It’s already March! This year is going by so quickly. Luz and I had our un-anniversary this week. 21 years. That’s crazy!

We have been watching season 3 of Jane the Virgin and I have been feeling more and more like I should be writing a novel instead of…everything else.

I’m not writing at all these days, and that’s not good for my brain or my soul.

I taught “Woman Hollering Creek” for the first time this week. And so, it was not that smooth. BUT, I realized that what I like about that story is that it’s the answer to Emma Pérez’s sexuality and discourse. That is, it’s about a community of women, stepping in and changing the tragedy. changing the telenovela story line. Cracking it open and offering new alternative endings. That’s what Felice and Graciela do.

That’s what nobody does for Delgadina.

In Song of the Hummingbird, Graciela Limón writes a new ending for La Llorona, where she kills not her children, but the engineer of her misery, Baltazar, who takes her children away from her. But she is still a woman alone, acting alone. Her relationships are with men: Zintle, Tetla, Baltazar. She is mother to her children: the wings of a bird, Baltazar (II), Paloma (little this and little that).

She has no helpers in the story. She has one nameless helper, who lures Baltazar to the underground passages with stories of hidden gold. But this character has no name and Huitzitzílin has no relationship with them. What would it mean if that person was her lover, her business partner, her comadre?

So then—back to me writing a novel—I was thinking, I should re-write The Order of Santa Rita modeling Cisneros’s writing of Woman Hollering Creek. In terms of narrative voice, structure, time.

SIDE NOTE: “Woman Hollering Creek” should go with “La Historia de Una Marimacha” in the anthology of stories that structure my understanding of the divine. What Night Brings. Luna’s California Poppies. Santora. The God Box. So Far from God. Bless Me Ultima. Portrait of Doña Elena. Wild Steps of Heaven.

 

That’s what I want to write, by the way. I feel like my ultimate goal is teach Portrait of Doña Elena. and Ludlow: Grito de los Mineros.

No, I mean that’s what I want to write. I want to write the abuela’s diary.

I can meditate on that story and then write in that way. And then I can choose another story and use that as a model. That is, I can move my fiction writing out of where it is—stuck!—into another space. and I can follow readers I admire. And I don’t have to wait till I find a creative writing teacher. Orale, I’m nearly 52 years old—“'Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar.” Quit looking for someone to be my bridge. To be my teacher.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Fuck that! When the student is ready, she can figure out how to be her own teacher.

[I posted this update on FB and then had to explain the whole concept to Luz and they thought that’s a BRILLIANT idea, because Woman Hollering Creek that is such a perfect story! And it means you have to withhold information from the reader. And it means you have to play with timing, to move beyond “this happened and then that happened” that beginning writers stay stuck in.]

Something like that. Hey, someone in Washington wants to invite me up to give a talk about theology. I should be writing “Towards a Tzlingona Theology.”

First: I found out that Edwidge Danticat wrote a children’s book about Anacaona, Taino Princess of Hayti.

Last night i was thinking about Aurora Levins Morales and Guanina, and the children’s book written about La Malinche, and Danticat’s book,

and then I was thinking about Alma Lopez’s version of Legend of the Volcanoes…and how she was trying to imagine the real story of Popo and Ixta and maybe she wasn’t that into him, and maybe she was pretending to be dead in the hopes that he would go away…

And I came up with this whole scenario, where the Ixta/Popo story was made up after the fact. That the first representation was the pictorial, and what it’s really about is the murder of Coyolxauhqui, but that Rather than showing the horrible gory mess (a la murdered women in Juarez, mutilated and killed) it instead represents Coyo as beautiful and desirable

Because, every single woman is beautiful and desirable. that’s why we have all those lovely virgin saints. that’s why the portraits of Sor Juana are so different from the portraits of Catalina de Erauso…
(Catalina de Erauso is historically a man and so doesn’t have to be beautiful but can be strong)
So it’s really an image of Huitzilopochtli laying his sister’s body to rest.

It’s not really the grande romance but rather the recasting of it as a romance is part of the heterosexualization of violence. That is, that we normalize male violence against women by casting it as heterosexual romance.

And that furthermore, in this representation—male subject, dead female object—we once again make Huitzilopochtli the Hero and Coyolxauhqui merely incidental to his story.

I haven’t figured this all out yet. In particular, there seems to be an element of the volcano Ixtaccihuatl and the the re-membering of Coyolxauhqui, which is really a forgetting. But am I then “getting rid of Ixta” as Keta said about Terrill’s La Historia de Amor?

When I told my students that Keta didn’t like Terrill’s piece because he “got rid of Ixta” (the figure with whom she identified) Brieanna asked if Keta like Alma Lopez’s piece…and of course I didn’t know the answer. Right now, I can’t even remember the name of Lopez’s piece! How weird is that?!?

Okay, I ended up really disliking this novel I read, Nichola Griffith’s Ammonite. (Tribal women!) but one part that I liked was that there was a certain kind of berry that prevented a serious illness. And the berries were bitter. And one girl refused to eat her berries. And then she got very ill and sent for the curandera, and the curandera refused to come because she hadn’t eaten her berries. (Why should I do for you when you won’t do for yourself?)

Thenike smiled. “Torren was a young girl who thought she knew best and did not always eat her nitta seeds, or wear her cap in the middle of winter. One day she got sick and went to the healer. The healer turned her away, saying, why should she help Torren when Torren always refused to help herself?”
“So what happened?” “It depends. Sometimes Torren repents, sometimes the healer relents, sometimes Torren dies.”

Griffith, Nicola (2002-04-10). Ammonite (p. 189). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Editio
n.
OMG, I made it to 700 words! Hurray hurray calloo callay!

I have a faculty meeting before class this morning (of all things!!!!)

My laundry just beeped so I’m going to pop it in the dryer and start getting ready.

I need to sign off now, because my attention keeps wandering to other things. I’m going to go turn on the hot water for Luz, because their alarm just went off a little while ago.

Today’s doll knitting is a fuschia and orange and black jumper (american).
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My students were asking me about Keta yesterday, because I said that she didn’t really like Joey Terrill’s “La historia de amor” because it “got rid of Ixta”

Alright, 400 words, that’s pretty good for starting out. Now, on to my responsibilities. I have to start leaving a little earlier. I think I left for work at 9:40 yesterday, and didn’t make it to the carpool lane before ten o’clock, which added about 20 minutes to my commute time.
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I hope I have clean clothes I can wear today.

Tough Tortillas

Right now I’m reading Carol Counihan’s book “Life is Like a Tortilla” which comes from this great statement by one of the interviewees: Monica Marquez Taylor, of Antonito, Colorado. (greater New Mexico)

"My great-aunts used to say that a tortilla is like life. Nothing is ever going to be exactly the way you want it to be. However life is, that is how your tortilla comes out. So however you rolled out your tortilla, maybe it wasn't quite round, but you ate it because you made it."

This speaks to me on so many levels. The easiest one to talk about is “maybe it wasn’t quite round, but you ate it because you made it.”

Although, in my opinion, you are allowed to share them with the chickens (who will never find fault in your tortilla-making abilities)

This suits my cooking philosophy perfectly: if you make tough tortillas, then you eat tough tortillas. Otherwise your tortillas will never get better. If you throw the tortillas away, then you’re saying “I tried that once: I couldn’t do it.” If you eat them, then you’re saying “that was my first tortilla and it was a little tough. Let’s see how my next tortilla is.”

(My sister adds that you should smother them in plenty of real butter, so that even the imperfect ones will be tasty.)

Also, once you start making your own tortillas, you’ll never go back! For one thing, I usually think the flour tortillas from the store taste bitter from too much baking powder. And the corn tortillas! We are fortunate that we can buy fresh corn masa (nixtamal) at the corner store (Mi Tierra), or at the La Finca Tortillería, or organic from the Berkeley farmer’s market. We have one tortilla rule in our house: too many tortilleras spoil the tortilla. One person needs to be in charge of rolling/pressing the tortillas and cooking them. Again, so you can improve. If you finally get the tortilla to the right thickness so that it doesn’t tear, and then I flip it before the first side is cooked, I’m interfering in your tortillera learning process. If you finally got the grill to the right temperature (not too hot, warmed for a long time) and then I press it with the cloth napkin and make it stick to the griddle, well, it’s going to be a long night. I love Luz’s tortillas and I love my tortillas. I love corn and I love whole wheat. I want to work on amaranth again soon. What Luz’s students taught me is that you have to master corn tortillas before you try amaranth. You can’t go from flour to amaranth.

(Fresh corn tortillas make Gluten-Free February a whole lot more pleasurable!)

Shrove Tuesday

I’m giving up Facebook for Lent.

One think I want to accomplish this Lent is to go back to writing: to journaling every day. When I get in the habit, I can be really productive, and in the writing, I push my ideas further. But one of my sayings is “Life ain’t nothing but a habit.” Our habits are not just our quirks: they are the structure and substance of our lives. So if I want to write, I have to build the habit of writing. Different kinds of writing: journaling, blogging, critical, fiction, poetry…

One of the hardest things about blogging was finding the time. Luz would sometimes ask me to blog something, and I would feel overwhelmed at the commitment that called for. I would draft entries and read them over and over, editing for hours before I would post. Facebook, by comparison was easy: think it, type it, send it out. Try to avoid proofreading, because the point is to get it right out there, not to get it out there right. I hadn’t blogged regularly since spring 2010.

Blogging seems so much more self-involved than facebook. On facebook, I’m acknowledging the posts, the shares, the ideas of all my friends. On the blog it’s just me sharing my thoughts, which also means asserting that they’re significant enough to be published even in this limited way.

Maya pointed out that if I’m going ahead with giving up something (facebook) for Lent, I should go whole-hog today by facebooking to beat the band, à la carnaval. or at least the fb equivalent of butter-drenched pancakes.

Obligatory farming content: In November and December, our egg production all but dried up. Our five hens were producing a maximum of one egg for the whole flock: more often those eggs were few and far between. I remember when I was studying Russian in grad school (geek for the revolution), learning about the Lenten practices and how seasonally, Lent was tied to the End of Winter, which also meant, the last of the winter supplies. Did people give up eggs for lent for the pragmatic reason that their hens had all gone off their laying?

I remember in northern New Mexico we often had late winter storms: the latest snow I recall was on my sister’s birthday: May 13. The Lenten foods of New Mexico don’t really signify bare cupboards. I’m thinking of the verdolagas and quelites of spring, the tortas de huevo with dried camarón. (clearly their gallinas were still laying!)

Speaking of northern New Mexican religiosity, Occupy Oakland has given me a new appreciation for the old prayers and alabados. In January, I participated in an OO march to a zillionaire’s home in Piedmont, protesting the zillionaire’s new vacation home to be built on Rattlesnake Island land sacred to the Elem Pomo. The indigenous presence on the march was very strong, and the crowd was way more diverse than many OO actions. The march seemed like it was uphill the whole way. I spent a lot of time sweating and gasping for breath and trying to appreciate the sage smoke without succumbing to an asthma attack, which would make me conspicuous. Fortunately, I had my marvelous Chihuahua with me (Nopalito), who deflected all attention away from me. Unfortunately he didn’t like hills any better than I did and it seemed like I carried him most of the way up.

But what that taught me was to appreciate the alabados of my father’s people. These are long Spanish religious ballads with dozens of verses depicting the pain and suffering of the way of the cross. They have names like “Ven, Pecador, y Verás” (Come Sinner, and See) or Madre de Dolores (which relives the mother’s pain at seeing her son suffering so). But when you’re on pilgrimage during Lent in northern New Mexico, you are walking these long highways or small dirt roads. Las viejitas come out as you pass their trailers, and join in the procession. And you can sing those alabados (and the rosaries, and the litanies) while walking all day long. 

And I came to appreciate that when I was marching with Occupy Oakland, because the chants that the young men were chanting into their bullhorns were written for people standing still, not people walking, and certainly not people “of a certain age” walking uphill. At one point I started singing alabados under my breath (one of the less gruesome ones, Salve Santa Rita). And when I did, I could breathe again, and I could keep in step, and I could keep pace. Because that’s what those songs were written for.

And I’m doing that all the time now, which is good, because often the action seems less like a “march” and more like a pilgrimage. And I imagine all those viejitas coming out to join us, as we walk and breathe and sing.

Obligatory Food Content: I’m not eating buttery pancakes today, because we’re still in Gluten-Free February. But on Sunday night we talked about our Decolonize your Diet project at the East-West Salon (tertulia?) hosted by Irina and Nico, and so Luz prepared enchiladas stuffed with jamaica, jícama, and carrots, and topped with quick-pickled carrots, red onions and radishes. (and queso cotija for the non-vegans). And Luz also prepared their famous frijoles, which are so good I want them to be my last meal. Luz shared the recipe on the facebook page for Luz’s Decolonial Cooking Club.

Chuparosas and Chihuahuas

We in the compound never really expected to have any dogs--much less two--running around. Yeah, Luz and I had joked about getting a Chihuahua for oh, about six years.

Then Jenn decided to get a dog to strengthen the soul. She chose a rescue dog named Herbie, whom we originally thought was a small lab, but since have tentatively identified as a Jindo Gae, native to the Korean island of Jindo, a hunting dog whose prey includes raccoons(“Hurray!” squawk the chickens! “Our hero!”). Like many Jindos, Herbie is extremely reserved with anyone outside his immediate family (i.e. Jenn). He is good-natured, mellow, and slow-moving, except during a jog or when he has slipped the leash and is running up the street, laughing at us.

It wasn’t long after this that my pining for a dog became quite vocal. I even tried that old ploy of declaring “I want to have a baby!” Luz, of course, was not deceived.

But then on fourth of July, our day started out very hard and seemed to just get harder. After a long day out, Luz went into the garden to relax and encountered…a chihuahua! A very sweet whitish girl with wavy hair and big brown eyes. She had fleas and very long nails. And she was clearly very frightened. Of course, in our hood, fourth of july means firecrackers starting from late june and going through mid-july. So all the dogs and cats tend to go into hiding, or, like this little lady, looking for an escape.

I kept declaring “God sent us this Chihuahua!”

In the first hour that we found her, she encountered every single cat in the compound--which is itself notable, since Siren the cat is not fond of our company--and the cats and the dog showed a mellow lack of interest in one another.

Luz liked her, but insisted that if she was coming into the house she had to be bathed immediately for fleas. We bathed her in dr. bronner’s castile soap and toweled her dry. I ran out to the grocery store fifteen minutes before it closed, and came home with a couple of cans of Mighty Dog. She slept in our bed with us that night, snuggled with us, and went outside in the morning "to do her business"

The next day I took her to the lesbian-owned pet store while my friend A* was visiting. We were all on the down-low, because I was afraid someone there would recognize the dog and I would be forced to give her up. So with all the stealth of a professional dognapper, I avoided all the questions about how old she was and how long I’d had her.

One funny thing is that Paws & Claws was in its new location and was also changing over from their old “punch card” reward system, to a new, automatic computer frequent buyer program. So when they asked me for my name, phone number, and name of my pet. I fibbed a little and gave them the name of our oldest cat.

So, lovely queer purple harness for the perrita. A* held her while I clipped her nails. She was pretty patient with the process.

Now, left to myself, I would’ve hidden the dog in the house forever, because, after all “God sent me this dog,” therefore, obviously, I am intended to keep her. However, Luz convinced me that the right thing for us to do would be to put up ads around the neighborhood with “found: small white dog” with our phone number. Because this dog was obviously NOT a stray: she was too well behaved and expected only good things from us. Luz posted to the neighborhood list, and printed out the flyers and I tacked them up on the telephone poles, including the one next to Mr. McDaniels house.

The next day I happily took the doggy on a walk around the block, wearing her new purple harness and sporting one of our old leashes (from back in the day when we used to co-parent Saffy the border collie mix in New Mexico). The little dog really enjoyed running back down the hill to our house. But as I paused to unlock the security door, I noticed a big bronze continental slowing down to take a look. At the dog. My first impulse was to get the damn door open and hide my dog away and never walk her on this block again. But I finally took a deep breath and walked over the car, asking the driver (Mr. McDaniels) if he recognized the dog. He was happy to have her back and I reluctantly let her go. I only glimpsed her a couple more times before Mr. McDaniels moved away, and he was careful not to let her escape again.

That Chihuahua had come to us on a particularly hard day, and brought us a lot of joy and comfort. And as a result of that experience, Luz decided we were indeed ready to get our own dog. The next week we went to Oakland Animal Services and adopted a little male pup, whom we named Nopalito. But that is another story.

Luz's Garden to be featured on this year's Bay Friendly Garden Tours

http://www.bayfriendlyblog.org/2011/03/good-gates-make-good-neighbors.html


Luz's garden will be featured on this year's Bay Friendly Garden Tour, Sunday May 15. Come on by, y'all!