Introduction

I’m at an interesting period in my life; I’m turning 38. 20 years ago I was a teenager an 18 year old graduating out of high school. The California Academy of Mathematics and Science. CAMS as it is called, is located on the campus of California State University Dominguez Hills. I teach there now, have been for the pat 5 years. It’s an interesting thing to think about, that I am roaming the same grounds that I was when I was 18 and transitioning in life, away from the shelters of the post-high school world. I’ve found some of my writing from that era and I wanted to share how I saw the world back then, how I told stories before I knew I was even telling them. Some of my writings are essays for various universities or educational programs. Others are creative writing pieces…don’t matter they’re all part of this “20 Year Itch”

The Parade

Stained glass from Notre Dame

Sundays

dias de misa!

Bright and flowery days

everyone dressed in their best

for all to see.

My family, neighbors, strangers

ready to praise the Lord!

The folks who did the most

went to Jericho Baptist Church.

I was certain no one at my church,

Our Lady of Victoryyyyy

could compete.

But the folks who walked

down our streeeeet

to get to First Samoan Full Gospel Church

around the corner from my block

also had flair.  

While mom and my sisters finished

getting ready for our service,

“Holy Communion!”

I’d sit on the front steps

like a good girl, the thickness

of my dress

bunched up between my legs,

my hair slicked back

in a plain pony-tail and feet stuffed into

my Mexican-leather shoes mom bought me

at la tienda 3 Hermanos. My shoes felt

tight, like my pony-tail, but around my toes.

Sundays cramped my style, toes

and temples throbbed, as I watched

the contingent of worshippers go by. 

Jericho was smack in the middle of my block,

had Wednesday service but folks showed up

in mass on Sunday. There were men in purple suits

with matching purple ties

looking SHARP in black and white

Stacy Adams. Others strolled in their red suits

with black vests, black bowties and patent

leather wingtips that glistened along

with their jerry curl in the sun.

There were lots of little girls

with ruffled dresses layered like a cake

and barrettes clinging like gum

drops all over their hair. Some little girls wore

summer dresses, spaghetti straps

over their shoulders, their hair in cornrows

with beads at the ends reminded me of Smarties.

My hair never looked piñata fancy

Just a plain pony tail, or parted to the side

with wavy bangs over my eyes

and a single bow dancing near the part.

The Samoan women walked down my street,

doing it! in bunches. Groups would pass by

one at a time. Samoan women

didn’t wear ribbons, barrettes nor bows,

just a little bun on top of their dome,

looking like a Bowler hat. Or they wore

their hair in a braid hanging thick, black

like a three-strand twisted fiber rope

down their back to their waist.

They wore color from neck to toe

in their Pea with plumerias, hibiscus, ferns and

and palm tree prints that went from

light to dark like water colors. Their feet

free in nice huaraches not pinched by

hard leather. The men too were comfy

in their chanclas and ½ and ½ attire.

Shirt, jacket and tie on the top and

a lavalava around their waist in colors

darker than the women’s.

Sunday was my weekly Rose Parade,

the street filled with people walking,

talking, saying their “good mornings,”

dress shoes tapping on the pavement

and cars honking as they cut their way

through churchgoers crossing the street.

Always so much to see. The viejitas of Jericho

wore hats decorated with flowers,

feathers, bowknots, organza or lace trimming

and walked by slowly as a float, their purses swinging

on their arm as they took steady steps in

their white patent squared heels.

Some hats were super secretive with a broad brim

or a chapel veil covering the face.

Each lady looking like a queen with her crown.

The air filled with the sent of soap, cocoa butter

and of my Tia Rosa’s flower garden.

I’d wave at some of the folks who saw me staring,

they flashed me a smile, revealing big white teeth behind

bold red lips. Some little girls would stop and stare 

at me like I was a funny sculpture but didn’t wave back.

Mommy Issues

Each time I see him he sizes me up, stands by me shoulder to shoulder turns and looks me in the eye “I’m taller than you,” he says with such delight.  Standing shoulder to shoulder, the way I’ll always stand by him, so proud of him and all that he’s becoming.

I see him age and I think “Aw, he’s so grown. No longer a little boy.” Can’t fight the pangs of nostalgia as they make my eyes water, nostalgia for the times when his smallness fit in my arms. How I’d drape his little body on me after a long car ride that rocked him to sleep.  With his head over my left shoulder I’d climb the steps, 23 of them I believe, feeling him get heavier and heavier and tighter across my body with each step till we reached the top, breathing heavy, walking slowly towards the door.

Carrying him like that reminded me of when I was a kid and mom would come home from the evening shift, around midnight, and pick my sisters and me up from the baby sitter’s. Our neighbors Patty and Lencho took care of us and put us to sleep with their girls until mom would come knocking late at night to pick us up. She too carried me, all the way from Patty and Lencho’s to the top of our stairs. The bobbing of my head as she walked up the stairs to our apartment always woke me up, just enough for me to see my sisters groggily in tow then I’d close my eyes again.  

He never woke up, I always managed to make it up the stairs and to his bed with him completely asleep and a spot of his drool on my shirt. I’d plopped him on his bad, cheeks flushed just begging me to unleash a string of kisses on them before leaving him to his eyes-half-open sleep.

I long for those days when I would walk into a room and he’d run to me and leap into my arms, his limbs clinging to me like Spiderman to the Empire State, not letting go till I filled his cheek with kisses as a leaned over to put him down. The last time he did that was 3 years ago (wow 3 years already?), when I went over to his place to pick him up, he ran out of his room “Claudia!” he said as he flew into my arms.  I caught him, my knees buckled a little but I caught him and squeezed him tight thinking to myself “this is the last time we’ll share a leap”. And it was. He was growing and I wasn’t; now he stands shoulder to shoulder with me.  

“It’s official,” he says as he runs his hand over his shoulder and on to mine to demonstrate how much he’s caught up to me; for the moment. He’ll outgrow me soon enough.

Yes, grow mi’jo! Grow taller than me, grow stronger than me, smarter. Isn’t that what all parents want, for their kids to be better than them, happier etc.? Even though I can’t twirl you around or lift you up, I can still drape my hand over your shoulder pull you in and unleash a bubble string of kisses on your cheek that leave the taste of your sweaty sweetness on my lips.

“You’re too much,” I tell him whenever he makes a wise crack the way smart butts know how to make. I used to think he was too much, too much to love, I didn’t know if it was smart to love a kid that’s not my own. I was scared, not sure if I knew how I would do it. And scared that he wouldn’t or couldn’t love me the same. Scared of how atypical our relationship was. Despite each year that passed and our bond grew stronger, I’d still wince whenever anyone would say “Oh, he still thinks you’re cool,” with a lilt; a very sharp question that resonated in my ears as “are they reminding me of my imminent fate: odd dyke out.”

But I’m brown yo! I got different kind of roots, I have different myths that keep me real. I was never in a nuclear family, not in this lifetime and definitely not in the previous ones. Brown indigena roots that value kinship over individuality. I never said this to anybody, but one day during my travels a woman read my palm. Or did she swing a medallion over it like a pendulum? The point is that she delivered a message.  Nilda se llamaba an anagram for Dilan, smart, sharp and chiquita. She was a colleague, we were both in the same line of work, adult education providing trainings across the country. We were in Atlanta out for drinks with a group of people in the gay part of town. It was an overcast day, a silly overcast day, so grey outside but muggy at the same time…like just before a tropical storm hits you. I wish I could remember all the details of our conversation but at some point she told me she had these powers, I wasn’t surprised, I’m brown I’ve had other brujas come out to me before. Nilda was  from Puerto Rico so I knew to believe her. Especially because she reminded me of a strong, smart Puertoriqueña that I already knew.

“Bam! read it and weep,” I said as I open-palmed my right hand before her. She took my hand, she saw a boy, a little boy in my life. Immediately You popped into my head.

You.

I told her about you. I hadn’t met you yet even though your mom had told me so much about you. I told her, Nilda, about you everything I knew through your mom’s tales.

“Si pero eso no es lo que veo.  I see here that he is your son. Un hijo que tu vas a tener. You have it,” she responded when I told her my situation about dating a woman with a kid.  

Exactly. I do have “it.” I have you.  If Joseph could do it, well I could too. He was the first step-daddy and he helped raise Jesus.

You are mine mi’jo. In your little or bigness, in your smile and in your game. Mine, from back in the day when I helped you write about snowshoe hares for school or nearly bit my tongue off playing WWE with you. Mine because of the laughs and hard battles we still share on the court. You are mine to your soul, mine to my soul that you forever changed that day we met now simply known as “our anniversary.” Mine again and again that day when you found out about the break up and we made a promise to each other to be in each other’s life.

That day, his mom had texted me that she had talked to him about our break up.

I was crushed thinking what the news must of done to your little heart. I got home from work already passed your bedtime, to find her on the couch mindlessly flipping through the channels.

“Where is he? How’s he doing,” were the first words that came out of my mouth when I walked in the door.  After checking in with her I went to his room where I knew he was still awake.  He wasn’t event lying down right, his feet were at his bedpost and his face was the only thing pocking out from his blue comforter. It was dim in the room but I could tell that he was crying. I got closer and kneeled by his bedside, when he looked at me tears rolled down his face. I don’t remember everything that was said, I know I held kissed him and caressed his hair, wiped away tears, we said “I love yous” and we made a promise that we still live to this day.

I walked out of your room and went to sit in the living room with your mom. Shit had just gotten real.  We were quiet for what seemed like a long time.

It was the most peace that I had felt between his mom and me in a while. I had missed it. It’s hard to see through muddy waters, and ours had run unclear for a minute. But in that silence everything made sense to me.  I didn’t need a bruja, no clairvoyant somebody to tell me what I felt in my heart, my heart that had grown big enough to love him, my mind that understood how to do it and my soul that didn’t know how not to.

Female Embrace

Thank you Frida this image captured my words

here they are, released to you. 

Always feels like I’m the last one

to get home on our block.

Our street quiet as I

limp like an ese my heavy

work bag slung over my left shoulder

loafers pinching my baby toes.

My dogs are barkin’ from the long day.

A few more steps, they will soon breath.

A coyote sees me and gets scared

it runs then freezes in its tracks.

I don’t stop. I walk faster pretend I don’t care

that he’s there, “you got your business

and I got mine,” I step it up but baby toes

don’t allow me to push it too much.

The neighborhood dogs hear my hurried steps

and fill the silence with barks.

I pass the neighbor’s house the

one that drives an exterminator van

with the sticker that reads “que quieres

pinche rata!” stuck on the back windows.

I scared another one of the night’s inhabitants

a mom and pup skunk duo.

I scurry to the middle of the street

where all the light posts spill their shine.

Smart move, two houses from “pinche rata” neighbor’s house,

where One-eyed Maggy the calico lives

I see a raccoon hurry up a tree.

“Uh, uh,uh I see you, you’re not jumping on me.”

Finally our gate

the little bell on the string

announces my arrival

and I hear our pups stir up into

a frenzy. They’re so happy to hear

my footsteps get closer, they’re cries get louder

and more desperate as I struggle with my key.

As soon as they see me they jump on their hind legs,

barking and twirling around like something out of

“The Nutcracker”.  I get on their level hug them, rub

and kiss and their little heads. Isis, the Siamese

wants to get in on the love and begins to rub her scent

on me then she twirls and twirls on her back

like some break dancer showing me her belly.

You stand there smiling

on and the animals feast on my caricias.

My day is not complete

without you draped in my arms.

I move in on you, grab you into me and we’re stuck

like magnates. Your head on my shoulder your sighs and

comforting noises delivered in my ear. Our bodies pressed

together smells like pressed cotton. Tight in our embrace

I feel your ovarian vibes reaching out to me

it feels like a cat’s purr atop of my belly but

it's really our ovaries. Poor female anatomy, often compared to a cows head

but is really a body, celestial head floating with

its hands outstretched, as if in a hug, ready to receive to welcome home. 

I feel the vibes, re energized.

A Poem for a Poet

R.I.P Tupac

You've heard about that

Rose, she slipped through the cracks

in the cement? That Rose

cracks me up, ignoring

“the facts” and making her own destiny

she didn’t take it, she pushed back

pushed so hard with her heart, her lungs breathing life,

with her dreams.

Influencing Poppies and shit. Cause they do it too

push their way through

past the rough ages

ignoring the rubbish

and everything surrounding

that’s not nurturing.

That Rose that grew from

concrete, who knew she’d

mean so much to so many.