Mixed Feelings

If you are a child of mixed race then you can feel my pain when you have those moments that you don’t fit into one culture enough.  I am very blessed to be half Mexican.  I love so many things about my heritage.  I have cute freckles that go across my nose and cheeks, my hair is naturally straight and dark and I can tan like nobody’s business.  There are other times though that I don’t feel like I fit the "standard" protocol people have when it comes to being a Latina or Hispanic woman.  Mostly it’s because I don’t speak fluent Spanish.  I understand why that creates a separation.  I can’t bond with others through language and I know that many people see this as disrespect or a reason to not entirely fit in with a culture.

Growing up with a white family and a Mexican family made me a bit different.  I didn’t notice it until I got into high school and people would say I wasn’t Mexican enough (I’ve seriously had someone get mad and spit at me for not being Hispanic enough while riding the bus home from school.) I’ve also been told that I am too white, which I’m not sure how because all I was doing is being myself.  I didn’t notice how others stared at me wondering if my mom or my dad was Mexican.  I didn’t notice how people would stare at my mom when we were out together because I have such different tones to my skin and my mom has blonde hair and blue eyes.  I didn’t think much about being fluent in Spanish when I was in grade school.  But now that I’m older and experience so many different people I realize that in some ways people don’t make me feel included into the culture. 

What I find most admirable about Hispanic culture is they work hard, play hard and they focus on family.  It doesn’t matter if you can dance but as long as the rhythm of a cumbia makes you move you might as well just count yourself among the culture and while you’re at it grab a cerveza and start celebrating!  If you can appreciate the love and care that goes into everything a mama, tia or abuelita bakes or cooks then you can pull up a chair because nothing makes their hearts happier than when someone loves their cooking.  It’s about happiness when you have nothing and it’s about being there for others when you have more than you need.

I catch myself doing funny typical Hispanic things that make us all laugh because they bond us together as family (If you’re family is Hispanic, you know what I’m talking about!).  I’m a level person but push too hard and I’ll let you know where I stand, and quick.  I find myself thinking in Spanish or saying Que Chula, Que Linda or precioso when taking care of kids (I guess my nurturing side is a Mexican lady after all J) I clean the house listening to Spanish music (loud) and everything I “make up” in the kitchen some how has a touch of Hispanic flavor.  I take my coffee the same way as my dad (plenty of creamer and some sugar), if a place serves menudo or chorizo on the menu I’ll order it and please don’t forget my tortillas. 

The point of me writing anything is to hopefully help people realize what if feels like to be on the other side of those comments and to just express myself.  I, like any other person, wants to be loved and accepted for who I am.  I am a Mexican American woman.  I want to be respected for the pride I give to my culture.  I am also just me.  Not everything I like or do in my life will be defined as “Hispanic”.  But I can’t not be Mexican enough.  It’s in my blood and it’s a part of me.  I welcome the Hispanic community and culture with open arms.  If you call me gringa you’ll probably get a look from me, but that’s okay.  I’m too happy being myself, dancing cumbia and eating menudo to give it much more thought than that. 

Blooms

(A journal entry I wrote when I was missing my father and thinking about life, which is pretty much most of the time.)

How fleeting the blooming petals of life
What radiant colors once bloomed
hugs and smiles of early life
finding my happiness in your eyes

With each growing year revealing more colors
An entire garden of memories big and small

And as more years pass
Some flowers bloom brightly
Impacting you greatly before their colors fade
and the petals fall one by one
till the life of that flower is done

Fleeting the amount of time we bloom
Had I known this sooner
I would have danced with my petals in the light

The moments I do have with you
are with me still
They've grown so much a part of me
I can't remember a time where I existed before them

They keep me going when I feel that I can't continue on
They feed my soul with hope when I feel lost
They anchor me when I'm looking for home

Even though you aren't here
you are with me

I do still miss your smile and eyes
the strength of your calloused hands
and listening to you talk

I know that one day we will have these again
and that empty space in my heart that your memories occupy
will be whole again.

Cold ground...

     It was my 29th birthday.  I should be happier than I am.  The last couple days I’ve been surrounded by family I haven't seen since I was a sophomore or junior in high school.  I've been away too long from this small Texas town.  It's a town you can't really appreciate as an outsider, I've tried to explain it to others but I can't seem to get the right words.  You have to be from there or have lived there long enough for the black and gold pride to run through your veins, to appreciate the mesquite trees, the summer days by the community pool and the simplicity of fishing and swimming in the river.  If you've never waited all week for a Friday night football game then I don't really know how to explain it to you.   Friday night-lights in Texas isn't just an event, it's a lifestyle.  The pep rallies are as much of an event as the game itself.  Cheerleaders plan all week painting signs and rallying this massive amount of pride and spirit that makes shop owners close their stores to attend.  I’ve never seen school spirit bigger than it is in a small town like this.  My family on my mother’s side is full of teachers and coaches so the love of sports started early and my dad’s family is from here as well so this is something I was born into.  So I fit in pretty well in Texas. 
    It’s a January day in Texas and I'm spending the day riding in the truck with my cousins and my brother checking out some ranches in the hill country and keeping our eyes out for some Axis deer.  Just the thought of randomly snagging a deer to make deer jerky has my mouth watering.  My Tio makes the best deer jerky and I can still remember how amazing it tasted even though I haven’t had any since 6^th grade.  But alas the Axis deer are elusive and we miss our chances.  Between the jokes, the small talk about small town happenings and the laid back beer in hand I can almost forget why I'm here.  I almost forget that tomorrow will be my dad's funeral service.  It's my birthday weekend.  I'm back home with family not for celebrations but for a final goodbye.  Every now and then through the fun I'm having with family and the nostalgic feeling I get while riding through town I remember that this trip is not to bring me back home but to bring my dad back home.  
     There’s a small little village like town across the bridge where my dad grew up.  It’s mostly Hispanic families and you can walk around the whole place within about 10 minutes and have enough time to stop by the Quick Stop to get a coke and a candy too.  I’ve come here many times as a kid and done just that.  I’ve been to the cemetery here with my dad plenty of times growing up.  My grandparents are buried in the cemetery and my dad and I would take flowers.  I guess now I’ll be brining flowers to him too. 
     The house my dad grew up in is only a few streets away well I guess everything is only a few streets away.  No one lives in his old house now but you can see a glimpse of what it must have been once.  It’s a cute house with worn white paint siding with burgundy red trim framing the windows and doorframe with a tin roof.  There is a small yard around the house and I can imagine my dad being a kid with few worries running around outside with his brothers while the Texas sun warmed and tanned his skin.  I get nostalgic as I walk along the roads that my dad's feet had walked before.  I realize that the school I had gone to as a kid, the river I swam in and fished in had been his playground before it was mine.  I realize now how much he shared with me that I didn't know at the time.  
     I make my usual rounds when visiting one of my favorite small Texas towns.  I go by the school and see that it hasn't changed much and I like that.  There's very little in this day and age that stays the same so when I go back home and know that things are just how I left it, I feel like that piece of me I left here is still untouched.  The Little Store (yep, that's actually the name of the store) is still across the street where my friends and I ate lunch during our middle school years.  I stop by the Eagle statue in front of the high school and find my grandfather's brick lay among the others and I dust it off.  He had once been a football, track and basketball coach here and my mother and her siblings went to school here too.  Like I said, this place gets in your veins.  After seeing the football field we run to get some lunch.  There was only one thing I wanted to fill up my appetite and it was some Texas BBQ from one of my favorite places.  From the outside people might think it's a gas station with BBQ.  No my friend, it's a BBQ place that just happens to also sell gas.
 After lunch we take the usual route of driving through the park where we've had plenty of cookouts as a family and swims in the river.  The river alone is beautiful.  There's a dam towards one end of the river and brave kids have been walking across it for years.  I've heard plenty of stories from my mom about how people walk or slide across.  It's extremely slippery with moss but from what I've seen it looks like fun.  I've never been brave enough to cross it myself or walk more than a few steps.  But I've watched plenty of my daring friends give it a try on hot summer days.
     I'm supposed to speak at my dad's service and at the time I volunteered to I never realized how difficult it would be.  My dad was 44 years old when I was born, he lived almost half a life before I had taken my first breath.  I realize the audience may have an entirely different view of who he was.  But what I mourn, what I lost is mine.  I’m only dealing with my own grief and my own missing.  Because when everyone goes back to their routines it will be my own sorrows that I carry with me each day.  As the ceremony starts all I can feel is fear.  I have to speak in front of my family in a town I’ve been away from for so long.  I feel a part of it all and I feel like an outsider all at the same time.  Finally my name is called.  All I want to do is cry as I step up to the podium to speak.  I want privacy to release this pain I’m feeling.  Instead I take a deep breath and I speak.  I know that my voice is quivering and my hands are shaking and I take some breaks to look out onto the crowd.  I know what they see when they look at me.  They see the little girl who used to visit her Tia’s house and pick pecans in the front yard, a little girl who dressed like a cheerleader every Friday for school, the little girl who lived out north of town in the country climbing hills and catching frogs, the little girl who is still at my core who misses her father.  My final words are spoken and I take my seat next to my husband and siblings and I hope that I’m keeping myself composed but I’m sure that I’m failing.
     After the church service our family travels across the bridge to the Little Mexico cemetery.  Hymns are sung, words are spoken, hands are shook, sad looks are exchanged and tears fall.  Like all Hispanic families we go back to the church to eat.  Goat and brisket prepared just like I remember cookouts as a kid, rice, beans, and guacamole.  Plates are filled and stories are shared.  For a few moments I forget my sadness and I look around at all the life in our family.  All the things my dad left behind in each one of us, living and breathing.  It’s a beautifully broken thing, the circle of life and death. 
     The next day we travel to fly back home.  As I’m boarding the plane I start to feel this tightness in my chest and a worry in my stomach.  It’s not just sadness that I feel but panic.  I’ve traveled all this way, I’ve said goodbye, I’ve buried my father and now I’m leaving.  I’m leaving him behind in the cold ground.  All I want to do is go back to that small town.  I want to go back to that cemetery and be there to let him know I don’t want to leave him.  I don’t want to let go.  The more miles I put between us the more pain I feel.  I haven’t shared these thoughts with anyone.  No one knows about the cold ground and me.  

I can't write a song....but if I did I'd have a ukulele and sing you a tune....

Like two strings tied together
your words connect to my heart
Making their impact, leaving a mark
Once the warmth of your embrace fades
the words remain
wrapping me up
   carrying me through
      dancing by my side
        and in my dreams at night
You're the pulse that keeps me living
You're the axis that keeps my world in place and spinning
Like a yoyo I find myself falling
and you pull me back up again
wrap me up in your world
  keep me safe and close to you
     laugh at my jokes and dance with me
        while the silence surrounds us
Love me in the stillness
when it's just you and me
lay on a bed of leaves underneath the trees
tell me your fears and I'll share with you my dreams.....

Last days added up

I think about the fear of a last day.  There is so much more that I want and I can't bare to think of a day where all my wanting will be done, all my days measured and counted up into the story of my life.  I live now because I don't want this story to end.....

I can see it...you and me.

I build these thoughts, my dear, of you and I.
They are beautiful and simple
Interlaced with love on a sweet yet soft note
The echo of my love to you
Heard through a kiss, or the weaving of our hand as we walk
I see us walk now and I can see us in the future
With grey in our hair and a trail of adventures behind us
I'd tell you this, all of this my dear
But I've heard wishes don't come true when uttered aloud
So I wish for these moments dear
And I don't know if life or time will grant my wish
But my heart won't ever stop believing in these wishes
Whether a candle, a time or a star
My wish is the same
I want you, only you, my dear
To wake up with, laugh and cry with, dance and smile with
Every wish I've had comes true because every wish I've had is you.

Do you remember my friend?

Do you remember my friend the way we used to be?  The smiles we used to share and the jokes we once told?  Do you remember the innocence of life?  How naive we were to think of life as just a dream.  We dance till the music stops.  When we say goodbye, when we kiss, love, lose, and cry the music stops to wake us up.  The music stops so we pay attention, so we recognize life's moments when they happen.  Do you remember my friend.....the way that used to feel?


**I wrote this after finding pictures of me growing up with friends from middle school.  I moved away and things changed and I found myself looking at these pictures missing the way things used to be.  A few of the friends in the pic passed away a few years ago and it made me think about who we were when this pic was taken and all the things we didn't know about the future....This was my response to that feeling.**

Heartbeats and memories...

It's fleeting isn't it.....life.  When measured in blinks, breaths and heartbeats it seems like a lot but it's always never enough.  Love will always want more.  More laughs, hugs, smiles and moments.  That's why when someone passes our hearts ache for all the moments we had but mostly for all the moments we won't have.

Living in a Concrete Jungle.....

It’s when you’re in a big city being one among the crowd shuffling down the street between the buildings that block out light that you miss the simplicity of a small town in Texas.  I miss how the wild flowers would fade into bluebonnets that lined the two lane highways and how my mother and I would make a drive specifically for pictures among the bonnets.  If I would have known then that those moments would only be faded memories like worn paint on a house porch chipping away after the years, I would have paid more attention.  I would have memorized the sun and clouds on those days and the way my mother would stand and smile.  I would have taken deeper breaths and smelled the flowers as I kneeled down for a picture.  My childhood was filled with green and life and now in adult hood I find happiness when I see a patch of grass among the concrete jungle I now live in.  Nostalgia is what fills my heart now.  I keep finding my heart being pulled to what used to be and the people that used to fill my life.  But those days faded like water falling on a paper of words slowly pulling at the edges until there are new shapes formed and only a memory of what once was. 

America the Beautiful

Today my post is fueled by thoughts I had while reading that many people were not proud of the "America the Beautiful" commercial that aired during the Super Bowl.  If you missed it here is the commercial also followed by my thoughts on it and the feedback:

Apparently people are upset because other languages are singing America the Beautiful.  I personally can not understand why.  I am half mexican and half white, full American and personally I loved this commercial.  I come from a southern state but due to my husbands career we have gotten the chance to travel and live in many different locations.  I've come to a conclusion about where I want to live when I start my family.  I want to live where everyone does not look the same, I want to see different faces and hear different languages and smell and eat different foods.  I want to make friends and learn new things from them as well.  I want my children to see different families.

I have been the kid that looks around the room only to realize they are the only person who looks different.  I've felt eyes on me because they can't figure out "what I am".  I've heard snide comments and I've been the "little mexican girl" but I only know a very small fraction of what others have gone through.  I am still baffled that acceptance is not a natural thing for others to do.  I understand we can not all be friends because personalities don't always get along.  But to disregard someone because of their race or sexual preference is something I can not comprehend.

I want to teach my children (when I have them someday) that the world isn't always the same and the beauty is in what's different.

What we choose to carry....

While catching up on my hulu list this morning over my breakfast and coffee I was hit with a thought so here it is:

When preparing for traveling we pack all the things that will be useful to us.  Because if we are going to put in the energy to carry it then it obviously has value to us.  But the opposite is true for life.  I realized more of us, myself included, are willing to carry pain, heartache and regret for far longer than we need to.  These emotions cause far more damage yet we are willing to put our value in them.  The truth is none of these thoughts are actually a true definition of who we are.  Be aware of what you're putting effort into carrying with you in life.

Why write it down

     I have silently thought about being a writer.  I may have expressed this thought to a few close people but the point is I am not quite sure what it takes to be a writer.  I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought of plots for a book or writing a memoir/essay style book. From time to time while running, thinking about my life, doing errands or laughing with friends I have these thoughts that are usually deeper than the moment at hand.  I'm not trying to say that I am the next philosophical genius but I think about life a lot.  I've wanted a place to express these thoughts so I keep a journal with me and it doesn't have the lame day to day stuff that's happening written in it.  Sometimes it's lyrics to a song, thoughts I have in the moment or a picture that I just want to draw.  Whenever something that resembles inspiration strikes me I write it down.

     But the things about being inspired is sometimes you want to connect with other people.  There are other social media outlets I could express myself on but the point is I want to have an outlet without shouting out "Hey look how awesome I am!  I have amazing deep thoughts and I think you should all know it!!!"  Totally not my style.  So here it is.  A blog.  Not about my daily boring life but I plan to use it as my virtual journal.  Some writing may be longer than others, it may be quotes that I've found interesting but whatever it is it will be something that has had an impact on me.
If my randomness spikes your interest feel free to follow me on this journey of trying to understand myself and life.


"All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make the better." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson