salience

The cuatas have officially graduated from Alpharetta High School y'all. I am so relieved and happy. Plus sad and in general disbelief. This past weekend seemed like an eternity away three years ago. It was great to finally see familia. We've fallen out of the habit of getting together every Christmas, and I hope we can figure out how to get back on track. It's disorienting not seeing folks you love so dearly as often as you'd like.

It was also a great weekend for me and la mama, I think. I talked through tears with el papa, and the familia at large, about what I think I can do for her and what I feel I should be doing. It's hard to watch the two of them in situations like these, which are really the only I ever see, living in New York. Family milestones which should be joyous end up awkward. In some rare happening of occult timing, Aunt Cheryl and I ended up talking about la mama's future after the graduation ceremony. She verbalized many of the thoughts I had in the back of my head, and it was like opening the floodgates. Dad wants very much to help her, but his hands are tied legally. It's fallen to me to pick up where I can.

La mama and I have been working on our relationship this year and I think it's much improved. While we still have quite a ways to go, we are so much better than we used to be. Yet what scares me most is something happening to her and my either not knowing or realizing I had not done what I was able to do beforehand to prevent or to prepare. We talked a little about options and what will happen when the cuatas leave for Lubbock come August.

Lorenzo and I were talking today, and he thinks we should help move la mama somewhere close to a beach. Somewhere safe, where she doesn't have to drive. Where she can just wake up and walk down to the water or take a bus to the library. She is in her retirement, of sorts. It's hard to think about for too long, still. I don't know what her financial situation is like, or what she's agreed to, or what she really even wants for herself. Yes, she wants to get back together with el papa, but he'll hear none of it. He is still trying to get back on his feet after having the rug pulled out from under him financially and emotionally. So, all we can do is make the best of the situation we've all been put in. We shall see. I hope we can figure something out which helps everyone. I'm so tired of the fragmented duality we've been juggling. We can help her in many ways, I just hope she will let us.

And now for some of my favorite pictures from this past weekend:

At their lunch, with Aunt Cheryl.

Laughing with Uncle Don.

Cousins.

Afterwards.

And again. My babies, all grown up.

Cousins. I miss these girls y'all.

And with the newest addition to the familia, a five month old, teething basset hound named Rufus. His patas are almost as big as mine and so soft!

Earlier this week.

I'm running errands on my lunch break. I was out later than I should have been the night before with my adopted OH brothers, Vito and Dave. We go eat good food, end up at two bars to talk and laugh and drink great tequila. I don't drink regularly or very much when I do, but I'm either a tequila or jack daniels girl for sure. The next morning, I'm fine. I don't get hangovers for some reason. But I'm not rested and I hurry through my morning routine to make sure I am at my desk early. I leave Sphinx confused, they way he gets when I'm not home long enough and he wonders where I go all of the time. By lunch I've made a list of all of the toiletries I'm low on and I leave my desk on a mission to find great cards for my sisters' graduation.

I'm in line at the pharmacy across the street, and I hear "Maria. Psst, Maria." It's another Dave, this one from work. Possibly my favorite of the lot. Or second favorite, definitely top three. We exchange pleasantries and start joking about his latest trip. He goes quiet and it's my turn to be rung up. The card machine is out, so after two attempts I pay with cash. As I turn to leave, I decide to wait for him and make our way back up to the 25th floor together. I pass three women in line behind him, and each gives me a look followed by a smile. Once outside Dave confesses, "I told those women you must be stealing, you were taking so long at the register. But then each agreed, you're far too beautiful to need to steal. Folks would gladly give you anything just to see you smile." I blushed. But really, what is there to steal in a CVS?

Today.

First at a queens car wash in Long Island City. I'm standing at the exit, waiting on my car to clear the cleaning line, hopefully free of the Roosevelt Island Motorgate Garage grime. Y'all who know me best, know I'm very particular about my rollerskate. It is my baby, all four cylinders. I hate seeing it dirty. Taking care of that vehicle instills so much pride, I cannot even begin to put it into words. But back to the carwash. I'm waiting. A stout, hispanic man with a huge belly and a blinking blue tooth bug in his ear walks slowly and deliberately up to me. He looks me straight in the eye, points a stubby finger and yells, "You! You have these fellas here nervous, they're all watching you. Because of you, they locked my keys in my car!" I didn't say anything, I just smiled and watched as an embarrassed attendant ran inside to get a professional, pink wire to unlock the driver side door. My car exited next and I walked up to the two guys toweling it down. Belly man was two cars over, still shouting. "What's wrong with you guys?! Never seen a gorgeous woman before?!" The guys finished quickly, asking me over and over if everything was to my liking. I thanked them warmly, smiled and drove off.


Then, at a Petco back in Levittown to get Sphinx's prescribed comida.

I wandered around the store slowly. I love large stores. I'm like el papa in that way. Give me a huge grocery store, hardware store, pet store, music store, book store and I can wander around happy for as long as I'm permitted. Finally I made my way up to the tattoed, pierced cashier, my eight pound bag of cat food in my hands. He yawned politely and then asked me if I knew who Anne Hathaway was. I nodded yes and he said, "You look just like her. I think she's a great actress, please take it as a compliment. When you first walked in I thought, is Anne here in my store?! I think you're absolutely beautiful." I laughed and thanked him, "I don't think Anne Hathaway would be in here on a Saturday morning buying food for her cat, but thank you."

I walked out of the automatic doors to my clean car all smiles. Even on the drive up Hempstead Turnpike to Monro's to get my car inspected (so much cheaper than the LIC guys I was towed to two weeks ago when my car's battery/starter quit, only $37 versus LIC's $80), I was still smiling. I question my appearance every now and again. I don't see myself clearly, but who does? I break my face down into parts I manipulate with make up every morning. An old art trick I learned long ago and then adapted to apply to my face. Proportions and shading. I see each part, not the end result.

Why is it when I'm feeling the most unattractive, the most undesirable that these things happen to me? I had just woken up, showered and whatnot and walked out the door. No big red carpet event, no reason to feel glamorous. Just jeans, a T-shirt and sweater, getting things done.

These words, they just fall in my lap. It's like I said in my last post, you never really know what to expect each day, you can only take things as they come. Routine errands have reminded me that I am a beautiful person. Despite my self-doubt and anxiety, I can affect people. Positively. People react to my smile, and I can't help but feel abuela's words coming to mind. "M'ja," she used to say, "you have a gift. A presence. Smile and laugh even when you feel your worst, and the world will want to help pick you up." I used to always laugh when she'd say that, but maybe she was right after all.

It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.

I walked home in the rain yesterday. It is always a little chillier on the island than in Manhattan proper, which makes sense. Logic would dictate that so many buildings, people, subways and general congestion would generate far more friction than a one street, 2 mile long island in the middle of the east river. The island has pathways along the bank on either side, and I walked home from the tram slowly. Taking in the rain. It hadn't been warm enough to do this in some time, and I loved every minute of it. There's something about the rain, and the water. It's cleansing, there's such a natural release. At a beach, near a waterfall, wherever. Watching the rain hit the river water, and the current rushing by, I forgot myself entirely. Nature has a funny way of doing that, making you step out of your head and self-defined parameters, if for only a few minutes. Plus, my mom, my brother I used to always play in the rain. It's all very nostalgic.

I finished Rant too quickly. Even with limiting myself to only 50 pages each night once I got home from work. It is fantastic. Easily my favorite book since Choke. Party crashing, dressing the same as a small group of people in the know, decorating your car to match, and then parading and crashing into one another on the streets. Soccer mom night, christmas night, wedding night, student driver night. We all want to be a part of something, so we can identify ourselves neatly.

I've come to a couple of realizations recently. One, I have to let go. I do worry too much, the fortune teller in Orlando was right. When I release all need to control and know every detail and angle, when I let the anxiety hit and then recede, I am so much happier. Life isn't confined into hour increments when I know I have to get Thing A done so I can move onto Thing B and then Thing C by the end of the week. I know what I have to do, and I will get it all done. All things take time, and if you commit to do something, you might as well do it right.

Necessary flashback: When we first moved to Virginia from Texas, I was the new girl in school, again. I had missed the first month of classes because of the moving/house situation. Our family made the trek by camping along the highways in KOA sites only to arrive in Woodbridge, VA with a no show realtor, no keys to our rental house. No matter how much you prepare, things never really go according to plan.

Being new in my fourth grade class, I had a desperate need to prove myself. That need is something I've never shaken, and I don't think I ever will. Except now, instead of needing to prove myself to others, more often than not, I need to prove I am strong enough to do something to myself. I remember reading and re-reading and re-re-reading the chapters I missed in science on magnets and natural wonders so I could ace a test I wasn't required to take. My bedroom was wallpapered in yellow with thin white stripes at one foot intervals. I had beautiful furniture my aunt had bought for me when I was little, and I did all of my homework on my mom's sewing table which she set up right next to my bed. I would proudly stack all of my books and notepads in one corner, in order of the classes each day, and go through each book and notepad until all of my assignments were thoroughly completed.

This is also when my parents taught me to spell by looking things up in a dictionary. "Mom, how do you spell (blank)?" The answer was always, go look it up in the dictionary. We had this huge Websters edition, the one with the navy blue hardcover, which my dad still has, all of my highschool corsages from dances pressed between its tissue thin pages. It frustrated me to no end. I asked because I wanted to learn to do things right, and how could I just guess the spelling of a word I honestly didn't know how to spell in the first place? It taught me a lot though, in retrospect. I am a solitary, independent worker still. I don't like being micro managed, or having things laid out for me in an obvious, ordered fashion. Where's the fun in that?

I'm reminded of the dictionary at work often, and it makes me smile. I know in time, I can figure anything out on my own. It may just take a little searching.

I've realized I'm not sad to be leaving Roosevelt Island. Yes the apartment is beautiful, but I've learned two things. One: I don't like living apart from a community. I live in a building which very much resembles a contained hotel, and it can be very disorienting. And two: it's made me realize what is important to me right now. It was my dream to live in a high rise with a view. I wanted to be the girl who came from humble beginnings and made it. But "made it." What does that even mean? I've had a gorgeous view from my apartment for the past year. I have no real need for it ever again. Been there, done that. Yes I can pay for this place, but I want to put my money to use elsewhere. I have all of these financial ideas to try which I pile in the back of my mind. I'm willing to intentionally live below my means to self-improve. I can't wait to, in fact. I'm learning so much at work, I'm exposed to all of these sharp minds and brilliant ideas. It's sad that I leave that world once I walk out of 599 Lex every evening. It doesn't have to be that way. I can change that. And I will.

As I sat at my desk tonight, wrapping up the responses for a proposal we're submitting, I had a flashback to life in Woodbridge. So much has happened since then, that was many years, schools and friends ago. But then again, not much has changed in all. All I really know when I wake up each morning is I have the day ahead to accomplish whatever I can. Instead of listing and obsessing over what I should get done, what would make me the least anxious as I turn in later that night, if I just let go of any expectations I get so much more finished. Instead of listing every assignment, if I stack the books chronologically and push through each one, I am unstoppable. Book to book to book to book to desk. Done. Lists and tracking progress, it's all counter intuitive distraction.

Today is a perfect example. What opportunities fall into my lap when I'm not strategically planning my every move! My relationship with my mother is another. Alex is a third. When you let go, and stop trying to define what it is you want from something, and instead just see where you can take things as situations arise, the end result is so much more satisfying. It's only after you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything. It's the same feeling I get when I come inside, soaked from the rain.

Happy 52nd Birthday, Mom. I love you.

On violence, pain and death:

"We are afraid of many things because we have just not gone out and met them."

Chuck Palahniuk, 1996 interview

Rant came out today yall. I shall begin devouring my copy tonight - I can't wait!!