”
Corrie explained softly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The man moved slowly, delicately handing
Ceelie back from hand to hand. That’s when he blurted out: “I want a dog like
that! Where could I…get a dog like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Our friends, noticing that we were
lagging behind, rejoined us. “You want a dog like that?” one of our friends
jumped in. “They always have notices on that bulletin for dog adoptions.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The man blinked hard but the
emotion would not escape his eyes. Who would let a homeless person adopt a dog?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We missed the sunset by minutes but
it didn’t matter. The city lights twinkled in the distance, under a sky ablaze
with fiery streaks like a messy watercolor. Stars popped out in the sky as the
sunset hues burned to the dark ash of night. We pitched a fire, opened the
wine, shared stories and laughed until our bellies ached. In the company of
friends and lovers, my ruca and I wrapped our arms around each other as one. I
couldn’t get the man out of my head though, I kept hearing his voice: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I want a dog like that.”</i> What he meant
to say was that he wanted a companion: a tiny creature who would snuggle beside
his chest when he slept; the non-judgmental and unconventional love that a pet
brings to their master. After all, isn’t companionship one of life’s richest treasures
that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everyone</i> wants in some way or
form?</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-36642674442863370002012-03-08T12:34:00.000-08:002012-03-08T12:34:37.108-08:00The Mini-Bus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6eC8AAnerLpvKcep3X3Jwu5SI4Y2v7Z9DhzAzSUMPCJ5OwDnz7tc-lh4r4YgIG7akaf7h0q4GMTEttHyAhkqvg0Tk_Fc01icF6SNBbahwlpYi8ZVeVjBamTwv1DCfAKfCKy4huGJBaw/s1600/guagua_santo_domingo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6eC8AAnerLpvKcep3X3Jwu5SI4Y2v7Z9DhzAzSUMPCJ5OwDnz7tc-lh4r4YgIG7akaf7h0q4GMTEttHyAhkqvg0Tk_Fc01icF6SNBbahwlpYi8ZVeVjBamTwv1DCfAKfCKy4huGJBaw/s320/guagua_santo_domingo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The bus was fifteen minutes late. We waited in the rain and when it finally arrived, the ruca and I wrung our hair out, miserably soaked and soggy as spitballs. Although we’d taken a larger tour bus from Santo Domingo to Las Galeras, our tour guide had told us the local mini-bus was the “same” as the other one—just cheaper.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The conductor hopped off and immediately pointed at our bulky brick of luggage. “That suitcase is huge—it’s ridiculous! You’ll have to buy an extra seat for it.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“An extra seat?” we huffed. (Ah, the price women pay for packing ten pairs of shoes!)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Desperate for dry space, we agreed irritably. Onboard, we were met by three young women in their 20s who were singing—or rather, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yelling</i>—along to the bachata blasting on the radio. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psst!</i>” I nudged my ruca once we’d settled in. “I think they’re lesbians! And I think they’re <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">drunk</i>.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“No,” she scoffed. Then, “really?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">We sneaked peeks behind us. One was guzzling down a bottle of Brugal Rum like a frat-boy playing beer pong while the other two were making out when they weren’t hollering out the high notes. All the other passengers shook their heads, chuckling under their breath at the karaoke bar the bus had become. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Through wet windy roads of the mountains, our driver texted non-stop as we pulled over to pick up more passengers. An elder man hobbled on, who the conductor was unusually kind to and addressed as “Papa.” Another man, handsome and seeming a little bit macho, settled into a seat next to one of the inebriated lesbians who was now crying out a song about a broken heart. Next to us, an innocent faced blond boy and his terrified looking girlfriend had sniffed us out as American. “Do you know how long it takes to get to Santo Domingo from here?” the guy asked us, unfolding his map.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">We told him what our tour guide had told us: that it’d be the same two and a half hour ride. (Ha! Words we would later come to choke on.) We chit-chatted politely, his terrified girlfriend possibly a mute. Turns out he was a Midwest boy who lived in Puerto Rico with his Russian girlfriend he’d met in Moscow. The globe in my head was spinning when I realized something else; we were stopping way too often. Time was stretching out, long as taffy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a major transport city, Saman<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">á</span>, we stopped long enough for the lesbians to go pee. The macho se<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ñ</span>or turned to the women with a bite in his voice. “You better use the bathroom now before the bus fills up and they put a seat between you.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I looked at the aisle, which was narrow enough to pass through if you walked sideways. How would anyone fit a seat there? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The young woman fired back. “Uh-uh! No one’s gonna put anything in me! Maybe they’ll put it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i>.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Are you crazy?! No one’s gonna put that thing in me either!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pero mi amor</i>, maybe you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">need</i> one in you.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“No, no, no! I’m sure <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> could squeeze one in you. Just put a little Baby Oil to loosen it up.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Baby Oil? I scratched my head, confused at the handfuls of Spanish I was picking up…. Were we still talking about a seat?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Papi,” the lesbian hollered back. “I obviously haven’t had anything in me in years, and it’s not gonna happen now!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The entire bus was a roaring laughter as the macho whooped and belted out: “Whoever gets the seat in them is a sucker!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The Midwest boy had registered enough conversation and turned to his trembling girlfriend. “Oh, I get it. They’re talking about putting a…” he stopped, flushed. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">With the energy of punks in a mosh-pit, the bus was still rowdy over who was going to be the sucker with the seat “in” them, until Papa finally spoke, silencing all of us: “Son tan vulgares!”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Later, it seemed like we were on the main road back to Santo Domingo and had gotten more than five minutes of solid speed when the bus stopped to pick someone up. “Wait, I have to use the bathroom!” one of the lesbians cried, even though we’d just stopped. She hopped off and went pee in some bushes. We sighed…checked our watches…she came back. We took off again. The driver answered a few more texts and a few minutes later we stopped again. “Wait, I have to use the bathroom!” one of the other lesbians cried. A couple people snorted. She hopped off and went pee in some bushes. We sighed…checked our watches…she came back. We drove some more. The driver answered a few more texts and a few minutes later we stopped again. “Wait, I have to—” “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hijo de su madre!</i>” the entire bus cried, up in arms. “This is an outrage!” “Ridiculous!” “Absurd!” Dozens of Dominicans shouted all at once, the macho growled like a pit-bull, and the ruca and I froze, beyond baffled. The Midwest boy looked up at me from his map, his flash-light glasses glaring at me. “I think we’ve been misinformed.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"> The crowd was worst than a pen-coop of squabbling chickens all pecking madly at each other, the lesbians defensively slurring their laughter back at them until finally Papa spoke. “I’m 83 years old!” he shouted. “I’ve been riding this bus for over 40 years, and I have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i> experienced anything like this!” He sounded thoroughly disgusted with all of us.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Things calmed down a little bit after that, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">almost</i> promising a peaceful ride the rest of the way. The lesbians sang until they slumbered into an alcohol comatose, and the Midwest boy was explaining the capital’s population and elevation to his girlfriend. The macho groaned and tapped his feet while Papa behind him began to snore. We passed fields of sugar cane, a plethora of palm trees, shacks and mansions, galloping horses and fat grazing cows. Every single seat in the bus was now full, and still, we stopped and picked up a man. As the macho had predicted, the conductor unfolded a small cushion between him and one of the lesbians in the next seat, who was not only passed out in her girlfriend’s arms, but revealing a huge eyeful of but-crack. The macho fought back immediately. “You’re not putting that seat there! I’m practically touching this girl’s ass as it is!”</div><div style="text-align: left;"> “He’s skinny,” the conductor waved at the man.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> “I don’t give a shit! No!” </div><div style="text-align: left;"> The conductor next tried the seat between the Midwest boy and me. My ruca snapped suddenly to attention. “Uh-uh—no way.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"> “I need the space.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"> “I’ve already paid you extra money for an entire seat—I’m not giving you anymore space.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"> “Your suitcase was huge,” he scoffed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah, but you put all those other suitcases on my chair that no one else had to pay for—are you going to give me some money for sharing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> seat with everyone else’s stuff?” she bellowed. The ruca was definitely getting streets on his ass.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“No,” he admitted.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Of course not. And you’re not putting that seat here either! We’ve already given you enough business,” she exhaled firmly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Midwest boy nudged his girlfriend. “They wanted to put a seat here, but she wouldn’t let them.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"> The fold-out seat, which was about the width of a laptop, was then thrust between a very voluptuous lady and someone else. The man sat there for an entire 30 seconds until the lady started to fuss. “Either this man gets up or I push him!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“He has nowhere else to sit,” the conductor exasperated.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Either he gets up or I push him!” she repeated, louder. “Get off! NOW! <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">MOVE!</i>” I elbowed the ruca—I already had five on the lady. She pushed mercilessly until the man got up. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I don’t think that lady wanted him to sit there either,” the Midwest boy whispered to his girlfriend, who looked like she was about to cry.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“No one wants that seat between them—there’s no room on this bus!” Papa called out from the back. The conductor rubbed his temples, irritated that he was losing money by not being able to fill more people in the seats.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">There was standing room only left. The bus sat 26 people, and we had almost 40 riders when we finally made it to Santo Domingo—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">five hours later </i>(double the time it’d taken us on the tour bus).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since all rules of normalcy had long been thrown out the window, the ruca and I did not think it strange when we stopped at a random corner and a man handed over a coffee table to the conductor. (The driver must’ve been texting him along the way.) And when another man got on and cut up bits of cheese to sample before trying to sell the tiny wheels of qu<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">é</span>so, we hardly thought this unusual either. In fact, the Midwest boy bought a piece to calm his girlfriend and boasted, “Mmm! Qu<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">é</span>so!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The lesbians had woken up and started singing their cruda bachata blues all the way to their stop and the macho pushed past us too, pausing only to slick back his hair. Finally, Papa rose to get off. Raising his hands, he crossed the air as if he were a pope and announced proudly, “It has been a pleasure to spend these last five hours with you. I’m 83 years old and in all my 40 years riding this bus-line, I’ve <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i> been on a ride like this.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The ruca and I winked at each other. Neither had we. And in another 40 years, we probably never would again. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2012</div><!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-28623692846510433482012-02-24T13:19:00.003-08:002012-02-24T13:58:36.789-08:00My Trip to the Dominican Republic!<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span style="color: blue;">They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles…Fukú—generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World…It is believed that the arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed the fukú on the world…Santo Domingo might be fukú’s…port of entry, but we are all of us its children, whether we know it or not.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">—<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">JUNOT DÍAZ</span>, </span><i><span style="color: blue;">The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao</span></i><span style="color: blue;"></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>-Bayahibe-</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">We spent long and lazy hours under a bushy hut attached at the end of the dock, where the water was still shallow and clear enough to see your feet. This was the paradise that fantasies of heaven are made of! Diamonds glistened atop a surface of water, still as a mirror; rays of sunshine melted into my skin; ice-cubes clinked in the glasses of passion-fruit juice. I could’ve floated on that cloud forever—had it not been for the cheesy music like Olivia Newton John and Journey blasting out from every single speaker that was dotted every ten feet of the resort—even on the dock! And the food menu? Hamburgers! Hot dogs! <i>Chicken fingers!</i> Appalled, we marched to the front desk. “Where the hell is the bachata and why are your waiters recommending burgers to us?” we flung up our arms in fury. The food issue no one seemed to have an answer for. But the music could have very well been pinned on the owner. Turned out he was some rich-ass Donald Trump-type dude (from San Francisco of all places). “He’ll fire us on the spot if he hears us playing <i>our</i> music,” the manager shrugged at us.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">We checked out two days later, the entire soundtrack of <i>Grease</i> still burning bitterly in our ears like a slave-master’s whip.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>-Santo Domingo-</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>Catedral Primada de Am</b><b>érica:</b> The last time I was at the Good Will, I tried on a beautiful black wooly coat…only to take it off immediately. There was something horrid that had stuck in that itch of wool; a dark sordidness of energy that lingered, now woven invisibly into the fabric (and perhaps a reason the owner had discarded it in the first place). I couldn’t help feeling this way as we visited the first church ever built in Hispaniola; a dark sordidness of energy lingered, now cemented invisibly into the archaic stones of the church’s walls. So many questions plagued my mind, both a frustration and relief from only sensing the church’s palpable eeriness. Why were there statues of howling wolves clustered in the garden of weeds? Was that a welcome into “God’s home,” or merely a symbol of fear meant to sting into the psyches of the Tainos? Why did the hairs on my neck stand up when I passed the staircase that spiraled downwards into some kind of dungeon that had been barred off to the public? And why did the graves inside the church bear those cryptic skull and bones symbols that made death appear as anything but peaceful?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihP1zyemM8D7k5BJ7M-MItiNKO8n-vG9C4FHkAyTdhW-14Qvyvug_XRirqdnJvzQ2kj0T0Svysr60fye14k2YZc-bPzjTFokvjrPPILBBHFcu5NNbORQyD0yX1dYuL7wKZ38EXzhxkoUs/s1600/IMG_2063.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihP1zyemM8D7k5BJ7M-MItiNKO8n-vG9C4FHkAyTdhW-14Qvyvug_XRirqdnJvzQ2kj0T0Svysr60fye14k2YZc-bPzjTFokvjrPPILBBHFcu5NNbORQyD0yX1dYuL7wKZ38EXzhxkoUs/s320/IMG_2063.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7l3CLlmUDg_ZeswA9zMQ4_Z0HkHqeWKFsxpu4AF8-ijfXnUCSTMNwlOdHdL-ZGofpS3C8S71sNuY-dRfIWl5rmW1ryODZiqZQw9Cb0QmH_FbGjV6ooaTchoife-Igc6h333TPE-52hw/s1600/IMG_2068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7l3CLlmUDg_ZeswA9zMQ4_Z0HkHqeWKFsxpu4AF8-ijfXnUCSTMNwlOdHdL-ZGofpS3C8S71sNuY-dRfIWl5rmW1ryODZiqZQw9Cb0QmH_FbGjV6ooaTchoife-Igc6h333TPE-52hw/s320/IMG_2068.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Walking the perimeter of the church, I touched the archaic stones that had held up these walls for centuries. I felt like I was watching a TV on mute, unable to hear the sounds of copious souls being tortured and killed, only able to see these same walls for what they were now, their silent secrets now eternally cemented into its stone. A newly dead pigeon had been caught in the wire netting that hung around the church’s exterior. Had the poor thing gone mad trying to escape? Had it fluttered its wings so badly that the netting stabbed like scissor blades into its flesh? Or had it given up altogether at that first sign of being trapped—knowing that, inevitably, there really was no way out?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">In my dreams, I often find myself back in the childhood house I grew up: a familiar home of comforts with warm smells of dinner, the squeaking swings on the swing-set, my parents’ kiss good night. In my nightmares, I can only imagine pounding myself madly against the stones of the church’s walls, fluttering my wings against the wire net, no escape.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9PuX49Z_gqdk37D1N4BiNQzT9OYPMs0zieN1Pqj_3a_0HRikTg49c0CrY-zhbIbnb-UZeh_DYKMSg5RejqHz0D6zChdeL411z7PFvYZLFwBZktv8KUyFCK8ZXoYvdXvPBJG8rxQz53A/s1600/IMG_2075.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9PuX49Z_gqdk37D1N4BiNQzT9OYPMs0zieN1Pqj_3a_0HRikTg49c0CrY-zhbIbnb-UZeh_DYKMSg5RejqHz0D6zChdeL411z7PFvYZLFwBZktv8KUyFCK8ZXoYvdXvPBJG8rxQz53A/s320/IMG_2075.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>Peace Corps Ceremony:</b> <i>How did I get here?</i> I wondered. I straightened my dress and fluffed my hair, trying to recall the confidence I’d felt when I’d left the hotel room. Still, I looked around me. Champagne glasses clinked. An Olympic-sized pool twinkled in the distance. I was at the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic; the entire week had been a festivity of ceremonies to honor Andres Hernandez, our friend’s late uncle, who’d first established the Peace Corps in the DR in the 60s. This was the reason we’d come here in the first place.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">There was laughter, speeches, and lots of shaking hands. “The Peace Corps wouldn’t have been possible without your uncle,” someone had told our friend. And there were tears in his eyes. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Hacienda Hernandez was a special space dedicated just for him at the Peace Corps headquarters, the walls adorned with his bio, quotes, and pictures on the wall. Another round of applause and a drop of a flag revealed a plaque in his memory. Did I also mention that an entire school will soon be named after him?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">I was in complete awe. Some people live an entire lifetime and leave the world a little better by planting a tree behind them. Yet some people spend entire lifetimes planting nothing at all, becoming nothing more than merely roots in the ground. Andres had not simply planted a tree to leave his legacy behind—he had planted an entire forest.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>The baseball game:</b> <i>Dominican Republic versus Puerto Rico! Last game of the Caribbe series!</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">I walked into the stadium, my heart trembling at the rush of thousands of people whose roars were like stampeding horse hooves in the humid night air. Ever been to a game in the States, where the music and newscasters stop when the player is up at bat? Well…let’s just say it’s not like that in the DR. The music <i>never</i> stops—you’d think the band-players are on a perpetual Red Bull buzz. Drums, trumpets and bells wailed their batucada mercilessly, as if saluting the full moon that had blown up magnificently in the starless sky. Trompezancos—stilt walkers—rallied the crowd while a trio of girls grinded their hips in orange <s>shorts</s> bloomers. No one seemed to mind the teenagers that were guzzling down bottles of Presidente. Vendors worked the crowd too: “Cerveza!” “Empanadas!” “Quéso!” (<i>Quéso?</i>) I’d never felt so under-dressed in jeans at a baseball game. Women walked around in heels—ten-inch <i>high heels</i>—one might wear to a club, all of them thick as a tree-trunk and in skin-tight pants (with a belt just in case).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">We sat next to a class of 11-year olds on a “field trip” who looked at us strangely in our plain jeans and tennies with no cleavage-baring tops, and asked where on earth we were from. “Los Estados Unidos,” our friend answered. “De California.” “Ohh,” they nodded. “Isn’t it cold there?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQeL8JPXdA-V0ZNv9RMUKrJ3pc-eCwOQkxn2BSQ23e83AzNvWemdm2TChaoVLxkGskPeZVsxOhhaJ4SMbwmnGMiovQKxTdzMaIUJLSOSxqEL3eOhScKJeZYww408g6AQxvtCdW5rLR0OQ/s1600/IMG_2043.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQeL8JPXdA-V0ZNv9RMUKrJ3pc-eCwOQkxn2BSQ23e83AzNvWemdm2TChaoVLxkGskPeZVsxOhhaJ4SMbwmnGMiovQKxTdzMaIUJLSOSxqEL3eOhScKJeZYww408g6AQxvtCdW5rLR0OQ/s320/IMG_2043.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">After the smoke had cleared the stadium from the fireworks, a free concert was given by the famous bachata singer, El Toro. Thrilled, the ruca sang along to every song, repeating incredulously every ten seconds, “I can’t believe this—it’s El <i>Toro</i>!” The locals spun around in the sizzling heat of bachata, bottles of empty beer broke all around us, and a rico suave playa—who was a whole foot shorter than my ruca—kept begging her to save him the last dance. The ruca and I winked at each other and muffled our laughter, saving it for later at the hotel-room.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> The entire experience was definitely a game and a show, with the actual sport of baseball seeming to be the least of everyone’s focus. I wish I could tell you the score of the game—hell, I wish I could tell you who <i>won</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>“Tourist Police”:</b> Lord, was she beautiful—and, shockingly, one of the friendliest people we'd met on the trip. She had a brick-house of a body with curves bursting out all over the place, all squeezed into her tourist police uniform. (I wasn’t sure what a “tourist police” did, but the headquarters situated in the center of Zona Colonial was blasting AC.) We asked her for two things: to call us a cab we could be sure was legit, and to answer us why the locals kept calling us “gringas.” (Back home, a gringo/a is a white person.) Sure, our <i>morena</i> skin paled in comparison to the darker, black-skinned Dominicans—but we certainly weren’t <i>gringas</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">The officer threw her head back and laughed. We didn’t know what we were laughing at, but hell, it seemed rude not to laugh with her. Here, she explained, a gringo was originally used to describe the white tourists. Then it just carried over to anyone who was foreign, even if they’re Latino. But the <i>black</i> Americans, she raised her brows, well, the locals just scratch their heads at them. They’re not quite sure what to call them.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> Our cabbie arrived, wailing along to a Maná song both beautifully and terribly off-key. I couldn’t get the tourist cop’s words out of my head though; I could just picture the Afro-Caribbeans staring at the African-Americans, stumped, searching for the right words to call their distant native brother.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>-Las Galeras/Saman</b><b>á-</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: blue;">(<i>History 101: After the Emancipation Proclamation, an exodus of freed slaves from Philadelphia fled to Saman</i></span><i><span style="color: blue;">á</span><span style="color: blue;"> around the 1860s. American last names like Johnson and King are still common in this region. Many even spoke English until the dictatorship of Trujillo forced its erasure.)</span></i><span style="color: blue;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>La Playa:</b> After a three-hour bus ride and a 40-minute cab ride, we trudged down a rocky dirt path that was another 15-minute walk to the beach, our core destination. Supposedly, La Playa was a treasure, the most beautiful beach in the DR. I scoffed to myself, tired, cranky, “this shit better be worth it.” Seriously, how great can a beach be?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxeG-Gm00u6YcW27zkN90jGM43bgdvmIbgOLajIwEFt4n8tSDIoyLY7oy7ATWn-UNbVyrjN92XshFwPSE3OwV028bQyABFNMjavEvqe-0oZK73kN63ZY74DC3eEjmxRBLMVjVGzPEEtwo/s1600/IMG_2191.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxeG-Gm00u6YcW27zkN90jGM43bgdvmIbgOLajIwEFt4n8tSDIoyLY7oy7ATWn-UNbVyrjN92XshFwPSE3OwV028bQyABFNMjavEvqe-0oZK73kN63ZY74DC3eEjmxRBLMVjVGzPEEtwo/s320/IMG_2191.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Turns out…it was the most stunning beach I’ve ever been to—<i>hermoso</i>. In a vast cove, it was surrounded by a mountainous backdrop with palm trees shooting out of the rocky cliffs. Silky grains of sand tickled my toes. We paid someone 200 pesos to lie out in the lawn chairs, who may or may not have been legit—we didn't care. Exhausted, we melted into sleep with the sun high at its zenith, and awoke to its faint light at the far edge of the sky.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIK_39NH-g5XaDOIa5-LO67a2LBtww3gtmDAcuBQ6G6hnGnqLYZCxpsPQvnRy0jJw7W9fkq4pN52XtL3KiMkdakqfipd729j2dcRaI1N9cqQOzgSkA78UEr6CJWuSeyY8O2l3_k4amq4M/s1600/IMG_2197.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIK_39NH-g5XaDOIa5-LO67a2LBtww3gtmDAcuBQ6G6hnGnqLYZCxpsPQvnRy0jJw7W9fkq4pN52XtL3KiMkdakqfipd729j2dcRaI1N9cqQOzgSkA78UEr6CJWuSeyY8O2l3_k4amq4M/s320/IMG_2197.JPG" width="238" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>El due</b><b>ño y la ara</b><b>ña:</b> We checked into our bed & breakfast where the owner, a bald French man with black teeth, spoke to us in Spanish—or was it French? His accent was so thick, webbed between both languages, that I could hardly tell. He’d burst into a terrible hissy fit when he found out that, through a miscommunication on behalf of our tour guide, we would only be staying in that spot one night and not two. Flailing his arms, he yelled and cursed in Spanish—or was it French? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">I gave him some time to cool off before I paid him our board for the night, only to find him upstairs yelling at the housekeeper. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“De dónde son ustedes?” he asked, blowing smoke in my hair.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> “De San Francisco,” I answered. “Pero somos Mexicanas.”<br />
“Ay, México!” he kissed his fingertips. “I have a tortilla maker.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Wow,” I squinted up at him.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“And I make the <i>best</i> guacamole you’ve ever had in your life!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>I doubt that</i>, I bit my tongue.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">He proceeded to tell me that his recipe for guacamole included a teaspoon of sugar, which I thought sounded disgusting, but handed him money for our board that night and waved <i>adios</i>. Seventy bucks bought us a plain, ordinary, and rather dingy room with beige walls bare of art. In the middle of the night I went to use the restroom, only to find a massive furry-legged spider that might’ve been a young tarantula. Perched upside down on the counter of the sink, its body was the size of a child’s palm with legs that sprawled outwards like broken pipes…I was so scared I felt faint. Obviously, I did what any normal person with a mild case of arachnophobia would do: I held my bladder until we checked into the next bed & breakfast the following afternoon.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“How’d you sleep?” our tour-guide greeted us the next day, annoyingly chipper.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Sleep?” I yawned.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>Whale watching:</b> Whales bigger than the 14 bus surfaced to the top of the ocean—beside us, below us, all around us. Their gigantic dorsal fins glided through the water as if breaking it apart like a knife. It was mating and calving season, and the ocean was a party with the hundred-plus tons of gentle giants blowing fountains out of their blowholes. Our tiny boat was close enough to touch them—what a speck we were to them! They didn’t seem to mind our presence; were hardly fazed at the buzz of our boat’s motor, or the poor seasick kid who’d expelled his entire breakfast overboard. “<i>Bravo!</i>” we yelled, any time they revealed their massive flukes before dipping back underwater. We gasped and applauded madly and oohed and awed like 4<sup>th</sup> of July fireworks as they sprung up all around us; I wonder if they translated our humanistic behaviors to utter and complete fascination of them?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">I looked up at the sky and down at the ocean...everything was blue for miles around. I felt very small in the universe right then, a sentiment that, on occasion, cleanses me humbly.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">My heart beat gloriously inside me.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ92Xfup-x1jeEk0PM2DZ_N8DI4-96GsGSLyCQCzkfGmRCTSBuYMgxha0ZJGxbzTv7oVGC5HGWF-INhNjy1jxXZrUWSz4r9mZagjXyVVMyv4H56mKajt8Hn1Q3Sb4uyjpXL1H6kfOiPSM/s1600/IMG_8502+fluke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ92Xfup-x1jeEk0PM2DZ_N8DI4-96GsGSLyCQCzkfGmRCTSBuYMgxha0ZJGxbzTv7oVGC5HGWF-INhNjy1jxXZrUWSz4r9mZagjXyVVMyv4H56mKajt8Hn1Q3Sb4uyjpXL1H6kfOiPSM/s320/IMG_8502+fluke.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnc7tX8PGSA5YcKAO5hzJo0OIwyaQSnRBbUQLQAz2t9jg8ioXhPkwju7GEYYCLZJl16ML0__I8wQcTepL2Y-NRl2ACplJIySuKJuzrTnVD7GrIomo-VwIhTybYm9AAtliKIfSLNePVXs/s1600/IMG_8453-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnc7tX8PGSA5YcKAO5hzJo0OIwyaQSnRBbUQLQAz2t9jg8ioXhPkwju7GEYYCLZJl16ML0__I8wQcTepL2Y-NRl2ACplJIySuKJuzrTnVD7GrIomo-VwIhTybYm9AAtliKIfSLNePVXs/s320/IMG_8453-1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIR3iQCWCe6N0nMKdmJ05F5yQ3EGixubmXgCg4IZUHMIvkO602LWd_IItkYYnmlV26LCkDSgtIJVpXLT87ctP-SksoUvVKZjYzGhPQ0IQXOwsgK3duxvnLJE15Swjixl_DLHM4masmC1Y/s1600/IMG_8531+fin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIR3iQCWCe6N0nMKdmJ05F5yQ3EGixubmXgCg4IZUHMIvkO602LWd_IItkYYnmlV26LCkDSgtIJVpXLT87ctP-SksoUvVKZjYzGhPQ0IQXOwsgK3duxvnLJE15Swjixl_DLHM4masmC1Y/s320/IMG_8531+fin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><b>Sshh!</b></i> If you’re quiet, you can hear the orchestra of life chanting all around you: the whinny of horses, the <i>cluck-cluck-cluck</i> of bustling chickens, squawking birds rattling in trees, the subtle slither of lizards in the sand, roosters cockadoodle-dooing at dawn—and every hour after. Can you hear it? The sounds of wildlife, of nature’s symphony that inhabits the island?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>Coming home:</b> The U.S. customs agent stared blankly at up us. “Unless you’re family, you can only check in one at a time.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“We’re domestic partners,” the ruca said.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">He looked at us strangely, as if we were grasshoppers standing in his line and not humans. “Are you married?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“No. We’re domestic partners,” the ruca repeated, a tinge of irritation.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“But are you married?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“<i>No</i>, we’re domestic partners.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“But are you <i>married</i>?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“No! We’re domestic partners!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“But—”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“We’re <span style="text-transform: uppercase;">DOMESTIC</span> PARTNERS!” we both shouted at him in unison.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">He gave us the grasshopper look again, then did whatever it is those customs agents get paid to do. Finally, he handed us back our passports as he pawed furtively at his chin; his feebly grown facial hair looked more like rat whiskers than a goatee. “Welcome to America,” he snorted.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Thanks,” we muttered, a substitution for what we really wanted to say: <i>Go fuck yourself.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>---Welcome home, indeed! Stay tuned next week for my adventures on the Mini-bus!</i></div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-24112385786531570952012-02-03T13:29:00.000-08:002012-02-03T13:29:54.594-08:00The Dominican Republic<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span> </span>In just a matter of days, I’ll be melting tanning oil off my body as I sit under a fan of softly swaying palm trees, and sipping frozen drinks with pink umbrellas. If you haven’t guessed already, I’m going on vacation! For two weeks, I’ll be in the Dominican Republic with my ruca and two of my good friends, my “Frisco family.” While I should be squealing like a schoolgirl over her first crush, I can’t help but feel slightly indifferent and I figured out why: Not only does the vacation not seem “real” yet, but I’m not quite sure what to expect…</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span> </span>The reason my vacation probably doesn’t seem “real” is because the winter chill in San Francisco is so poignant, my bones feel like wet washcloths too cold to dry. While the high 60s might be a warm day to some city folks, I feel like a friggin' snowman. Eighty-degree Caribbean humidity is unfathomable! Frozen daiquiris sound absurd! Last night, in my thick winter robe and wooly slipper boots, I held up my bathing suit for the first time in two years and gasped, “I’m going to wear <i>this</i>?” I know my vacation (and the weather) will all be real sooner than I know, and I’ll probably no doubt bake myself silly like a pepperoni sizzling on top of a burning hot pizza, but right now, in a blustering cold city in the middle of winter, paradise still seems like fairytale talk.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span> </span>Also, I have no idea what to expect from the Dominican Republic. Besides reading Dominican writer Junot Diaz's works so spellbound, I nearly ripped pages for turning them so fast, I have little connection with the DR. Although, isn’t that the beauty of traveling? To go to some exotic foreign place you know hardly anything about, and learn their culture firsthand by actually <i>immersing </i>yourself in it?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">I began to think back on some of my other travels and pre-anticipations. Before I studied abroad in Oaxaca, all I knew was that the mole there was off the hook. Now when I think of it, thousands of images and sentiments zap instantaneously back through my mind: I can feel the exuberant buzz swelling through the marketplace, the smells of food, and laughing children running with their <i>trensas</i> trailing behind them like a cape. I recall brilliantly colored <i>alebrijes</i>, exquisite black pottery, <i>tlayudas</i> on the street, se<span>ñ</span>oras in their <i>auténtica blusas, mayates</i> wallowing in cobblestone street puddles. I can still hear the symphony of a thousand birds harmonizing the grand tree of Tule, and reminisce the marvel of feeling like a tiny star in a vast and monstrous galaxy as I overlooked the ancient Monte Alban ruins. Then there was Cuba. Before, all I could think was that the country was an ominous, forbidden place. Now, I remember the dazzling dancers of every café and street-corner in Havana, the magnificence of the <i>Malec<span>ó</span>n</i> clearing in the early morning fog, classic 50s cars sharing the streets with the over-stuffed <i>gua-guas</i>, and striking women proudly filled with voluptuous curves, untouched by American’s obsession with sickly looking skinniness. There was also Jamaica, an island where I once believed everyone smoked weed and called each other ‘mon.’ When I got there, I realized that everyone smoked weed and called each other ‘mon.’ Ah, the wonderments of travel are simply exhilarating!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">While the trip still does not seem real yet, it will be soon enough. Or perhaps that reality will only sink in once I step off the plane and the humid air kinks up my hair fantastically! As for not knowing what to expect, well, I can’t help but think that maybe the unknowing is half the fun of the experience…. In two weeks, just the mere mention of the Dominican Republic will unfurl an entire new world of images and sentiments in my head</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px;">—</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">all of which I will gladly share with you, dear reader. </span></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Stay tuned in mid-February for my next posting!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Extra note: Did I say Cuba? Silly typo, ha ha! Er…I did mention this was a <i>fiction</i> blog, right?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2012</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-72797484585423719562012-01-24T16:42:00.000-08:002012-01-24T17:08:02.472-08:00The Worrywart<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I don’t need anyone to tell me what my problem is—I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> what my problem is: I worry too much. I worry about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything</i>, starting with all the careless shit I did throughout the day, to all futuristic things that are completely out of my control: Did the mailman think I was flirting with him today? Did I mail the car payment on time? What will I do if my kids want to play with Barbies someday? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">This year, I’m trying not to worry as much. I figure it’ll be better for my health in the long run too. If I’m this worried about life now—like I’m a parent to teenagers—imagine what I’ll be like when I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> have them…. Christ, I’ll probably have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ulcers</i> by then. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">My official worrywart syndrome was put to test last week. Skipping out of the bar for my break, I couldn’t wait to eat my homemade pizza and read this book that's so electrifying, I even find myself reading on BART’s escalators. Before marching into the kitchen, I glanced at next week’s schedule, only to discover that I was scheduled to work a day I don’t normally work—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> it was on my ruca’s birthday! I began to choke dementedly, as if my breath were a spindly fish bone, as I checked and re-checked the schedule. There was no way around it: I was working on her birthday, and I was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">screwed</i>! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Panicking, I fled to my manager, spewing some kind of jumble along the lines of “can’t work!” “birthday”, and “doghouse for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">days</i>.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">He’d been watching the bar as my cover, and blinked his doubts at me. “Did you request it off?” </div><div class="MsoNormal"> “Yeah, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">months</i> ago.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"> “Are you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sure</i>?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"> I scratched my head. Now that he mentioned it, I wasn’t. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> I offered solutions of switching the shift around but it didn’t look good. School schedule for this bartender, vacation for another…. A couple came to the bar suddenly and my manager turned around to greet them, his signal that the conversation was over, and tough shit. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> Sighing, I went to the kitchen. “Sara, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">como est</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ás</i>?” the dishwasher chirped at me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bien</i>,” I mumbled.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> “Sarita! <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Qu</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">é te pasa</i>?” Rafa in pantry asked.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nada</i>,” I shrugged irritably. <br />
My pizza was fabulous—with fresh tomatoes, broccoli, and salty kalamata olives—but I ate it with as much enthusiasm as a soggy leftover burrito. The chapter I was reading was as alluring as ever—the protagonist’s ship has just sunk and he finds himself in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger—but the words flickered as much excitement to me as a Monday morning, and my eyes rolled dully across the pages. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Not only was I bummed, but I was worried sick about how my ruca would take the news. “You wanna go to Napa? dinner? a party? Gee, that sounds great but I gotta work.” Or: “Babe, you didn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> want me around on your birthday, did you?” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">She was gonna be pissed! She was gonna be crushed! Five birthdays from now, she’d be licking frosting off her candle and snark at me bitterly, “Remember that birthday you had to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">work</i>?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Somewhere in the back of my head, I heard another voice peep through. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stop worrying!</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Things will work out, they always do. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Except when they don’t</i>, my other voice snapped back. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No!</i> That was negative, pessimist thinking. Miracles happen…sometimes. Really, who knows? Maybe someone will come to me, short for rent, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">beg</i> me for my shift. Or maybe the restaurant will flood, be filled with water like a fishbowl, and by default I’ll get the day off—although I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> don’t think I should hope for that. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sigh</i>. Worse case scenario, I’d work the shift and my ruca would understand—she’d have to.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> My half hour was up. I’d spent my entire break miserable, had hardly remembered what I’d just read, and half of my gourmet pizza was sitting in a massive pile of compost. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">As I grunted my way back to the bar, I checked the schedule, desperate to look for someone I might've missed. But as I looked at it, it was as if my name had magically disappeared from the shift. I’d been swapped for a different day—the ruca’s birthday was now wide open! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">My manager, now standing at the host desk, straightened his tie and winked his silent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You’re welcome</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I was as giddy as gumdrops! I whooped and cheered and beamed! I had the day off, and that was by far the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">best</i> present I could give to my ruca. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Later in bed, I stayed up for hours agonizing. I’d had the perfect chance to prove myself that I didn’t need to worry, and instead, I'd glummed around as miserable as Eeeyore's rain cloud. Would I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i> change? Would I ever learn to have some faith that things work out? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I suddenly realized my irony: I was worried again about worrying when the only thing I should’ve been worried about was losing sleep! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Telling that incessant voice in my head to kindly shut up, I closed my eyes, and melted into peaceful slumber.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2012</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-13499215091560211512012-01-18T07:29:00.000-08:002012-01-18T08:18:50.109-08:00Not Your Superwoman<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">All winter season, I scoffed arrogantly at the sick people around me—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ha!</i> All the snotty-nosed, sniffling, sneezing, headache stricken <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sick</i> people who had <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">let</i> themselves get sick. Not me! I wouldn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">let</i> myself get sick—I was way too in touch with my body to break down. I cook and eat healthy, exercise regularly, and sleep like I’m still a teenager. While masses of germs hailed like bullets through the air, I, Superwoman, would be immune to all of them and not get struck down. Getting sick was for suckers!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The closing of the holiday season at work was starting to kick my ass like a whip to a donkey. My lackadaisical four-day work week had been stretched to six-day back-to-back work weeks with our biggest mid-January convention wrapping up our busy season. Superwoman was wearing thin. Still, I was convinced that I would not exhaust myself until <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after</i> the convention had ended…. Not so. Folding like a cheap poker hand, I woke up Monday morning as miserable as a New Year’s hangover. My head felt like a water balloon before it bursts, and slimy trickles of snot gushed out my nose. My usual morning desires like breakfast, hot tea, and a steaming shower to splash my senses awake were diminished into one sole desire: to collapse my head back into my pillow, and sleep for an entire day. Instead, I went to work.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Ordinary lights pulsated like strobe-lights on my pupils, and ubiquitous noise thundered in my ears like heavy metal. My ego was a bit wounded. I was not immune after all; I had become one of them. I had become…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sick</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">My only relief was calling into work at 7am the next morning, my boss insisting I stay home. Immediately, I fell into sleep’s sweet surrender, overcome by prisms of dreams as my body went to work, exorcising the demon bug out of me. The pockets of time I spent awake were utilized guzzling down pulpy glasses of grapefruit juice, flooding out toxins with copious refills of water, and scalding germs with hot tea. After each waking nap, I slowly un-peeled another layer off myself until I finally woke up feeling…well, better. So I did the two things I always do to uplift my spirits: I wrote and cooked. A note to readers though, that the keyword here is that I did <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> clean up after myself in the least. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The ruca walked into a kitchen filled with colossal stacks of water and juice glasses, teacups filled with soggy tea bags, and my bowl of half-eaten oatmeal crusty in the sink. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Baby</i>,” I reasoned, trying to explain that cleaning was part of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">secondary</i> process of healing.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“You didn’t even make the bed!” she exasperated.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Well technically, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</i> just get out of it,” I shrugged. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Indulging in my soup instead of arguing, we slurped down steaming bowls of lemon-spiked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">caldo</i> with carrots, zucchini and tiny pasta wheels. The lemon coated my throat and steam sizzled into my pores. Something inside me fizzled away as I soaked up my homemade medicine.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> I awoke the next morning super early alert, alive, and so chipper you’d think I was actually a morning person. “I guess I am human, after all, and not Superwoman like I tried to be. Everyone gets sick, even healthy people break down at times,” I chatted with the ruca, as I picked out my clothes for the day. “Even though I hate the feeling of becoming vulnerable to something tougher than me, it’s part of life. You know, it made me think of a quote I read somewhere about crying and I translated its same meaning to being sick. Getting sick doesn’t mean you’re weak; it just means you’ve been strong for too long.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"> I realized suddenly that my conversation was nothing more than a hokey monologue, and that the ruca was sniffling miserably into her pillow. “You got me sick!” she moaned. “I haven’t gotten sick this entire season!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">More glasses would go unwashed, and the bed would probably go unmade again today. But as the ruca sneezed into a fistful of tissue, I realized that I was right: even the strongest can only be Superwoman for so long.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2012</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-36291571974736303782012-01-10T17:40:00.000-08:002012-01-10T17:40:56.667-08:00Jolly Fun Times at the DMV!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Going to the DMV is about as much fun as getting a root canal. Not that I’ve ever had one, but the contorted grimaces of agony I’ve seen on people afterwards pretty much match those who have spent an entire morning dealing with people who hate you at the DMV. Still, the ruca and I had go. Not only had the plates expired a month before, but I’d been walking around with an expired driver’s license (which apparently, hadn’t been a problem, seeing as no one cards me for a glass of wine anymore). </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">As soon as we got there, we waited in line to wait for a number to go sit down and wait some more. Some dude with an angry face like a rowled up pug was the security guard. No taller than five feet (which was probably why he was so pissy), he glared at all of us as if we were conspiring terrorists with a nefarious plot to blow up the DMV (one could only fantasize), instead of agro locals who’d all been forced to throw our coffees away at the door. I noticed a very confused mentally ill woman talking to herself as she lugged a tattered blue suitcase that looked like it was from her hitchhiking days in the 60s. The guard growled at her to wait outside until the inside line had moved along, which seemed to terribly upset her. The ruca and I looked at each other. Why does the DMV seem to bring out the worst in people?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">They were calling groups A-G with a number like B-25, a random system with about as much rhyme and reason as a Bingo game. We took our seats and waited…and waited. Next to us sat the poor lady with the suitcase who kept asking herself “Why, why, why?” without an answer. Suddenly, the ruca gasped. “We can take care of both registration <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> your license renewal at the same window, right?” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Of course we can,” I scoffed. “This is the DM—” Immediately sensing the irony of my words, I shot out of my chair back to the info window to go ask. The only thing more tedious than waiting in line is being told to wait in it again. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Below my eye level in my peripheral vision, I could see someone shouting at me to “sit down.” I debated validating the security guard’s ego by giving him any attention, but decided against it. I had every right as a human being to ask a question without being ordered to “sit” like I was some kind of dog—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he</i> was the one with the ugly pug face. He barked at me again. “Sit down!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“No!” I snarled back at him, swallowing down my boiling temper. “I am <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> going to sit down! I have a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">question</i> for this lady.” My space at the info window suddenly opened up, and although the lady assured me that I wouldn’t have to wait in two lines, I was still fuming when I slummed back into my seat. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Everything okay?” the ruca asked. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Oh yeah,” I blasted, feeling slightly delirious. “Just having a jolly ol’ time at the DMV.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back to the waiting game, not a single D was called for nearly 40 minutes. Growing antsy, we bonded with people around us, who all mostly had Ds and were just as irritated. “Do you have a D?” “How ‘bout you?” “No, they haven’t called a single one.” The guard squinted at us, suspicious of an arising revolt which wasn’t too far off. In fact, we’d grown quite rowdy, hollering “What the fuck?!” every time another B was called. When they finally started calling the Ds, we knew the employees had finally gotten the point and that they in fact did <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> want their chairs hurled across the room. We cheered madly. Yes, we were that obnoxious crowd. Don’t mess with the D group. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When our D-72 was finally called, the ruca and I jumped out of our chairs and flew to window 19 before anyone could change their minds. A young woman with red and green glittered acrylic tips looked up at us and rolled her eyes. Our thrill at being called was short-lived as we handed over our paperwork along with several hundred bucks for registration, late fees, an unpaid parking ticket with another late fee, and whatever other annoying fee they felt like tagging on, like a human existence fee. My stomach was growling terribly for breakfast as we finished up, but there was one last line to wait in which was also the moment of truth: the photo line for my new license.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fluffing my hair and glossing my lips, I prayed for that perfect shot. The suitcase lady was behind me again knocking madly on her head, which were my sentiments exactly, but I forced myself to focus; I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> to take a good picture—it would be the face I showed for the next four years! When I finally got to the front, a lady with a terrible red dye job and jingle bell earrings snapped at me, “Stand there and smile! Okay on three: One, two, three!” I waited…no flash. I held my perfectly posed smile open revealing a mouthful of teeth…nothing. When the count had finally reached about seven or so, I dropped my frozen face to ask her if she’d taken it when—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">flash!</i> “Thank you. Next!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Wait!” I shrieked. “I think I might’ve blinked, or made a face...can I see it?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“No,” she said. “New regulations—no one can see their photos.” She looked at her screen at the top-secret picture. “You look…<i>fine</i>.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“But I’m gonna have it for the next four years! Can’t I at least <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">see</i> it so I can <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">maybe</i> retake it?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She shook her head, making her earrings jingle. “Sorry,” she smacked, unconvincingly. “NEXT!” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Helpless against a seemingly impossible system, the ruca and I shuffled out, ready for a late breakfast at our fave spot, and micheladas to wash the bitter taste out of our mouths. (The rest of our afternoon had all been determined that first hour.) Although we'd given the DMV almost three hours of our morning, it didn't seem to matter now. We would continue on with our day, and the DMV would continue being…well, the DMV. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">© Sarah C. Jiménez 2012, All Rights Reserved </div><!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-78309181009317664122011-12-19T22:56:00.000-08:002011-12-20T00:03:14.330-08:00Ghosts of Christmas Past (and Now)<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Last Christmas I awoke to the movie scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Christmas Story</i> when Ralphie’s dad opens the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fragile</i> stamped box with that infamous leg lamp. “Fra-gee-lay. It must be Italian!” I burst into tears at the realization that I was alone on Christmas Day. Back home in San Diego, my entire family was celebrating without me: my mom would be singing terribly off-key to Christmas carols on KYXY; my younger sister would be trying to weasel my mom into letting her open “just one” present; my older sister would be well on her second cup of coffee, and my dad would be bursting through the door (an hour late), wearing a Santa hat and hauling a garbage bag filled with presents. Even my ruca was down south celebrating with her family, eating pozole and tamales. So I did what I was left alone to do: I went to work and sucked it up. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Like most normal kids who love presents, I always loved Christmases growing up. My only downfall every year was the fact that my younger sister always got more presents than me. (“MOM! Why does Laura have 22 presents and I only have 18?”) Still, it was such an exciting time. Our family would go pick out a tree, then we’d decorate it while listening to Christmas records and sipping hot cocoa with marshmallows. My mom always had the final hand at the tree’s decorations, hung streams of tinsel in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sala</i>, and arranged the nativity scene just so; things were always made beautiful by her touch. My dad would put out his little train that ran around the tree, and I would curl up on the couch and read my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Babysitters Club</i> books beside the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">taka-taka-taka</i> of the miniature locomotive beating over the tracks. Each year he would also groan tiredly and say, “I don’t know about the lights this year, sweetheart,” and each year I would stubbornly go out and hang them anyway until the ladder made him nervous and he came to help. T</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">hese are the memories that spark like magic through my mind. Joy fell down all around me as if in a snowglobe. The excitement, the thrill—the presents!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I looked forward to our annual family Christmas parties as much as I looked forward to Christmas itself. Our house vibrated with the sizzle of Spanish, and heaping plates of tamales took over the entire table. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tios</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">primos</i> were in every corner of our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">casa</i>; the men talked about football while my glamorous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tias—</i>all made up beautifully, with their fresh coats of lipstick and clouds of perfume—fussed over how the tamales turned out. Gangs of us kids ran in packs through the house, gulping down handfuls of red and green M&M’s, us girls dolled up in our lil’ red dresses. My closest cousin Karla and I were the designated olive stuffers on the tamale assembly line, and we took great pleasure in finding out who the “winner” was that night who had gotten their tamale stuffed with 10 olives—much to our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tias’</i> annoyance. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Now when I come home, my mom defrosts the tamales that have been frozen from weeks ago. The ornaments I grew up with—“Sarah Bear,” “Baby’s first Christmas 1980,” and a Santa head from my 2<sup>nd</sup> grade teacher—are split between both my parents on their artificial trees. I don't hold this against my parents, but it is bittersweet. The fresh burst of pine that once filled the house diminished with my childhood.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This year, my ruca and I joined our friends—our Frisco <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">familia</i>—in their tree decorating ritual. As we listened to the <i>chiquita</i> sing Christmas carols and Katy Perry, I realized that just because I’m not a kid anymore doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy Christmas. I’ll always hold the Christmases of my childhood very dear to me; now they’ve just evolved. They say the holidays are the “happiest time of the year,” although if you’re already happy of where you are in your life, then the jingle bells and jolliness only magnifies that feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I was lucky to get time off of work this year. I’ll be in San Diego with my family and will spend Christmas Eve with my in-laws. This of course means double family, double tamales, and damn does the ruca's <i>familia</i></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> know how to get down with some bomb-ass pozole. I will also finally lie to rest the ever-notorious battle of presents between the middle child and the perpetual baby of the family. In the true spirit of the holidays, I promise I won’t get mad if my younger sis gets more presents than me…in fact, I might just encourage it. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Happy Holidays! Felices Fiestas! See you in 2012...</span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQVzHLlrLkKImgylrET-jmpXRmTSyo6jHMUtSTuLi_OvuguzIjhVv91syo_Zs4DHzAG9f_zJXYv9n2m-erVFt5WNjKXfK1BIDQbCw3kReFpYygv-DMdB6SdHusuZBH4WsSVjbMoNV-8P8/s1600/IMG_1869.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQVzHLlrLkKImgylrET-jmpXRmTSyo6jHMUtSTuLi_OvuguzIjhVv91syo_Zs4DHzAG9f_zJXYv9n2m-erVFt5WNjKXfK1BIDQbCw3kReFpYygv-DMdB6SdHusuZBH4WsSVjbMoNV-8P8/s320/IMG_1869.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>It's not technically our tree, but we can pretend!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria;">© All Rights Reserved, 2011</span></div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-18084298081581096592011-11-21T18:14:00.000-08:002011-11-21T18:14:32.822-08:00"Retarded"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I was on the bus coming home, the 14 as crowded as ever. Crammed between a clique of teenage girls, I couldn't help but overhear their conversation. “How do you not know how to post a photo on facebook?” one of them was saying. “Seriously, you’re fucking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">retarded</i>.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The rest of the girls laughed, even the “retarded” one. I hear people throw that word around a lot, and it always burns me inside. What are people trying to say when they call someone or something retarded? That it is stupid? dumb? incompetent? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">As the bus lagged along, I thought about my younger sister. Growing up, I always knew she was “different” somehow. Her almond slanted eyes didn’t quite match mine and my older sister’s rotund peeps. And my parents doted over her with a unique type of fuss, rarely punishing her for doing something wrong. (When she was six, she went through a phase of waking up every morning and dumping boxes of cereal onto the kitchen floor—and not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">once</i> did she get put in a time-out.) There was other stuff that set her apart from us too: her words didn’t have the same lucidity as mine did, and that smaller yellow bus took her to a different school every morning. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I overheard conversations my parents had with other adults. Words like ‘Down Syndrome’ and ‘Junior Arthritis’ didn’t make much sense to me then. What did an “extra chromosome” have to do with the fact that she was always at the doctor’s, or in and out of hospitals for numerous operations? “She has special needs, her body works differently than yours,” my mother explained. I took it for what it was and all throughout my childhood we were inseparable, always playing together; sometimes school, where I’d teach her colors, or restaurant with PB&J sandwiches, or nursery with our Cabbage Patch Kids. We played like sisters, tattled and fought, loved like sisters, and stuck our tongue out at the other when our mom hugged one of us—the way squabbling sisters do. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Now that I’m older and have moved away, she plays the harmonica on my visits home, as soon as I walk through the door. And when we watch movies cuddled on the couch, she looks adoringly up at me and coos, “I love you, sis.” As I listened to the girls on the bus, I wondered if they would still call each other “retarded” if they would’ve seen the blurry look in my sister’s eyes when my date picked me up on prom night; or if they would’ve been there to sing happy birthday to my sister while she lie bed-rest in ICU, a 50/50 chance of surviving the pneumonia her tiny lungs were fighting…</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The bus slammed on its brakes, finally at my stop. I freed myself from the pockets of people and bid the girls a silent adios. They were still laughing, passing around pictures on one of the girls’ phones. I could tell by their innocent happiness that they were not evil or mean-spirited girls in the least. They were just young and maybe not mature enough to realize how painfully ignorant their language was. They were girls who were special though, and loved by someone; they were someone’s daughter and they were someone’s friend. And maybe—and very likely—they were even someone’s sister. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IWc0x4ShH6buF4mrjBK9dpTeod6hl17A7qg0LqOHYi5U0qiiAthtMSBJ8UbotzVffP7SqnNvYwRarsEgEGEMgxDdVyDUhneYtb2pInnuGTlUd2feMmn29koVC3MkJjNV5C69lbnCbNM/s1600/IMG_1146.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IWc0x4ShH6buF4mrjBK9dpTeod6hl17A7qg0LqOHYi5U0qiiAthtMSBJ8UbotzVffP7SqnNvYwRarsEgEGEMgxDdVyDUhneYtb2pInnuGTlUd2feMmn29koVC3MkJjNV5C69lbnCbNM/s320/IMG_1146.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>At a cousin's wedding, 2011</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">© All Rights Reserved, 2011</div><!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-80036526058838652742011-11-15T19:09:00.000-08:002011-11-15T19:15:48.773-08:00The Birthday Dress (& Heels!)<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Every year I buy myself a birthday dress. This year, when I stepped out of the dressing room in a smoldering silver number, my ruca was speechless and the Ambiance attendant swore I looked like a curly-haired J.Lo</span>—<span class="Apple-style-span">so of course I was sold. And because turquoise is my birthstone color, it was only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">natural</i> that I sought out a pair of turquoise suede heels, right? Now many of you may think I’m going over the top, but considering I wear a boring black uniform to work and dress bundled in layers year-round, I don’t mind giving myself <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one day</i> to work the hell out of a skin tight <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">firme</i> dress and be able to stop traffic on Mission Street.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Aside from buying my annual dress, I also make birthday/early New Year’s resolutions. This year is unique though, as my goal will not just be “getting my novel published,” nor will I beat myself up for <i>not</i> getting it published again… </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">In my late teens, I began writing a coming-of-age novel about three girls who lose their fourth best friend in a car accident. Between the lines of the 518 double-spaced pages is not only a beautiful story, but a decade of my soul’s evolution. Because I played “god” at creating these characters who came to life in my head, I sometimes still feel a weary sense of nostalgia for them that perhaps only a puppet-maker could explain. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">While I’ve wallowed in self-pity many years over not getting the novel published, I haven’t given myself credit for the process of simply <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">becoming</i> a writer. Indeed, it has been a journey. I spent an entire year submitting my manuscript to publishing houses, only to find out by one of those how-to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dummy</i> books that unsolicited submissions are about as likely to get read as a letter to Santa Claus. (Talk about feeling like a dummy.) Deciding I needed some experience beefing up my resume, I spent another year interning for a weekly city paper and a magazine. I learned <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lots</i> of things that year: one, that I’m lousy at fact-checking and that mistakes in print really suck; two, that transcribing is not meant for day-dreamers with ADD; and three—and most importantly—I learned that I didn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want</i> to work for a magazine or newspaper. Sure, being a food critic forced to sample 20 different ice cream flavors for “research” was fun, but I am a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fiction writer</i>. I want to write short and long stories, not only about myself, but about the imaginary people in my head that I breathe life into. (Call me crazy; I call myself a writer.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">This past year, I’ve undergone a major growth spurt in my writing. Starting a blog where I can openly share my work has been monumental. I’ve begun talking with other writers, going to workshops and authors’ talks, and getting on twitter and facebook to advertise myself. I’ve been invited to a spoken word in Albuquerque next year by some down-ass Chicana writers—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">awesomeness</i>—and even decided recently to go back to school. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">While it may have taken lots of time (and many birthday dresses) to realize what type of writer I want to be, I’m not focusing on what I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didn’t</i> become over the years or what I haven’t gotten published. Instead, come December 1<sup>st</sup>, I will be celebrating what I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> become and the fact that I’m continuing on my path…. Having a super <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">firme</i> dress (and heels) to cross that rite of passage in will just be the icing on my birthday cake. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKElVA4Q2XV5HKzsTTSRRv4WdVivTnGpDFFqFWPebadsTT4CxAYY8kx0KrR1g1cXt_WxbhAbjkhtGBgZNM6ZU9uMBZrmzZEXvAVzuTkteu5hqKfsIh-qsX_SXcgO0FBak3tptoltocjgM/s1600/IMG_1700.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKElVA4Q2XV5HKzsTTSRRv4WdVivTnGpDFFqFWPebadsTT4CxAYY8kx0KrR1g1cXt_WxbhAbjkhtGBgZNM6ZU9uMBZrmzZEXvAVzuTkteu5hqKfsIh-qsX_SXcgO0FBak3tptoltocjgM/s320/IMG_1700.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Can I walk in these? Who cares!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">©All Rights Reserved, 2011</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-56888005248581893162011-10-31T14:29:00.000-07:002011-11-01T09:18:42.966-07:00Día de los Muertos<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In honor of D</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ía de los Muertos, I’ve written a special tribute to honor those in my life who have passed on. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aunt Lucy</i></b>: When I think of you, I think of hot summers in L.A., melting popsicles and sticky fingers, playing your piano off-key for hours, and both my sister and I anxious over breakfast while we waited for that sleeping beauty daughter of yours to wake up. (“Maybe another hour, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mijas</i>.”) Growing older, I realized the things that had made you gracious (besides your sophisticated collection of high heels my sister and I envied over); there was always coffee in your home, a sweet to nibble on, and conversation that penetrated a layer deeper than the surface—there was a genuine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">care</i> of our lives. You were elegant, classy, a strong current always at the core of your essence. I keep a picture of you on my vanity; so when I’m powdering my nose and glossing my lips, I’m reminded of how much I love a woman’s glamour.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">David</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">:</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Smile now, cry later</i>—that’s what was tatted on your chest, with the masks that peek-a-booed out to your neck. Mama always said don’t hang out with no thugs, but for some reason I never had a curfew when I was with you. Your natural charm and the polite, yet un-phony way you greeted my mom got me out of the house. Then, it was joints and 40s galore (good ol’ King Cobra and seedy dime sacks). We sat on the porch steps of your hood, talking, indulging, waiting for life around us to happen. But while monotonous suburbia track-homes towered up around me, I grew restless, itching to escape. You came to say goodbye on my last day, to wish me luck in San Francisco. You were a new man. Your eyes shone as you spoke of your newborn; how you’d held him on top of you and drifted asleep as your hearts beat chest-to-chest. “There’s no feeling like it in the world, Sarah,” you confided. And there were tears in your eyes. A couple months later, my sister and I were sitting on the porch of a bar under an orange tree. I’d just gotten the news from back home about the red light you’d run, and the oncoming car… We guzzled through pints of beer as oranges fell down all around us; it was as if someone were shaking the tree by its roots.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grandma Celia</i></b>: We weren’t that close because copious years had already washed over you, like waves over a shell in the sand, until one day the current was strong enough to simply sweep you away. But for the one special day in my childhood that you babysat me, I was your only<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> nieta</i>. In your tiny nest of a home, I shadowed you through the natural rhythms of your routine: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">novelas</i> in the background, a leisurely stroll over to Safeway (you whistling the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">entire</i> time), tortillas with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">queso fresco</i>, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Otra tortilla mijita?</i>” I wanted to know you so badly. How had my own mother looked to you the way I’d always looked to her? What was it in our parallel blood that made us Corral? Did you have that same restlessness that ached inside me too? You were an entity of mystery to me. I yearned for something in you that I could not explain. We sat calmly on the sofa together; you watching your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">novelas</i>, me watching you. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpvOb7unKdcPXSheSlAgOMDr2R5xad8HPNkUsRFvlX6rsvBbfpSSm43JCH22zorEZ4HJ04f0l2uv4JGpRJoL4c_FxwkJQheSxXmnqcYrunBEt1_tc3H6SKDpNx5oFJfWmBzpxeFZRh7Ag/s1600/IMG_1379.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpvOb7unKdcPXSheSlAgOMDr2R5xad8HPNkUsRFvlX6rsvBbfpSSm43JCH22zorEZ4HJ04f0l2uv4JGpRJoL4c_FxwkJQheSxXmnqcYrunBEt1_tc3H6SKDpNx5oFJfWmBzpxeFZRh7Ag/s320/IMG_1379.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nick</i></b>: At first you were just the new guy that everyone at the pizza parlor gravitated towards. But even after many months, the novelty of you never wore off; you were charming and fit into our tight-knit staff of family beautifully. There were jokes on the assembly line and beat-boxing over side-work. At closing time, all of us slipped quarters in the jukebox and video games, ate leftover pizza and raided the beer-taps, with you always at the center of our attentions. Then one day, an alarm of emergency spewed through us; after you’d gone on break, our delivery driver found your orange jacket on the side of the road before the paramedics in a horrific three-car crash. Days later, we all stood on the side of the street where it’d happened. The traffic of cars was so deceivingly innocent in the morning. I looked behind us, struck by the irony of a fully flourished field of weeds. Four teenagers had lost their lives on one street: you, my friend’s brother, your other friend, and a teenage girl in an oncoming car who was learning to drive for the first time. We stood there, shattered, as cars continued to speed by and weeds continued to grow. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gustavo</i></b>: I still choke at the sight of the cherry tree blossoms every spring; earth is revealing her new year of promise to us, and you’re not here to see it. I’d never lived your life, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t understand it. There were many talks about those other years…sometimes you’d cry and sometimes I’d cry with you. On a quest to heal, there were walks in the woods, drives through the city, carne asada at family parties, cookies because my mom always stocked up on your visits, and your favorite: all-day home-cooked meals. There would be beer while you cooked and wine with dinner. Our aromatic laughter seasoned the food as much as chiles and oregano. And now…and now what? Now there is an empty seat at family get-togethers. Now our tamales are missing an essential ingredient. Now I can only love your memory, and love you through your wife and daughter, both of whom I adore. And that love, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">primo, </i>is unconditional too.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Also, a special </i>bendición<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> to my </i>suegro<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, who I never had the honor of knowing. Salvador, I’ve loved so much of what remains of you, it’s as if we’ve been </i>familia<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> all along.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2011</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-10654028486321670162011-10-24T17:35:00.000-07:002011-10-24T17:35:53.349-07:00Down The Escalator<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"> The problem with the homeless in San Francisco is that after awhile, the locals become almost immune to caring for them. When they’re zig-zagging the sidewalk like bug-eyed zombies screaming at an invisible dog, we nonchalantly turn up our I-pods and walk past them. When that crazy long haired dude who looks like Jesus flown over the cuckoo’s nest is trying to sell you roses, we politely say no—if we say anything at all. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Today began playing out like any other day as I got on the escalator, coming home from downtown. I saw the same black homeless man downstairs in front of the train station that I see almost everyday. Instinctively, I began to play dumb, looking busy so I’d be too distracted to “see him” as I rummaged through bags filled from my latest shopping spree. Before I could un-wrap a Mac turquoise eyeliner (that I may or may not ever use), something about the man caught my attention: Shuffling nervously, he went up to two other black men—tourists—who were struggling to get their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">LV</i> decked luggage onto the escalator going up. He cleared his throat…tapped them on the shoulder. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The tourists crinkled their faces like they’d just stepped in dog shit. In front of them, the man was holding up a Street-Sheet. (It’s a monthly paper written by the homeless for the homeless to freely sell for a buck as an “alternative” to panhandling.) </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Street Sheet, brutha?” he asked them. “It’s our special poetry edition.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The tourists, dressed in ironed polos, black shades, and flecks of silver shining from their necks, swatted at him as if he were a horse-fly in the kitchen. “Nah man, get away,” they thwarted. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“It…it’s only a buck,” he choked at them, clutching lamely at the paper.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The men became angry. They’d just gotten their suitcases on the stairs, and we began to cross each other; me going down, them going up. “Man, get away! Don’t ask me again if I already told your broke-ass no!” “Yeah, man, get your raggedy-ass a real job!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Their reaction seemed to sting the “bum.” And then, it occurred to me that in all the years I’ve seen him, I didn’t know this man’s story at all; What if he’d had everything at once, and lost it all in one streak of bad luck? Maybe he’d gotten the pink slip from his kindergarten teaching class, and his wife and kids took off with a richer man after the house foreclosed. Without a clean shower, interview clothes, and a legit address to reference, it’d become harder and harder to pull himself back up…and now here he was. I didn’t know this man’s life but what I did know was that he had probably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seen</i> himself in those men—with their fancy luggage, polished leather shoes, and Ray-bans, no less. He saw probably what he could’ve been, and maybe who he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wanted</i> to be. But the tourists, same skin color or not, did not see themselves in the bum at all. If they had, it repulsed them.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Hollering “stupid-ass bum” and “raggedy-ass motherfucker” all the way to the top, the men’s bodies grew smaller against the backdrop of towering buildings until they disappeared completely out of sight.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I felt terrible as I dragged off the escalator. While people around had gawked and stared, no one made a single gesture of empathy. And then, everything carried on as it was before: Tourists poured out of the station, unfolding their maps and squinting up at the sky; a flock of teens lit up a blunt; a clique of girls smacked me out of their way with their Forever 21 bags.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiALLyE6rvJJz8p8KdufzN0gsBhg_UQCfWRZpzHLshE2t11tooUl-j638wmVVk6ACq7gZp8MVRo3RwZlvx4vyxm5IBjWSZX_IuOWygYWLi48NBmFPBr41gK2ivHlUrC-VJ_EWdZtLIvamk/s1600/IMG_1368.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiALLyE6rvJJz8p8KdufzN0gsBhg_UQCfWRZpzHLshE2t11tooUl-j638wmVVk6ACq7gZp8MVRo3RwZlvx4vyxm5IBjWSZX_IuOWygYWLi48NBmFPBr41gK2ivHlUrC-VJ_EWdZtLIvamk/s320/IMG_1368.JPG" width="238" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I couldn’t get just leave and get on the train though. I knew I had to do <i>something</i>. (I wouldn’t leave someone abandoned on the side of the street who’d just gotten hit by a car—how could I leave someone who’d just been emotionally run over?) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Reaching in my purse, I tapped the homeless man on the shoulder. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">He turned around quickly, not meeting my eyes. I wondered if they had tears in them. I handed him a five-dollar bill—it was the only money I had, and it was supposed to be my B<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">art</span> fare home. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As I waited for my good Samaritan-ness to be rewarded with a filling look of gratitude in his eyes, I was stunned instead, that the man snatched the bill out of my hand and pocketed it without even a thank you. When his eyes finally looked into mine, I flinched away like a bird with a wounded wing. His soul seemed to have vanished. His black eyes were hollow—no feeling or emotion attached—and the only thing that made him human was the jittery twitches of his body. He was a dead man walking, his entire livelihood sold to nothing more than his daily fixes of crack or heroin. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">As quickly as I’d given him the money, he was gone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Suddenly, the reality of what I’d done kicked in: I’d just assed myself out of a train ride home!</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">*</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I fought with some rowdy kids and a lady with a stroller to “sneak” on the back of the bus. The driver rolled her eyes at us, and mouthed what looked like “sons-of bitches” under her breath. My no-hassle 10-minute train ride home had turned into a 45-minute trek across town—and, of course, I picked the aisle seat next to some girl yelling at her boyfriend the entire time that he was “hella stupid” for not calling her back last night. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">When I finally got home, I must’ve chugged an entire beer down in one standing. The buzz went straight to my head, smoothing out those rough edges almost instantly. I played Scrabble on my I-phone and dug through my shopping spree purchases, while nibbling on leftover pizza from last night’s delivery. Back to my perky self in no time and buzzed off Blue Moon, I thought back on my deed of the day. And that’s when I realized, who was I to judge anyone on how to get their fix?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">© All Rights Reserved</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-47803492288365304832011-10-17T02:37:00.000-07:002011-10-17T02:37:01.734-07:00Riding a Bike<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The first time my dad took the training wheels off my bike was like a classic T.V. sitcom moment: Dad held my cherry red Schwinn as he sprinted beside me. “Pedal faster,” he instructed. I pedaled faster. “Keep going, sweet-heart!” I did! I kept going, pedaling fast and faster until I was no longer a leaf attached to the branches of his arms; it was just me on my bike, streaking down the sidewalk, a blast of Shirley Temple curls trailing behind me. The rest of my childhood, if I wasn’t reading books (the entire <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Babysitter’s Club</i> series), or spying on my older, cooler sister, I was on my bike. We lived in a quiet serene neighborhood, and I lived for my parents’ instructions of “Go outside and play.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For my 6<sup>th</sup> grade graduation, I was gifted a 10-speed mountain bike...but something inside me had fizzled away. My leaves had changed. I no longer wanted to ride my bike to spy on the neighborhood “crazy” who had about a hundred animals in her backyard (including a very cool llama, and a one-eyed cat). I no longer cared to ride to the orchards of pomegranate trees, where I would bask in the shade and watch passing clouds in the sky. (I’ve <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> been a dreamer.) Instead, I became more interested in trying to smoke my first cigarette, and of taking those <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Does he like you?</i> quizzes from big sis’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seventeen</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">My dad ended up taking the bike with him when my parents divorced; a surefire symbol that the ride of my childhood had ended. Years passed. Over 15. Then last year, on a visit up to San Francisco, my dad strapped a bike onto his jeep, drove it up, and proudly boasted, “Here. A present for you.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The entire time it had served as a lovely ornament in the garage, collecting dust alongside our friend’s bike. But the other Saturday morning, the ruca suggested we take out the ol’ wheels. At first I thought she was crazy. Frisco streets are a parade of pandemonium! I’ve always been terrified to bike the streets and share with hundreds of busses, Muni trains, camera-snapping tourists spilling out of cable-cars, way-agro cab drivers, and pedestrians who take their ‘right of way’ as seriously as their middle-finger. (Just last week, I saw the 14 slice a rearview mirror clean off a Lexus, while a gang of teens in the back of the bus hollered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boo-yah!</i>) Still, my ruca was determined to soak up the few days of our Indian summer, and pretty soon I was determined too, but also a little bit annoyed with myself; Why (and how) had I grown to be such a freakin’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wuss</i>? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Ready to take on a new adventure by the handlebars, I marched my no-guts-no-glory ass outside and did something I hadn’t done in years: I got on a bike. Instantly, my feet re-connected with the pedals, my hands with the brakes. Everything flooded back to me, a déjà vu like haze of my childhood blooming through as an adult. Clearly, this was not a difficult task like recalling the Pythagorean theorem; it was something you could never forget, as easy to remember as—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">duh</i>—riding a bike. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The wind splashed on my face and whipped at the curls that had escaped from my helmet. Why is that when we get older, we become more afraid? Is it because the more we live in life, the more we potentially have to lose? Or is it because we’ve begun to live long enough to know that we are not invincible? For years I’ve been scared of riding a bike, and even though I didn’t know that fear as a child, it had engulfed me somehow as an adult. I’ll admit that while the thought of eating shit on the Muni tracks is still kinda scary, I was no longer going to let that fear be a reason for not wanting to ride. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The city was the same as any other day, but it all felt completely different on two wheels. I zipped past herds of people packed in coffee shops and sipping mimosas at brunch spots. I watched employees flip their signs to ‘open’ in the window of boutiques. I chuckled at the religious señoras with their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Despierta!</i> pamphlets as they stood beside the shouting preachers clutching their bibles. Then, as I pedaled fast and faster, everything became a blur…Yoga mats, grocery tote bags, skaters filming their friends eating shit, pigeons in puddles, murals on schools and liquor stores, a man with no legs and a ‘Jesus Loves You’ sign, Goood Frickin’ Chicken, a tatted-up dude with a pet parrot, the rainbows of Castro, drunks in alleys, March for your rights Oct. 29<sup>th</sup>, $8 corte de pelo, Shoe Biz, best Bloody Mary’s in Town!, Free HIV testing, men playing dice, howling kids on playgrounds, Naan-N-Curry, hopeful workers on César Ch<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">á</span>vez Street, pizza by the slice, pastel colored projects next to exquisite Victorians, seedy strip clubs—XXX, GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS!—pupuser<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">í</span>as, boba in your fruit drinks, the gated up GUNS shop, cops interrogating cholos while stoned-ass hipsters tapped their badges for a match, BuY $1 bOOks here!, a new show at the Roxie tonight…the city unfolded before my eyes like a thousand Polaroids as I blew past it. It was an early Saturday afternoon and the streets were as alive as after. I reveled in that same glorious sensation of feeling so alive and new—as if my dad had just taken off my training wheels for the first time.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntIhppfQ0CznAOqExF2FEi3MysOw4LJyEVO8iEGLh4jLlX6Dv3f9GM-QaDQA5KTQ__gFKmUMwbgjciVGy-x9_WXNuGzY-WlgHGdb6xK3EKebDuoFiH7XaroxsbBzOImyS-7-WJUhM3VQ/s1600/IMG_1270.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntIhppfQ0CznAOqExF2FEi3MysOw4LJyEVO8iEGLh4jLlX6Dv3f9GM-QaDQA5KTQ__gFKmUMwbgjciVGy-x9_WXNuGzY-WlgHGdb6xK3EKebDuoFiH7XaroxsbBzOImyS-7-WJUhM3VQ/s400/IMG_1270.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-63812489837478261642011-10-10T19:50:00.000-07:002011-10-17T00:16:54.165-07:00La Santa Cecilia<div class="MsoNormal"> We were off to San Jose, that close yet distant town from Emerald City. It was a Saturday night, the car was filled up with our homegirls, and we guzzled down Fat Tire in coffee thermoses with the same merriment as frat boys doing keg stands. (Except for my ruca, who was designated driver.) We were going to see La Santa Cecilia, a Latino band from L.A. who my ruca has been raving about since she saw their last show. I wasn’t thrilled that she wanted to go again, or rather that she wanted to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">take me</i> with her. Concerts aren’t really my thing. Besides getting nervous in huge crowds, I don’t dance salsa. Or merengue. Or cumbias. Or…well, you get the point. That’s not to say I can’t dance—indeed, I can bootie-shake like no one’s business. But anything that involves a 1-2-3 step with a partner, a dip, a twist and a twirl, and I am lost. I didn’t grow up salsa dancing at home—I grew up listening to my parents’ Beatles and Elvis, and watching my mom bust the Mashed Potatoes, the Watusi, and the Twist! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Needless to say, going to a concert where I’d spend the evening as a cute lil’ wallflower surrounded by flocks of Latinos who really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> how to cut a rug, did not sound like a fun night—but I decided to go. While I powdered my nose and glossed my lips, I promised myself that tonight, I would enjoy a different taste of life out of my comfort zone. After all, I am too young to be a 30-year old “square;” a helpless homebody who’s life is consumed only with work and writing. I needed to break loose a little—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">live</i>. I needed to color in the black and whites of my soul, and feed myself a new adventure.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">We arrived at our destination early. Or maybe the show started late, whatever. Sipping cocktails in the lounge of an uppity hotel, I admired the two striking women sitting next to us who chatted with our homegirls. One was dressed in a stunning autentica blusa with brightly embroidered flowers. A long elegant trensa hung down her back like a crow’s feather. The other woman had cute curly hair and chic framed glasses that would’ve looked silly on me, but looked unfairly cool on her. Conversation flowed easily with them, which is how I quickly found out that they had not come to see the band—they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">were</i> the band! I took a big gulp of my vodka on the rocks, keeping my cool yet completely blown away. These rockeras were down to earth, cool as shit—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">raza</i>—and they shared awesome stories of their international travels. We congratulated them on their Grammy nomination for their song, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Negra</i>. I was mesmerized by their humbleness. I was in complete awe of their super chill vibe. I was…already a fan. <s><o:p></o:p></s></div><div class="MsoNormal"> When it was time for them to go on, we raised our glasses, threw them back, and made our way inside. Lights simmered low with the spotlights glowing only on the band. All at once, their music filled the room, heating up the hazy club like steam in Mama’s kitchen. Between the guitar and the drums and the accordion, all of the instruments blended together vibrantly, a tie-dye spiral of sounds. The singer’s voice was incredible, switching high notes to low as easy as a snap, her Spanish and Spanglish a melodic sizzle. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The booths along the wall emptied out. Glasses clinked, toes were stomped on. Girls wiggled in their mini dresses and stilettos, their heels skinny as a needle, and eager guys scanned the crowd, searching for whichever girl would say yes to them. Two girls got kicked out for almost fighting, and another girl in the tightest animal print dress I’d ever seen fell face-flat on the floor not once, but twice. (I almost caught her drink on the second <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">timberrr</i> down, but missed.) I was hardly fazed. I didn’t need to know fancy footwork, like salsa or cumbias—my hips were fluid on my body, riding the rhythm of the songs like a surfboard coasting along a wave. Between me and my homegirls shooting up our pulses in sync to the beating songs, a warp of time captured us, and swallowed us away. Too soon they were performing their last song. The slosh of crowd almost turned rowdy, demanding more as they hollered back at them: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Otra, otra!</i>” The band shrugged, giving their fans what they wanted. And their last song they left us with? A beautiful rendition of the Beatles’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strawberry Fields</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Gratified, I reflected back on the night. I’d not only gotten out of my comfort zone and tried something new, I’d genuinely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enjoyed</i> myself. I tossed my arm around my ruca, swaying gently to the final song as the mood shifted to a mellow flutter. And in case you were wondering, I did not bust out the Mashed Potatoes, or the Watusi to this song…just a very mild Twist to my signature bootie-shake. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Check out the band! Here’s a link to their homepage, and a YouTube clip of them. Good luck at the Grammys, guys!<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><a href="http://lasantacecilia.com/">http://lasantacecilia.com/ </a><br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSjaTWoTT4I">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSjaTWoTT4I </a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2011</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-50149669094855364932011-10-03T19:04:00.000-07:002011-10-03T20:52:02.962-07:00The Night Run<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Normally, streams of sunshine pour through the capes of leaves that hang from the trees, but tonight, all I could see were their branches, curling out like witch’s fingers. At my insistence, the ruca and I went for a jog after work, except we waited a little too late. The last rays of twilight had flickered away, and the innocent beauties of day felt tainted by the inability to see them at night. Instead, I noticed all the eerie nuances of night-life that thrived on Bernal Hill: cobwebs drooled across street signs; scampers in the bushes kept me on alert; sticks crackled, and dirt kicked up at our feet like puffs of smoke.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">We sprinted up the last staircase that leads to the top of the hill where we run one arduous lap. I led the way since I have the keen eyesight of a cat (compensation, probably, for my hearing that’s gone to shit), and I scanned the bushes rigorously, searching for anything unordinary that might jump out at us. Checking back on the ruca, only a few steps behind, a dull flicker hazed her eyes instead of the warm connection I’ve come to love and need from her. I felt that familiar throb inside me that had been tender all week, but I ignored it. If I kept running, it would all disappear eventually, right? The strain of my lungs would exhaust, and start anew without even a trace of memory to mark that pain. Then everything would go back to how it was…wouldn’t it?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The hill itself was dark, as if someone had blown a candle out in the room, but the lights of the city spewed out in front of us. I like to consider this picturesque view my prize for actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">making</i> it to the top without passing out, but tonight, a completely different panorama played out before me. The Bay Bridge lit up magnificently, shooting land to land across the water, which was dotted with several lights that bobbed on the bay. The usual sparks of sound that flare up the city had dimmed to nothing more than a distant hum beneath us. On the hill, few people remained, their faces blurred in the blackness as they made their ways home. Some whistled out to their dogs who’d tangled themselves in trails of the hill, others packed up their wine bottles from their sunset picnic, and a pack of high school kids shuffled away, their 4:20 session now long gone. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Continuing on, we breezed easily downhill and through the streets. We neared the last stretch uphill that circles back to the staircases we came from. I usually love this desolate trek, so close to the finish line, but tonight the cautionary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">whoo</i>-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">whoo </i>of owls took on the voice of my two angry parents yelling at me in my head: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Why would you go running at night?! </i>What<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> were you thinking? Where is your common sense?!”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Suddenly, the ruca called out to me, her voice a cracked yelp. “Wait!” she gasped, a desperate hunt for her breath. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wait</i>!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“Need a breather?” I halted, not thrilled about her timing.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“I…I have something to… to tell you,” she huffed.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“What?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">She approached me, the glisten of sweat shiny on her face. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“I…I’m still upset with you. From our fight last week. I’m just…I’m still hurt.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I let my lungs exhaust too. Just the mention of the fight swallowed me back to the scene, forgetting the trepidation that, a moment ago, had prickled my skin. While it’s typical for the ruca and I to squabble over regular stuff (“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Please</i> don’t borrow my lipstick!” “Do you even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> where we keep the mop?” “No I will not wake up at 6am to make you coffee!”), our spats usually extinguish as quickly as they fire up. But every now and then, like last Wednesday, we just can’t let up and we explode, firing at each other like cannons. Maybe it was a crappy over-time/underpaid day at work, maybe it was that hormone raging time of the month when the SPCA commercials are enough to make me cry, or maybe it was the annoying neighbors who sounded like they were bowling upstairs. But I was in a toxic mood, bloated with all the crap of my day, and took it out on my ruca for forgetting her keys (again) and making me wait 40 minutes longer than promised when I’d had plans. Becoming defensive, the ruca lashed out too, and the next thing we knew, a mishap over keys had turned into a full out screaming match with all swords being thrown including “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And</i> I’ve told you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three</i> times to put the dishes away!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">The choleric duel had taken place a week ago to the day. Though we’d grumbled our apologies and called a truce, we’d carried on the rest of the week as if we were ordinary roommates. Intimacy had become an awkward strain between us, and the cariño had vanished from our usual <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I love you</i>’s. Like two stubborn turtles hiding irritably in our shells, we’d emotionally withdrawn from each other.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"> “I’m sorry,” I wheezed. “I was such a (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">huff, huff</i>) jerk to you. I wish I could...wish I could take it back. But for the record (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">huff, huff</i>), I’m hurt with you too!” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“I know I was a jerk too,” she panted. “And I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sorry</i>.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“You didn’t…fall out of love with me, did you?” I croaked, almost scared to ask the most pivotal question, should one of the answers crush me completely.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“No,” she shook her head. “I just realized I was still hurt (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">huff, huff</i>) while we were running.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“We can’t get so out of hand when we’re that furious. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Huff, huff.</i>) We can’t treat each other like punching bags!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"> “Yeah,” she agreed. “No punching bags.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">There was nothing we could do to change what had happened. The feeling of regret had to digest through us, like spoiled milk. For some reason though, just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">acknowledging</i> that we were hurt felt slightly soothing in itself; like we were officially ready to come out of our shells, and look the other in the eye.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I peered down the dark road that winded through the hill, suddenly longing for the familiar comforts of home. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">“C’mon,” I coaxed persuasively. “Let’s run the rest of the way.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">A renewed energy shot through us. My body worked through its motions, expelling the sordidness that had poisoned me the entire week. My heart and lungs were firecrackers exploding in my chest, and my calves triggered with heat, like sticks rubbing together before they catch fire. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">We weren’t home when we made it back to the staircase, but we heaved a huge sigh of relief anyway, and slapped high-5s. Clambering back down, the lampposts on the staircase had finally turned on, and lit the way home for us.<br />
© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2011</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-438562151773941801.post-23201974499084491842011-09-26T16:54:00.000-07:002011-09-26T17:39:42.314-07:00Motherhood(?!)<div class="MsoNormal"> Sometimes I think I would like to be a mom. Like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> like to be one. On the train, babies propped on Mama’s shoulder often gaze back at me, and a fuzzy feeling melts inside me that can only be described as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Awww</i>. Yesterday, I saw a woman in Walgreens slap her kid’s head as she told him to “shut his ass up,” and I realized I’d probably be a much better mother than a few that are out there. But motherhood is not my reality—not right now. Not only do I not have the means (or to be quite frank, the sperm), but I will admit the one thing that us women are not encouraged to say, be it the truth or not: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am selfish</i>. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i> my life. This life now, the one I’ve created for myself… </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"> I love waking up in the morning, sunlight spilling on my face, with the option to go back to sleep if I like, or to get up and spontaneously plan out my day; maybe take a yoga class, or get a mani/pedi, or pick up some fruit from the farmer’s market. I never have to </span>“<span class="Apple-style-span">arrange</span>”<span class="Apple-style-span"> for babysitter, or leave the house with a ten-pound diaper bag</span>—just my ten-pound purse. Also, I’m a bit of a helpless romantic. I love date nights with the ruca, and discussing the profound nuances of everyday life that usually have nothing to do with Sponge Bob Square Pants. When we go out to eat, the first words out of the host’s mouth are not: “Kid’s menu with crayons?” And I’ve yet to experience sitting down to have our waiter crinkle their nose at the sight of a high chair in their section, as if our kid were a skunk.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Most importantly, the reason I am not ready for kids is because I am convinced that I am going to “make it” as a writer in this decade, my 30s. My teens were a rebellious mess filled with “dime” sacks and 40s; my 20s were about getting to know and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i> myself, lots of traveling, and getting dragged off the barstool after last-call. This era is going to be the decade that my books will be published and my dream of establishing myself as a writer will unravel like a magic carpet setting off to fly. Ideally, I don’t want “making it” to mean I can afford rent without having to bartend for a few weeks. Screw that. I want a shot of snagging that huge house on Russian Hill, rooms with a view, and extra rooms for Mom, Pop, and the in-laws. A separate work studio in the city sounds perfect, with prospects of setting up a writer’s workshop for young kids of color down the line. Sure, it may sound like a long shot, but I’m stubborn as hell and know exactly what I want. I also know I need to work really hard to get there—I need to have that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">time</i> to myself to work really hard. It wouldn’t be fair to bring in another life knowing that they are not the focus of my most driven desire at that moment. On career day, I want to go to my kid’s school, proud of myself, and say: “My name is Mrs. Jiménez and I am a writer,” instead of “I am an aspiring writer, but for now I’m just a bartender. You kids know what a martini is?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Aside from waiting for my career to blossom and loving my carefree independence, I confess yet another reason for not having kids: I am <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">terrified</i>. Does anyone else feel me here?! Raising children is a HUGE responsibility! There’s the usual stuff to worry about, like will I be too strict a parent, or not strict enough? What if my kid hates broccoli and fish and bananas and pretty much every single meal I prepare for them? What if little Juanito get his ass kicked at school everyday for having two moms, neither of whom taught him how to play football—or worst, what if Juanito <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> the school bully? But there are also the even bigger things in life: what if I don’t agree with their lifestyles? My children—whether adopted, or from my womb, or the ruca’s—will obviously be a blueprint of me, but children are not statues that parents are free to sculpt as they wish. While parents may be a child’s most influential impact, we all come wired with our own souls, our unique spirits. Still, how accepting a parent will I be if my kid grows up and decides they don’t want to be a radical revolutionary like Mommy wants, but are content enough to simply pass their life away a stoned-ass couch potato whose only motivation is slanging weed? (And no, Mommy won’t be thrilled about that discount on “dime” sacks!) Or even worst than that, what if they decide to become (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gasp</i>) a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Republican</i>?! Dear God! What a terrifying leap of faith parenthood seems to be!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">If I could, I’d put motherhood off for another decade until I’m 40. But evolution seems a little sexist, and so far has not kept up with a woman’s career. If I don’t start cookin’ that bun in the oven by the time I’m 36, my eggs will probably go extinct. Or be as rare a species as the panda or the great blue whale. I guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when I get there. Because sitting here now, drinking my coffee spiked with Kahlua and wondering how to spend the rest of my day off, adoption in ten years is suddenly sounding like a no-brainer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Whenever that time comes, and my house of cards is fully built, and the ruca and I have established a cozy nest for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">esquincles</i> to call home, maybe then motherhood will call to me with more than just a knock on my door. And I will answer that need, that desire. I will someday be so important to someone else that they will need me for nurture, acceptance, and unconditional love. I will be ready to take on that key role for the rest of my life. For now I have myself to take care of, and a fledgling dream of becoming something bigger than myself. I have my little nest, a cozy one bedroom in Bernal, the ruca to come home to, and a 20-lb cuddly cat who I am not afraid to say I adore. Until the day our mini family grows, and blossoms into bigger branches of life that extend from us, I will be more than happy with this amazing life I have now. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">© Sarah C. Jiménez, All Rights Reserved 2011</div>Sarah C. Jiménezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00758118183108870138noreply@blogger.com3