Skip to main content

As I Walk

As I walk in the hot summer El Paso sun to my classroom at UTEP my shoulders sizzle. I sometimes feel like a rotisserie chicken. My skin browns more with each rotation to and from the parking lot to the Classroom Building where I meet with my students. Beads of sweat begin to pill at the base of my skull and race down my neck even as my hands snap to wipe them away. I loathe how hot I get. This is my daily routine. By the end of the month my shoulders and arms will be a deep coffee brown while my legs will be latte. I will never be evenly brown.

As I walk I look at the people shuffling, biking, running, strolling past me. Today, a little girl around ten years old scurried toward campus as I walked away. She looked so odd because I wondered why she was by herself. As I stared, I forgot this. She ran pitched forward from the weight of an overstuffed backpack. The tips of her ballet flats were the only thing to touch the hot concrete. She skipped across as if she were skimming the surface of water. Her black pigtails flopped. Her long pink dress flowed in the wind. I wondered if I imagined her.

As I walk I think about the dream my mother told me she had last night and what she thinks it means. I think of how somber her voice sounds, and I can hear the dream clinging to the words as she explains she dreamt my dad. She thinks the dream is more than a dream and that something is wrong. He's sick. I stay quiet after she says this. I walk into the building and sigh with my whole body as the cool air hugs my front and the hot air grips my back. I stop listening for a moment. I don't want to hear the dream. She stays quiet after she's done. The silence makes me feel like she wants me to do something.  "Maybe you should text my Tia Elia," I finally say.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

¿Y la Prieta?

My grandma, Ita, called me Prieta. She called me this because my skin is toasted brown. When I was born my mom says I was light skinned, but she knew “que iba ser morena” because the inside of my little baby thighs were already darker than the rest of me. In the sun, I turn a darker brown. I get even more Prieta. It was a term of endearment. My sister, who has a light complexion, was called guera or guerinchi. When I tell people who don’t speak Spanish what Prieta means, dark or the dark one, their eyes open wide and a small gasp escapes. I see the offense they feel for me sprinkled on their faces like the freckles I will never have. When I try to explain, the offense still shadows their eyes. That is the problem with Spanish. Wait, maybe, that is their problem with Spanish. Even when I explain, they are suspicious. Their faces ask, “Is this true?” as if I am setting them up for a joke. But how can I explain the cultural and literal meaning of a word at the same time? ...
3 comments
Read more

Scene 1. Act 2. Line 53.

I am told that I am good at writing dialogues. Perhaps that's the reason when it comes to interacting with people the words that I want to hear, the words I already have written in my head are ready, but when they don't come out I am often disappointed. What happened to that perfect phrase I had in my head? What happened? Why are they silent? Or, where did that come from? I find myself left with wanting more, or needing less, or simply being in a state of unfamiliarity. Why? You might ask? Because there are very few times when what I have written in my mind is translated well into real life. Real life is not scripted. Repeat. Real life is not scripted. Recently I wrote about a true moment. A moment that I witnessed of a girl crying in her car. It happened. It was REAL. I didn't write anything but what I saw, and I was told in a workshop that the whole scene was cliche and needed to be cut. As a writer I saw what was meant. As a human I thought, "We can't cut this...
2 comments
Read more

Para Las Nietas

Cuando se van las abuelitas, se va una parte fundamental. We are pulled from the brown soil. Roots exposed. We falter, droop. How can we continue without the cariño of their warm hands to support us? Nourish us con sus caricias. Cuando se van las abuelitas, se van los almuerzos y cenas que no más ellas hacían. Las comidas that tasted of their love can no longer exist. The tacos crispy and brown, won’t taste the same. The flavor, like a duende, can’t be caught no matter how hard we try to capture it in our own kitchens. Cuando se van las abuelitas, se nos va el lenguaje, porque ellas nos hablaban en español. Nuestros apodos como Güera, Prieta, Niña, Mima, y Mija se desaparecen. We ache to hear the sounds of our names from their lips and grasp for their words. The ones we didn’t know we would miss. Cuando se van las abuelitas se nos va el amor duro. We lose the sharp tongues quick with consejos we didn’t want to hear at the time. Se nos pierden los dichos and the wisdom we...
Post a Comment
Read more