​Caught up in the frenzy, and per request, I took my daughter to see Barbie a couple of weeks after it premiered. The filmmaker in me was curious about the production value and exactly how much pink one film could exploit.   It felt like a perfect mother-daughter outing even if Barbie wasn’t my ‘thing’ and hadn’t been since my early years. I remember having a Barbie townhouse when I was in first or second grade, the flimsy plastic framework constantly wobbling when the elevator went up and down. At some point my attention moved to Cabbage Patch dolls and my favorite was Strawberry Shortcake. This was probably due to my inability to relate to a doll that looked so different from me and often resembled women who were often cruel. I can’t remember having a traditional Ken, so my Barbie was either dating with my Michael Jackson figure, or when I was alone, with another Barbie. 
 
As we left the theater my daughter turned to me and asked, “What did you think?”
 
Something about the film had left me unsettled, and I struggled to put it into words. Was the film funny? Clever? Entertaining? It touched all those qualities at different points. The dialogue was snappy and the production value of the chart. Where it left me hollow was the social acclaim of the film as a feminist achievement for a few reasons: the film embodies cis-white culture, it leans on white savior feminism, and because even in a film about a world of women, it took the journey of a man for Barbie to understand herself.
 
I know that Barbie’s storyline has always been as a heterosexual, white woman who is the center of her universe, with everyone else as extensions of her life, including the offshoot characters they poked fun of in the film, such as Madge and Allan. And I get that this at its core is a corporate film made to make money and push products. Yet, with Barbie being touted as a modern woman who could ‘do anything’, she clearly couldn’t cross the threshold of being queer, apart from (maybe) ‘weird Barbie’. Even that inference, however, is fraught with stereotype of queerness of how the world sees it. As a queer woman who explored my queerness at a young age through my dolls, I felt like it should have been time for Barbie in some form or fashion to embrace that possibility and allow for that representation. It just reinforces a hetero narrative for queer girls and women who not only struggle to find representation that is accurate and not debasing, but who are actively struggling to maintain their human rights in a country where the dominant culture is becoming increasingly controlled by the tenants of religious, white supremacy. Why mirror that world and simply pretend queerness does not exist? 
 
Parallel to the absence of queerness is the lack of diversity in the world of Barbie. Is there a distinct diversity of women? Somewhat, more so on the side of the Kens. Are the woman and her daughter on the outside world who Barbie connects with diverse? Yes. Does this make the film diverse? No. Barbieland itself is homogenous, although they do throw in white variations of body size and hair color, so it gives the appearance of acceptance. At the end of the day, Barbie is still the lean, perfect blond scared of flat feet and cellulite and desperate to do what she can to avoid imperfection. Although there may be diversity in casting, the attitudes and rules of the world are still the same, which caters to a level of perfection impossible for most women to maintain. Is the president of Barbieland a black woman? Yes, but I was particularly irked by the scene where President Barbie, after her spirit is restored, walks down the stairs throwing out the word, ‘motherfucker’. Is she mad? Yes. Does she have a right to be? Absolutely. Yet, to distill the strength of black women and their leadership into street slang is to make her a cliché, which is anti-feminist and if we are being real, feels out of pocket for a white writer. Why do we feel a need to portray and exploit black women during moments of anger within conventional responses that mimic street justice or a lack of pedigree? What a horribly missed opportunity sacrificed for a comedic timing. 
 
Just as vexing was the covert operation the Barbies had to initiate to ‘remember’ who they were in the face of overbearing patriarchy. Women don’t overcome systems of misogyny by whispering to each other or trying to remind each other who we are, as hopeful as the thought may be that women lifting women is enough to defeat oppression. It comes from dismantling framework built by men that requires men to be equal partners by recognizing their privilege and assisting in the deconstruction, which the Kens don't really do at the end. It is sweat equity, persistence, and creating ripples, however small, that hopefully create an iota of change if not for us, then for those who come next. And we don’t forget who we are. We minimize or shrink in proportion to the egos of the men who can’t surrender their power and control, lest they must face themselves as Ken did and discover that power is empty when applied for strictly personal gain and privilege.
 
To me, the most anticlimactic part of the film was Barbie witnessing the larger world and how she has contributed to its gender stereotypes and expectations but doing absolutely nothing about it. In the end, her choice to face mortality and live in the external world seems bold, except that Barbie brings nothing to the outside world to eradicate the sexism and prejudice that horrified her in the first place; instead, her focus and excitement is her real-life vagina. It’s certainly a witty ending but like Barbie herself, superficial to the topic and material the film pretends to explore.
 
Out of all the characters, in a film titled, ‘Barbie’, Ken has the most expansive journey, played to perfection. It’s his devotion and determination to Barbie that gains him access to the world where he discovers the concept of the patriarchy and returns to infuse it across the land of Barbie in search of his personal power to make her love him. The parallels and commentary on current society are spot on. Later he understands that the only way out is through reflection and self-discovery after Barbie encourages him to find himself. But it is only due to Ken’s self-realization, prompted by Barbie, that she finally recognizes that she needs to do the same. He is the mirror of her own self-doubt and insecurity, and it is only through his actions and his repercussions that she can finally face her own, but does she?
 
I think for all the hype, and billions of dollars later, I felt disappointed that we seem content to settle for such a simplified parody of feminism as a representation for our struggles and oppression. Barbie implies that in a world where women take center stage and dominate, that men in the shadow of women lack purpose and need our compassion and direction. What then of the countless women who have been sitting in darkness for centuries, still waiting for their moment in the sun? If we are going to explore these concepts in films such as Barbie, we can’t pretend that a shallow examination through snark and comedy is going to give us any depth of answer, and nor should we be labeling them as feminist.  Perhaps ‘feminist-light’, or a ‘first wave’ feminist feature, as it rides the tide without intersection.  
 
In the end, I recognize I am probably asking too much from a capitalistic, extended advertisement seeking to expand a toy company’s profit margin and endear the girls of now and their parents of yesterday so they can continue a product line and boost sales into tomorrow. Despite that realism, the film gave me one tiny hope: if there is a sequel, Barbie may evolve and finally explore her queerness. After all, by the end, she’s forsaken her signature heels for Birkenstocks. 

Of all the loss endured from the heartache of the past year, the most challenging has been my reluctance to revisit the place we once called ‘ours’: Jemez Springs. 

It is one of my favorite places on earth.

It is also one of the last places where 'we' found happiness, however fleeting.

The thought of facing the memories and shared moments felt incredibly heavy. Already laden with baggage from an impending divorce, I had no strength left to carry more sadness than I was already dragging. Month after month, I would tell myself that I was finally ready. And month after month I sat frozen, finding excuses to avoid the trek into the mountains I cherish, while I carefully sat and sewed my life back together, scrap by scrap, until I was whole, if not worn.

Finally, in early October, I did what I have been trying to summon the courage to do for more than a year: I hopped in my car and made what felt like a journey of contradictions: reminiscent memories of the past wafting around each corner while creating new footprints across fresh terrain. 

The soft, cool mist met me in the Caldera, embracing me like a long lost lover. Spits of rain fell from the swollen, grey clouds as I wound the curved highway taking in all the luscious and vibrant color laid before me. This past summer, fire ravaged parts of the landscape. When I came across a patch of newly risen baby aspens, quaking as their charged predecessors towered over their delicate, lean trunks, I stopped the car and cried. It was a spectacular reminder that heart wrenching beauty can emerge from the worst devastation.

Finally I arrived in the breathtaking valley of the Jemez, winding through town to stop at the cafe, grabbing a warm beverage, and making my way down to the hot springs across the street. 

For the next hour, I soothed my weary flesh in the cleansing waters, allowed the steaming waters to diffuse the last of my apprehension and anxiety. My eyes feasted on the sharp, surrounding hills, the stratified red and beige calming my spirit. Thunder made empty threats in the distance as I baptized my soul, releasing all my grief into the pool, leaving behind the woman with a broken heart in the water's reflection.

As I prepared to made the journey home, something inside, a small hole I could never quite seal, found the thread of catharsis it required to finally close. As if it was the final stitch I required to walk into my new skin.

With that, I laid claim to this sacred space I'd long loved as my own.

​And finally, after 476 days, as I snaked along the highway headed home, I felt free. 

The last time I breathed fire,
I sat in his grandmother’s townhome
In Coyoacan
My knees pressed together
As my stomach buckled
As my lungs reached out their
Fingertips seizing any oxygen
To stop the burn
 
I sat in his grandmother’s living room
Admiring her below the knee skirt
And beige mules
That slapped the floor as she
Scraped a broom across the
Saltillo tile floor with a
Permanent layer of the desert air
Clinging to its surface
 
In Coyoacan
I watched the sky
Float with red ember and
A spectrum of gray ash
Saw the vibrant volcano
Popocatépetl filled with rage,
Spewing his disdain and anger
Across Mexico City
 
My knees pressed together
I clutched my stomach
Knowing your heartbeats were
Racing deep inside me
Praying to El Popo
That his wrath didn’t take
Your spirits up the air
To fly with the fire
 
As my stomach buckled
They raced me to the naturopath
He searched through tinctures
Found the right glass tubes
And blended together
Magic in a bottle
Flowers squeezed and pressed
Into droplets like dew
 
As my lungs reached out
I lifted my tongue
Flooding its soft underbelly with
Sugar, earthy liquid
Savoring rainbow meadows
Tasting the gentle warmth of sunshine
And the refreshing cool of misty rain
 
Fingertips collecting
The droplets escaping the
Corners of my parched lips
Shaking off the wet residue
As I sit, waiting
For the fire inside my chest,
The burning suffocation
To finally ease and lift
 
To stop the burn
I mistook for romantic love
I travelled 2250 miles of road
Alone, but not really,
To sit on your grandmother’s fabric couch
Just to watch us slowly
But inevitably
Go up in flames

Ever since Texas passed its recent law banning abortion, all I’ve been thinking about is women. All the beautiful, talented, and tremendous women I have known who have faced excruciating decisions day in and day out regarding their future.  How they looked ahead and decided that they didn’t have enough to give beyond giving to themselves, and how that should be accepted without question rather than facing an imposed barrier.

People who oppose abortion like to present it like a Rorschach test: black and white with crisp edges and clear design. But it’s never simple, or without muddled, blended, overlapping considerations. Rather, it’s like a watercolor without boundaries where the colors bleed into each other without abandon, emotions running across the page, not knowing where they begin and stop. I have known women who have chosen abortion for many different reasons. They weren’t stable and prepared for the experience of parenthood, or they have a family they didn’t want to grow, or they were the victims of sexual assault, or they simply chose themselves for the unforeseeable future. Any response a woman has to a decision that requires commitment and follow through for the rest of her life is valid. Period.

In college, I faced the potential of this decision when I had a pregnancy scare with a boy that I couldn’t see myself dating the next week, let alone sharing the commitment of parenthood for life. One of my mentors, a woman of strong faith, very gently and kindly told me in no uncertain terms that if I was pregnant, I should consider abortion. In retrospect, she could envision the life that I would have to live mapped in front of me that I couldn’t quite see clearly at such a young age: the 19 year old still learning to be responsible having to bear the burden of raising a child when she was still one herself. The relief that came when the test magically displayed a minus sign was palpable, and I was spared having to make such a hefty decision. The agony of facing that choice, of having to determine what I would do if confronted with such a decision, was a burden I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I have also known women who didn’t choose abortion because they felt powerless. Women dominated by partners or family to go against their gut. Women fearful of the tenants of religion and scared it would make them unlovable in the eyes of their faith. Women who were so worried about letting down everyone else around them that they forgot they count too.

I once was asked to spend time with a woman who was struggling to bond and nurse with her newborn, because the staff didn’t have time to sit bedside and figure out her resistance. I sat in her room with her in silence as she held the infant at arm’s length, picking at the blanket she was swaddled in. It was not her first child. It was one she never wanted. After holding space with her for a time, she shared that she didn’t feel she could handle another baby but it was against her faith to have those thoughts, and her family and spouse had convinced her having the child was the only option. Her face was stony and defeated, like the last vestiges of joy had been pushed out with the delivery of her daughter. As if she had birthed a future where she no longer existed to herself. I could see the black space she was slipping into, slowly, the depression gathering strength. No place in this world should prevail where women have their light extinguished by outside expectations, where peoples’ words become torrents of water that slowly kill off the flame of personal existence. I continue to be haunted by how, or if, she survived.

For me, those musings are more to bear than giving someone the option to choose a live they can live with. Ending a pregnancy may not be what I would choose personally, but it doesn’t have to be what I want, or you want, or whatever you imagine the universe/god wants. The person making the choice gets to choose what they can endure, and that seems fair enough in a world filled with a myriad of inequities and cruelties that women already have to navigate and overcome. Having the option to deem one's self worthy of an equal chance at living isn't selfish, or mere self-preservation, it is a supreme, radical affirmation of being. I exist. I am worthy. Take me as I am. Love me just the same.

And if that isn't 'pro-life', how can anything else be?

I haven’t felt at home in a long time. Longer than long. It’s a disconnection, a sense that where I sit in my present life may not be serving me in the ways that I envisioned, that I have been lost in a sea of promises, hopes, and chances that merely batter me back and forth over the same territory, the same endless waves.

If there is one thing this pandemic has shown me, it is how easy it is to feel utterly alone even when you are surrounded by others. How we can share space and lives but not our truths and our needs. How a 'home' can be a mere skeleton, a shelter, without activating the places in our heart to make it feel like a connected element. How 'living' together can be mere repetition of routine, and not a day to day awakening filled with love and fulfillment. That emptiness, its blackness, creeps in slowly, and it is the worst kind of loneliness.

My life feels rudderless and foreign, as if I am watching it through the lens of another while simultaneously, I am the attraction. I can feel where I am and what I am doing in the moment, yet like an observer, it seems out of reach from any alteration. When you have faced failure over and over and over, making hard choices can feel like a certain death, and the thought of having to bury yet another piece of your soul is all too much.

I waver between numbness and over-saturation. Waffling from a total void to my cup overflowed. In between lies nothingness, but it isn't comfort. Just cold.

The worst part of these moments, of feeling like an outsider in your own life, is not being anchored. Always feeling adrift, like you have nothing secure to lash yourself with, no mooring to keep you from being lost. At best, you aim for salvation. At worst, you hope you don’t drown with a sinking ship.

I don’t know that I have ever felt ‘home’. Not in my body, at times treated as a convenience and object, and that has caused me pain, insecurity, and diffidence for most of my life. Definitely not in a country that aims to police my physical autonomy and where community is an abstract idea rather than a concrete notion. Certainly not in my hometown with its racist, misogynist overtones and predominant religious heritage. I have never really been fully ‘at ease’, even in the healing sanctuary of the desert.

In romantic relationships, I am either too much or not enough, or my expectations fall into the same dynamics. In place of these, I’ve learned to build an international network of people who help shelter me when the storms come, but I still steer alone.

The only time I have truly felt the tranquility of what I imagine is experienced by others is with my offspring. Recently my daughter’s therapist shared an exercise where you find your ‘happiness’ and transfer it into an object. You imagine all the sensations you associate with the memory: what do you taste, touch, smell, see, or hear? Then you take a proxy, such as a rock, and you use it as a gateway to that memory. My children are my touchstones. With them, through them, I understand who I am and who I want to be. And if I forget, they remind me and lead me back into that space. But, as they grow and develop their individual spirits, I know they will soon drift from me too, as they should.

It’s a challenging and exhausting place to be, not having a landing point. Feeling like I can’t truly rest because I never know what’s coming, when the next set of waves will crash or when the next squall will find me.

Never knowing if I will ever be able to say ‘I’m home’ and truly mean it.

Never knowing if my gypsy heart will find peace.

For All the Moments I Wasn't Enough

Tonight I’m thinking of all the remembrances that will be missed,
How this misty rain is no substitute for tattooed arms
And how it lingers on my skin a little too long
Unlike the tears that fall fast and furious from my eyes
 
I’m contemplating stillness, and what it means
To be alone with myself, to cut through the clatter
Of doubt, nonsense, sadness, fears, and grief
How I’m building a monument to sorrow in my heart
 
I’ve laid out each brick, engraved
With every regret I can list, and some left blank
For that which escapes my memory,
For the interludes I would rather not remember
 
It will be fantastic, this enormous memorial carefully stacked
By my fists, stained crimson and marred
From all the sharp, whet words you
Threw my way on the nights without any clouds
 
All those perfect, starry nights when you absently forgot
That my heart, like my hands, silently bleeds your name

Dissonance

These streets are so, so quiet

So still,
a motorcycle tire screams on asphalt
my dog’s paws echo in click-clacks along the concrete
there’s a whisper of the stray cat running
the sky yells in streaks of cotton candy
I eavesdrop on the business of ravens
 
This town is too silent
Your rooms so hollow, waiting
It’s all I can do
Not to die
Of a vacant heart

I didn’t think I would grieve my uterus. Never thought I would miss the heart shaped organ that lovingly stretched and carried my children: my beautiful, sweet progeny. For all it has given me, it has also taken so many moments, stolen much of my youth, and caused me so much pain I had no idea what it was like to live without it.
 
We had a complicated relationship that began when I was 12 and got my first period. I remember taking generic classes in school about menstruation that liked to pretend that menstruation was something that shouldn’t really be discussed. ‘Special time’, ‘Your monthly bill’, ‘Aunt Flo’. Anything but the red river that flowed, weeping from my body, reminding me what the world perpetually saw as a ‘woman’s place’: to breed and continue what was begun long ago.
 
With that stream of crimson also came waves of excruciating pain. Spasms and contractions of that tiny organ that would wreak havoc on my body. By the time I was in high school, I regularly missed days of school each month. If I started bleeding in class, the crushing waves of discomfort would ebb and flow as it poured between my legs, and I would have to call my mother or grandparents to come rescue me. At the age of 16, I was taking high doses of Anaprox to get a semblance of relief and could do nothing more than lie in bed with a heating pad, reading, if I could focus through the pain. I remember finally telling the male pediatrician I saw and him asking me if I masturbated, and me wondering what the fuck that had to do with the monthly discomfort. My senior year of high school I missed 22 days. I was told that when I became sexually active it would abate. When that happened in college, it did, for a short time, then reared its head with a vengeance. Then I was told it would abate when I had children.
 
After the birth of my first babies via Cesarean it returned after a few years, now with even greater, excessive, blood loss. I became anemic, prescribed Mirena to regulate my body, and suffered the discomfort and agony of watching my hormones change my body and make me feel puffy and bloated all the time. As someone who has struggled with body image and weight issues since the age of 5, it was horrifying. I wasn’t staining my panties every month, lying in wait for the moment it would trickle into a gush, but it was a untenable trade-off. I lasted less than a year before I had to have it removed.
 
Following my third child, I decided the copper IUD seemed like a better choice, no hormones, but my bleeding became worse and worse, and I could feel it sitting in my uterus, like an unwelcome friend who would never leave. It had to go. I never wanted or trusted birth control pills and the weight gain/moodiness they were known for, and so I would just muddle through, knowing that a week a month I would be partially incapacitated, although I had learned how to cope and push through to function and appear ‘normal’.
 
My fourth child came and still the agony was a fixture in my life. Because I bled so much so fast the first few days of my period, including clots that would fall from my body like fruit from some cursed tree no one would ever touch, I could never wear tampons. Pads with absorbency weren’t my friend either, as the chemicals in the gel solutions would make my skin break out into rashy welts. I resorted to wearing cloth pads I could launder, although it made planning for outings a highly organized event: carrying a wet bag, and extra, bulky fabric. I couldn’t own small bags or purses to carry my things. Eventually, I just took a backpack everywhere.
 
I continued to live in this menstrual prison cycle, slowly watching it worsen. Four years ago, I found an OB who finally listened to all my symptoms and ordered an ultrasound. It appeared that I had areas of tissue in my uterine wall where it was heterogenous, or thickened in the lining in places where it shouldn’t be, and I finally got a diagnosis for what had likely been ailing me for 30 years: adenomyosis. Unlike endometriosis, which is more known, where the tissue lining of the uterus grows on the outside of the organ, adenomyosis occurs when the lining of the uterus grows inside the walls of the organ itself, causing heavy bleeding, incredible pain and a host of other issues, such as disruption of fertility and miscarriage. The fact that I had four children without issues with conception or maintaining my pregnancies is nothing short of a miracle.
 
He presented me with a few solutions: try an IUD again, get a uterine ablation, or hysterectomy. I agonized over this decision, unsure if I felt I was done with the option of creating new life, or if I wanted to preserve the option for the next few years. Favoring the least invasive, I opted to give Mirena one more go around. Once again, several months later, I felt my body’s hormones became disorganized and my body confused, even though the oceanic flow had come to a halt. I no longer felt like me, and I had it evicted.
 
With the removal returned the terrible bleeding. An endless deluge of blood monthly that left me weak, pale, shaking, and exhausting. My OB had moved away, and I found another one that was okay enough (it’s so hard to find one that isn’t just okay). I discussed an ablation with her, a procedure when the lining of the uterus is heated, burned, and scarred so that it can no longer release the lining, ceasing bleeding altogether. I was still unsure about it until a flight to Kentucky found me calling her office during a layover in Dallas because I was bleeding so rapidly and heavily that I thought I might die, running to the bathroom every 30 minutes to change my super absorbency pad. On the second leg of my journey, a crowded flight to Louisville, I walked straight to the back of the plane, pulling aside the airline attendant, Cat, and asking her if there was enough space, could I please lie in the back row to elevate my legs as my doctor suggested. In the secret language of women who understand these things, her eyes flashed with recognition and she held the space of that back row like my own personal bodyguard, funneling anyone who tried to sit by me into different rows. They were the only extra seats on the flight, and she made sure I had everything I needed. It was one of the greatest kindnesses anyone has every bestowed on me. When I finally landed an hour later and got to the hotel, one of my besties from grad school took me immediately to an urgent care, to make sure I wasn’t losing too much blood. We missed the opening night dinner, getting to say hello to all those we hadn’t hugged and loved for 6 months or more. The program coordinator was immensely understanding and kind, and with some dedicated rest in between residency events I finally felt human again three days later.
 
After that experience, I was ready for any kind of relief. I had the ablation a month later, and officially said goodbye to my childbearing years. My OB’s office messed up the scheduling and forgot to put my procedure on that date (for the second time), and when I arrived, I was already medicated. They delayed the procedure, which delayed the height of the medication, and when she finally placed the electric wand inside my uterus with rough hands, I could feel a tiny corner where she hadn’t anesthetized my tissue quite enough, and the burning session of feeling my flesh sear from on the inside took away any grogginess. I went home to rest, and then woke to prepare for an event for a business incubation program I was part of, where I couldn’t miss more than two events and had already missed one while at residency for school, because as a woman there is no allowance for such things. By the end I was exhausted, sore, and badly in need of pain medication, which I immensely dislike, and rest, which I found difficult in an opioid haze.
 
Although my bleeding magically disappeared, a crop of other symptoms slowly crept up in its wake in the months that followed. Instead of just monthly bloating and discomfort, my weight began to pile on, and no matter how healthy I ate, how much I swung a kettlebell, how much I rested, I couldn’t shed the pounds. I felt like my body was bursting with fluids all the time, my ankles swollen and my fingers sausage-like. My hormones began flying in every direction, like the Mirena but 10x worse: I was weepy, sad, angry, and much more anxious, sometimes all at once. I realized that I had begun to feel pregnant all the time even though it wasn’t a possibility. Without the shedding of its skin, my uterus seemed determined to hold on to whatever blood it collected, growing bit by bit by bit, becoming ‘boggy’. I went to a general practitioner that was more ‘holistic’ and had test after test taken, all of it appearing normal, although I felt nothing but. He put me on the whole 30 diet, mansplained the concept of nutrition, exercise, and calories, and I never returned.
 
I began researching weight gain and adenomyosis and discovered so many other women who suffered the same unexpected increase after the procedure, and the same frustration over not being able to get the body to relinquish its cushion. I also discovered that in other countries, ablation is no longer recommended because studies have shown it can make the condition worse, including worsening pain, fatigue, and overall ill health.
 
After asking some reliable care providers, I was able to get a solid referral for an OB in a town 30 minutes away. During our first meeting I told her I felt I needed a hysterectomy. Thankfully, she was open and willing to allow me to take charge of my body.  She walked me through my options: partial or full, laparoscopic or invasive. She took some tests to see what the best approach would be. She felt I was a good candidate for laparoscopic surgery, and in late summer of 2020, when things began to open up from the pandemic and surgeries were reinstated, I finally had a partial hysterectomy, leaving behind my ovaries so I wouldn’t wake up in immediate menopause. I was in the hospital less than 48 hours, albeit alone due to COVID, with a view of the desert surrounding Espanola to comfort me.
 
The recovery was easier than I expected, less painful than my Cesarean or broken ankle repair years ago, but more than having my gall bladder removed. I could feel the stitching on the inside where my cervical neck was removed and sewed together. The bruises splayed across my abdomen appeared in huge purple blotches, prompting me to call and send my doctor photos, but it was just the internal bleeding from the procedure and eventually faded over the following months. I shuffled slowly at first, intentionally, eager to get back to my routine of daily walking. My daughter held my hand, and my son walked the dog. My torso could only move slowly to bend or twist, and it was months before I could exercise. But as that empty space healed, I discovered that I never knew how much torment my body underwent monthly. As I regained activities, I found for the first time that sex, which I had always loved, didn’t have to end in distress, persistent spasms and an ache in my uterus for hours that I always mistook as normal, now nothing more than a bad memory.
 
In the midst of finally getting the right doctor, I also found the right support in the form of Facebook groups, where so many women suffer daily with this condition. Daily, I see posts from women who beg their physicians for hysterectomies to end the torment, only to be told that they have to try X-Y-Z first and prolong the anguish, or they are too young and can’t have it because they MIGHT want children at some point, or they need to have their spouses agree to the procedure. It’s medieval, these practices of forcing women to live with an affliction that brings torture monthly, or even around the clock for some, particularly those plagued by more than one gynecological issue. It’s a subtle policing of women and their bodies, controlling fertility and childbirth, deciding for us when and how we can receive relief, while men can opt for vasectomies at any moment without any doctor blinking an eye. Women in these groups are longing to find something else, anything, because they can’t get what they want, asking with quiet desperation ‘has this medication or procedure worked?’ and ‘what are the side effects, do you get any relief?’. Time and time again I see posts and comments from women, such as myself, who have finally found the comfort and freedom we longed for only after having to bid our uteruses adieu. The only ‘cure’ for adenomyosis is hysterectomy.
 
Even though I feel healthier, and finally freed from the shackles of that troubled organ, I still feel a bittersweet pang of nostalgia that I will die without it. I feel sadness for all the moments I missed in life because of its chaos, and recognize that without it, I would not be a parent to four lovely humans. It has been my cross to bear, and the bearer of the fruit I love most in the world.
 
 About a month ago, in one of my groups, I happened on a post from a woman, Antonesa (quillingart4you on Instagram), who creates art from paper that is rolled and shaped into designs, known as quilling. She posted photos of a uterus she created covered in blooming flowers, the ovaries budding, the entire piece wrapped in paper barbed wire, a perfect visual description of how the uterus flourishes with life, and how adenomyosis strangles it. I contacted her and commissioned a piece, selecting the flowers and colors, what represented me during this journey. I’m not sure that I have ever loved a piece of art more or saw myself reflected in something so raw and beautiful that I had to have it. When I opened the box and held it in my hand, I let the tears come in waves. For me, this was a watershed moment of remembrance and a recognition of healing. It represents all that I was and what I can now lay to rest, and it does so with beauty and spectacle, a loving tribute to a part of myself that I have surrendered physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
 
I didn’t think I would mourn a part of myself that brought so much suffering or miss its small presence in my belly. Occasionally phantom pains arrive, and I feel the same tug in my lower pelvis, like back labor, that I endured for most of my life. Or I feel a mysterious cramping where I know my second heart no longer lies. Like other women, I mourn the loss of something that contributed to my identity vis a vis what the world always told me was the hallmark of my feminine being. But now, despite that loss, I get to live beyond the confines of what my body always told me I could be, to get to do so much more than what I have grown to expect. Sometimes we don’t escape our lives whole, our bodies patchwork, bearing the scars of so many moments where it has betrayed our infallible belief that we will always exist as we were born, intact. Yet, in the mending and rendering of what we have yet to become, we get to experience a whole life, stitched with new opportunities and meaning, and we get to surpass what we always felt we had to just endure.

**April is Adenomyosis Awareness Month**
Learn more here: https://www.adenomyosisadviceassociation.org/

I don’t ever remember anyone telling me about this kind of agony; not the physical hardship of the contractions that moved across my body like the ocean tide at sunset, but the bottomless sorrow that can creep in later, when the child that has been delivered forsakes you. There was plenty of mention of childbirth’s pangs, with an impression that once the labor and delivery part came to rest, that everything would cease to be so wrought with pain. It wouldn’t be easy, so to speak, but children are a blessing, I was told, and worth all the heartache that would come knocking at my door.
 
No one told me there could be so much grief, as if I am ripping my heart, muscle strand by strand, from the inside out, and leaving them to dry in the sun while I feel them disintegrate. No mention that as children grow into young adulthood and try on their independence, that sometimes they try other, worrisome things, too, and it leaves you in a free fall with each other where neither of you has a grasp on how to make it work. It becomes a battle of wills and miscommunication, when boundaries are breeched day after day, the walls closing in on the two of you, tighter and tighter, until you can’t even be in the same home because it is so painful, the dysfunction, that the only thing that gives respite is distance, but even that doesn’t always feel enough.
 
There was never a parent that said, ‘hey, this may not work out at all’. Perhaps I just never encountered parents like myself, who feel that they have, over and over, done everything that they could, albeit imperfectly at times and with identified fault, yet still come up so short that there is no room for repair. Even when I know that some of the choices my child makes are a direct commentary on the life she has chosen, I feel wracked with endless guilt, quiet anger, and a never-ending sense of failure that is large enough to carry us both. But it is not polite conversation to admit that our children, those beautiful images of our hopes and dreams for the future packed into mirror resemblances of ourselves, can also be the reflections of our insecurities, blunders, and the nightmares of our tomorrow.
 
No one ever tells you how much you can mourn someone who is still flesh, bone, and blood, but whose spirit feels cold and empty when you approach. I’ve heard of no parenting class where they tell how you about the moments when you feel that maybe you’ve gotten things to a better place, only to have them implode, with your heart catching the soundwave and crumbling under its force.
 
There is no time when anyone pulls you aside and says, ‘it can feel like your child is living and dead at the same time, and you can mourn everyday while still taking the time to live, breathe, laugh, and love.’ They don’t explain how horrible it feels to feel any goodness while you silently tear tiny pieces of your soul and toss them to the wind, because yes, you can still live. But that existence feels hollow and bereft of the magic it would have if you were whole, if your relationship was intact and not a slowly dying orchid, the petals drying to crisp invisibility, the roots slowly shriveling even though it still looks alive and capable.
 
How you carry everything you said or did in the pockets of your memory, and you sift through wandering and wishing for the right words you didn’t have to give at the time. You replay the arguments, the struggles, the moments where maybe you could have found middle ground if the earth itself had not fallen out from beneath your feet. You see all of it, the picture reel in your mind rotating images of her first breath, giggling, going to school, growing, becoming, and now distant, bitter, angry, sad, and capable of hurling words so sharp that they tear you to pieces without ever revealing the cuts.
 
You wander how you can continue to exist despite losing this part of yourself, her cells intertwined throughout your body, imbedded in the fabric of your nuclear existence, all screaming out that this isn’t the way it was supposed to be: it shouldn’t be this hard, this punitive, so full of anguish, and burdened by desolation, because you can never just be only yourself, ever again. The fingerprints of her life cover your heart and soul, the narrow whorls forever claiming the pieces of yourself you had to sacrifice for her existence.
 
But no one ever told you.

Some days just carry a certain energy, a heaviness, as though you are moving through water, simultaneously drowning and breathing. For me, that day is today, February 27th, which, had we survived, would have been my 10th wedding anniversary this year.
 
I don’t have regret that our marriage ended. My heart is happy to be free of the burden I carried in that relationship, stuffing my feelings and discomfort down to keep the peace, and out of shame that I knew we were crumbling, because the veil of failure was going to be so heavy to wear.
 
But it doesn’t mean that I can ignore history, that once there was living, breathing exchange of love between myself and someone who now treats me like a maligned stranger. The memories haunt me: photos from yesterdays pop up on social media, and I come across greeting cards spewing sentiments that might have been intended but were never realized. Everywhere I turn there are specters of the who ‘we’ used to be, and I barely recognize myself, the light in my eyes dull, my body tired and out of shape, my smile ragged and forced.
 
We were together for 11 years, which is isn’t insignificant, and produced two children. Some of the best years of my youth were spent pacifying him, choking down my own suffering because I was afraid of the possibility of being left alone, and feeling like so much of myself had been beaten out of me that there was nothing desirable left.
 
So, on this day, which gradually became more a notch on the wall of a jail cell, simply counting down the hours, than a celebration, I want to share the combination of what I have learned and wish I had known during the duration we were together. I don't know that it would have saved the past, but I hope it saves my tomorrows. Whether it’s wisdom from the experience of living and surviving such extraordinary failure, or entering my forties with the gift of no longer giving a fuck, here is my list:
 

1. Love is an active CHOICE. You have to choose to give love to give it life. It is not meant to be inert, or it will die.
   
2. Relationships require sacrifice, sometimes in ways that are deep and challenging. It’s the price paid for receiving the love of another, which is the purest, most beautiful gift alive when given. It is not always comfortable, but necessary. Relationships are a call to be our best selves, and sometimes we need to weed our lives to be that person.
   
3. Trust not only has to be earned, but it requires consistent character and action, not words and sentiments. Live with integrity.
4. Love isn’t about flowers and chocolate, or big promises. It’s the day to day, tiny ways you celebrate one another: hugs, hellos, goodbyes, and intimate moments.
5. Communication will either make or break you. Avoidance only pushes the dirt between you deeper until it festers and taints the relationship. Talk about it, and then talk more.
6. Be direct and clear in your communication. Bluntness cuts through the bullshit, and akin to ripping off a band-aid, pain and anxiety is reduced. So much hesitation and fear is created from holding back. Just be direct.
7. Ask for what you think you are worth. If you believe there is something you need from your partner to feel good about your relationship, let them know. If you don’t ask, you won’t receive.
8. It is the job of both parties to create security in the relationship. Live how you want your partner to treat you, and hold yourself to standards. If your partner feels insecure, it is the responsibility of both of you to discover what needs to change for improvement. Don’t ask your partner to hold themselves to a set of standards that you will not live by yourself. Don't ignore how your partner feels, or blow it off.
   
9. Never ignore your intuition. That shit is there for a reason. Believe it when it tells you something, and then see #6. Listen to your partner when they express how something makes them feel, because the body can sometimes feel what the heart and mind chooses not to see.
10. If you can’t give someone your whole heart and be ‘all in’, then let them go, so that they can have the opportunity to find the love they deserve.
11. Take every day to say  “I love you”, and mean it. Accept nothing less. You are sooooo worth it…I promise.
    

This is copy/pasted from Miriam Sagan's Blog, Miriam's Well, the original text of which you can find here: https://miriamswell.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/holly-baldwin-on-new-mexico/

Special Thanks to Miriam for taking the time to interview me.

My Darling Land of Enchantment,
You may be the only lover I’ll ever need. You get me. You fathom my unending quench for the sublime, for splendor, for the sensual nature of earth meeting heaven, and place me smack in the middle.
I never tire gazing at your immaculate beauty. The sky, reaching beyond my vision, the deepest azure that feels like the ocean has taken residence upside-down. Burnt soil rolling for miles, from cowboy kicked brown to brick red, punctuated by the verdant Juniper dotting your hills and lowlands. I love that you inhabit various forms over different miles, that your crags can become ebony as night followed by fields of sand as milky as the sun’s palest rays. You are a multitude of lands crisscrossing into one, much as I embody many women.

This is the opening of Baldwin’s piece in the new anthology from Z publishing house–New Mexico’s Emerging Writers.
And here is an interview with Holly Baldwin:
1. How long have you lived in New Mexico? Does it affect you creatively, as a writer, in terms of identity? Or?
I first moved here in August 2010, but moved to Pennsylvania for a year in February 2011 after a family crisis. Being away from New Mexico for a year was incredibly miserable, and it’s the only place I’ve ever really felt ‘home’, and I was elated to come back. As a writer, there is so much inspiration to draw from, and I love that there is such a huge appreciation for the arts in Santa Fe and the state as a whole. I love the solitary nature of the desert, but also how it moves people to form close knit communities. I also feel it’s a place to face your inner truths as a human and artist, and have the opportunity to become the person you were always meant to be. It’s not a place where you can hide from yourself. And I never get tired of the landscape, and it’s magnificence. It’s a constant source of creative and personal renewal for me.
2. I like the term “emerging” in that it implies the new, the fresh. But you have also published a lot, could be considered established as a writer and editor. So, what are you emerging into? What are your goals/visions for yourself these days?
Hopefully I’m emerging into a space where I can fashion a career from my writing, and earn a financial living from it. I am in the processing of obtaining my graduate degree, so that piece also feels like I am emerging into my credentials to teach, which I love. I’m not sure we are never not ’emerging’. Humans change and evolve, and our writing does as well, or it should.
My vision for myself is to be a paid writer and teacher. Ultimately, I would love to work in television development, but I don’t want to leave New Mexico. I have creative nonfiction work I am pursuing in novel length, and I have a blog that I have been maintaining (albeit a bit less due to my grad school intensity). One goal over the next year is to form my own nonprofit to house a literary magazine, and I am slowly putting the pieces together for that.
3. What is your favorite thing about writing? Least favorite?
I love the rhythm and pace of writing, and I love taking the pictures I see in my head and re-creating them with words. I work in the birth world, which writing parallels, and I am just in awe of my ability to create. There is a peace and solace writing brings me, as well as an ability to vocalize feelings and ideas that might be harder to express in conversation. And with dramatic writing, I love dialogue and creating conversations in my head, particular of things I would like to say out loud but have too much tact to do so.
I don’t think there is anything I don’t love about writing. My only issue is time. I’m a mother of four, and I have a boyfriend that I travel with frequently, so writing is not always front and center. But I know that won’t always be the case, and I don’t mind working in shorter spans until some of those circumstances evolve and change.

When I was eleven years old, my mother was in the naval reserves, and spent two weeks each summer serving at various ports around the country and internationally. That year, she was sent to Newport, R.I., and we decided to make it a vacation, having family that lived in Boston. I have incredibly fond memories of the coast and the ocean, with a similar nostalgia to a trip that my mother and I took when I was five or six to Bar Harbor, Maine. The east coast was a surreal, strange world of formality, foliage, and landscape that differed greatly from my hometown of Pittsburgh.
 
During that trip to Newport, my most pronounced memories were touring the mansions tucked into a cliffside of the town, raised with grandiosity above the ocean below. They were the summer playgrounds of the country’s wealthiest families during the booming age of industry. The Vanderbilts, especially, were enamored with the rugged coastline granting endless views of the ocean, and silky, smooth beaches in the towns below. I remember touring home after home, feeling as though the entire purpose of each was just to outdo what I had seen in the mansion prior. Of all these, my favorite obsession became Breakers, so named for the water that jumped in angry, upward sprays as it hit the jagged coastline directly below, huge boulders rising from the waters to protect the hillside above.
 
Breakers was built to be the grandest of the grand. Composed of an obscene amount of marble and stone, it was rebuilt after a fire destroyed the first version, and is adorned with the trappings of luxury that would almost be unheard of now: rooms painted with so many gold accents that they glow; platinum walls; wallpaper made from embossed leather stippled with gold leaf for a more ‘subtle’ effect. Elaborately carved furniture, enormous stained glass windows, silk covered chaise lounges. Everything in the home spoke to how important Vanderbilt regarded not only his status, but what he felt he deserved as a result.
 
My favorite room in the house was always the kitchen, with its elaborate stove system without open flames (thanks to the pesky, previous fire), and huge, zinc-covered table in the center of the room for preparation, with an enormous pot rack suspended above, housing every kind of copper pot and pan imaginable, hanging at the ready for whatever was needed to prepare the elaborate and fine meals that were expected and demanded. When I decided to extend a college reunion trip and travel to R.I. to visit family this fall, I knew that Newport had to be a stop along the way, along with Breakers.
 
It was the final day of my trip when I finally got the opportunity to check out the mansion. Riding up through the harbor center of town, and along Belleview Avenue, where other mansions and extraordinary homes sit, some behind fences for privacy, most open to the eye and inviting attention, felt like being a foreigner in an unknown country. This neighborhood was not just wealthy, it is status of elite and money that will be unimaginable to all but a very few.
 
After navigating the side streets, I finally came upon the parking lot for Breakers, situated my rental car, and trudged through the fine mist spitting at me from the overcast sky. The entrance was unmistakable, announced by an enormous, towering wrought iron gate attached to a cut stone wall, shielding the property from the street. Walking through the gates, shoes crunching on the gravel of the driveway, the house immediately announces its presence with its incredible size and ornate details: carved stone figures and columns, large windows, marble inlay.
Walking inside, the tour is now self-led, carried on with an ipod-type device and headphones that activate in each room. The Great Room, with its carpeted red staircase created specifically for women to be ‘presented’ to society; glassy, smooth marble columns; and ceiling painstakingly painted with the sky, immediately lets one know that this is not a place where ordinary people spent their days.
 
And so, the tour went, every room on the first floor a bit more ornate than the next, from hand-cut marble, mosaic tiling to the room with so much gold leaf you can almost feel the warmth of the sun reflected in its walls. Furniture covered in velvet and leather, appearing as fresh as it might have a century prior. A home designed as a palace, with the same barely-lived in appearance. The second floor boasted more modesty, with softly carved bedroom sets and muted colors and tones in direct opposition to the bold reds, blues, and greens below. It lacked the same Victorian disposition above thanks to the designer who favored clean lines and less clutter.
 
Walking room to room, I tried to imagine what it must have been like to live in such splendor day after day. In the bedroom of one of the daughters, the tour lamented to my ear how she was distressed to learn she was an heiress, concerned about finding someone who would be able to look past her wealth and love her for her as a person. I ruminated on how that is the basic desire of any human: rich, poor, or more than ever, those caught in various economies between, and how simple a request it was from someone who had more than she could ever desire.
 
After the tour concluded in the Butler’s pantry, a huge storage room by the kitchen displaying the various china and silver the family possessed and used, I stepped outside into the miserable, cold weather and wandered about the quiet grounds. The feeling I left with was also chilly, not the fond moment from my childhood. I couldn’t shake the perspective I now carry as an adult, and as a hard-working, single parent for whom that life of luxury is not something I desire to pursue or engage, but basic survival is an everyday part of my consciousness. For most of us, it would be enough to just have enough. To not have debt, to not worry about rising costs of food and healthcare, to not have to mortgage our future when funding our education. But to have so much that you can make your walls with one of the most precious metals on earth simply because you can…that’s just outside my comprehension.
 
It’s also not something that I want to know. Walking around the opulence, my mind kept wandering to how eagerly and happily we live to put wealth on a pedestal. How I paid $24 to help ‘preserve’ a home that stands for what I feel is the absolute worst part of capitalism and its devastating effects: how it gives such ‘wealth’ to so few while forcing the majority to scramble and fight for what little is left, just to get by day in and day out. The further I got into the tour, the more I found that rather than evoking the awe and beauty of my youth, it left me feeling hollow and nauseous.
 
I thought about the rising cost of housing, and how likely middle class families in Newport are feeling the same pinch as the rest of the nation, as we are in Santa Fe, making it difficult to afford to stay in the communities where we work and want to live. Not dissimilar, my home town boasts empty luxury properties sitting in the mountain hillsides, with multi-million-dollar price tags and enough square footage for ten or more families, while on the desert floor people scramble to find a home that won’t eat away their entire paycheck.
 
Finishing the tour, I realized that mansions such as Breakers, and the idolization of the those who create monuments to what they conceive as their ‘individual success’, are the great symbolism for how we have been trained to worship those who we deem ‘rich’, while ignoring the needs of those who allow them to profit. In truth, there is never any success to that comes to a singular person alone. It is almost certainly borne by those who toil to create the perception of success, allowing very few to profit heartily in the interim. But we place those select men (and they usually are men) on pedestals, as the exemplary examples that we should follow to our own paths to riches.
 
What they don’t tell you is that most trails, especially if you are forging your own, rarely lead to the top. They often meander, are littered with thorns, jagged stones, and glass, can be overgrown, and come full circle. Those who have managed to make their way to the top of the mountain often got the assistance and benefit of a shortcut, or a paved road, generated by one of the many men who have come before, and whether conscious or not, have a vested interest in preserving their own white, patriarchal control.
 
One room felt especially gauche: the music room, covered almost ceiling to floor in gold leaf with settees upholstered in raised maroon velvet on cream fabric. I couldn’t help but think of Donald Trump and the photo of his family, his son riding a toy lion as Trump sits cross-ankled in a footed chair with gold accents to match the ceiling, walls, and tops of his marble columns. Like Vanderbilt, Trump has deemed himself worthy of being granted whatever he desires, be it material goods, the presidency, or women.
 
I imagine it is a different way of navigating when you have the world at your fingertips: an expectation of fulfilled desires, no matter who is hurt or damaged along the way; an unquenchable sense of want; the concept that nothing is beyond your grasp, even as others suffer in your wake. Because when you are that removed from the people who have built the very pillar on which you stand, the only thing that matters to you, is you.
 
I have never had that intense desire for either fame or fortune. There are a hundred other ways I’d rather measure my wealth. I’d like to be free from student debt, or from the credit card debt I was saddled with during my divorce because I had good credit and the cards were all in my name. I’d like to be paid what I’m worth and not have to persistently ask for over a year for a raise to try to get to a pay that is equivalent to what other professionals in my field make, as the CEO of my institution brings home seven figures, just so I am able to keep up with the rising rent and healthcare costs. I’d like to have more disposable income to travel even more, and better, able to do so with my children. And I would really love to have extra money in my pocket to give to those who are less fortunate than I am on any given day.
 
As I bought my ticket for the tour, the female volunteer asked me if I wanted to upgrade to see another home. I didn’t think I would have the time, and declined. She told me not to worry, that I could present my receipt at any point in the future, and just pay the $5 difference for a different tour. She told me that it was good forever, because they wanted to keep us coming back.
 
Once the tour ended, I was sure I’ve seen my last mansion. There’s no way I could stomach anymore. As it is, this entire country is nothing more than a huge shrine to those who have taken full advantage of capitalism to fuel and fund their own cravings. The bottomless hunger for recognition, and drive for financial obscenity, overshadow the notion that we could ALL have so much more if we stopped buying into a system that tells us if we each do just a bit more, get just one more degree, work a little harder, hang our heads a bit lower, and ignore the discrepancies that exist to give a tiny percentage of the world economic advantage that impoverishes others. Without our allegiance to achievement, capitalism would crumble to dust. But out of that dissolution, perhaps, we could build a system that works to the benefit of all its citizens, and not just those who suffer from Manifest Destiny syndrome. In the meantime, I support political candidates who understand that a basic principle of humanity requires us to recognize each other as humans who all have basic needs to be met, like health, education, and housing, and I’ll be voting for the same at every opportunity.
 
As for the $5 in my pocket I could spend viewing another memorial to the oligarchy? I’ll be giving that someone who truly needs it, because from where I’m sitting, barons like Vanderbilt and Trump have gotten much more than they ever deserve. And maybe it’s time to let the dream of excessive affluence die, so that something better than mansions can rise from the ashes.
 
 

I want you 100 different ways
 
As rain pelts my window screen
Tickling its cool fingers across my
clavicle and shoulders
Reminding me of the weight and
breadth of your hands
And how they cup my arms like
delicate china
Deserving to be held with pinky
pointing to the clouds
 
It’s steady tap-tap-tap carries the
memory of your body hoisted
above my own
As you implanted yourself into
my soul with the rhythm of your pelvis
Swaying slowly between my thighs
Until I broke like the shadow of lightning
streaking across a tan eggshell wall
Crackling with the same force and power
Sucking your body into my own
with a gasp
Feeling you unfurl and soften
 
Only leaving me desiring more
 
Wanting you a 1000 different ways

Melanie watched Cheeto as he paced restlessly in the Oval Office, his orange skin crinkled in the corners of his mouth by a frown, hair flopped carelessly as he ran his hand through it, making it appear like it had a life of its own as it stood on end in patches.  This discontent was aligned with the inky clouds outside, steadily gathering with ferocity. His feet dragged across the carpet, his attempt at hurried steps slowed by the drag of the rich fibers, tiny sparks of electricity generated from the weight of his footfalls. She could tell from his expression and posture that this wasn’t sufficient, being President. It hadn’t fulfilled his vast appetite for dominance fueled by bottomless insecurity.
 
“Melanie,” he finally barked, coming to a jerky halt. He threw his hands, swirling them by his head. “This isn’t what I expected. It’s so much work. Those people, out there, they can’t be trusted to make decisions for themselves. It doesn’t feel like…enough, being the nation’s leader. Find Charity. I know what I want you to ask for.”
 
She sighed, weary of hunting down the cagey bruja. They had so much now living in The White House, more than they would have ever acquired without her secret charms. Melanie pined for nothing, and missed the simplicity of their former life.
 
“What is it now, Cheeto?” Melanie quietly asked, afraid of the answer, but more frightened to incite an argument.
 
“Look at the storm outside, the lightening and sky changing and shifting as if by its own will, even though you know something greater is in control. That’s the power I want. To control nature, the masses, everything. I don’t want to be worshipped like a god. I want to be one.” Cheeto responded with blind assurance.
 
Melanie’s eyes narrowed and she stared at him blankly, the last drop of emotion squeezed from her glance by his words. She silently stood, glided to the walnut door, and before taking her leave, turned, as if to say a final statement. Instead, she shook her head and left, knowing reason was useless, the door quaking in her wake.
 
As the Secret Service car raced through the streets of the Capital, all Melanie could focus on was the sky, its ugliness, the large swaths of jet-black, stratus clouds converging and dancing as they whipped a frenzy of lightening streaks, streaming across the sky like uncontrolled tears, the explosion of thunder rolling through the streets and echoing off the tinted panes of glass in the limousine. They pulled up to a dingy storefront, the awning tattered and flapping violently in the wind, and Melanie sprinted to the entrance in a choppy, high heeled jaunt, her hair slashing her face in the forceful gale. Once inside, she took a moment to smooth her appearance, and entered the poorly lit space, stepping gingerly.
 
Charity sat in the back of the Oaxacan restaurant, her hair riddled with more grey than last time Melanie visited, the contours in her face now crevices, her eyes sunken and dusty rings. She looked up from the tarot spread in front of her, fingering the card of The Fool, discerning the outline of Melanie in the framed doorway, closing her eyes for a few seconds longer than blinking, recognizing what was coming. Melanie stepped into the dim light, and approached the table with hesitance.
 
“What is it now? What more could you possibly want?” Charity’s shoulders slumped lower with each word, her hands balled into tense fists, her thumbs digging the sides of her fingers. Her sour breath wafted to Melanie, who cringed.
 
Melanie’s voice crackled. “He wants to be God.”
 
Charity’s eyes became Viper slits, and her hands fell limply on the surface of the table. Her finger, circling the worn surface of the card, came to an abrupt halt, leaving a long, jagged scratch. She chuckled, her lips frozen in a horizontal plane, until they parted to speak. Her words tumbled slowly, with intention and finality.
 
“It is done. Return to your former home. You will find him there.”
 
The dark tresses on Melanie’s head bounced with her acknowledgment, and she exhaled, not realizing she had swallowed her breath. Her mouth formed a circle, preparing to thank Charity, but she silenced the attempted exchange with a quick, stiff shake of her head. Melanie took three steps backward, pivoted on her heel, and exited swiftly.
 
As she left the restaurant, Melanie glanced upward, the storm arrested, clouds slowly melting and disbanding. She hailed a cab to the train station, watching the city race by in blurs of maroon brick, picket fence white, and marble. Her body sank into the leather upholstery, her mind slowing, her shoulders releasing from their tense resting place. She visualized Cheeto, at their home in New York City, and her eyes fluttered to a close, her breath gradually easing from her body in the steady rhythm of a newborn babe, but not before it captured the image of the sky outside her window, pristine cerulean, the sun clear and shining once more.
 

You say you love pussy
Yet only when it
Makes you cum
When its purpose
Fulfills a deep-seated need
For physical pleasure
 
You say you love pussy
But what you mean
Is you only tolerate it
When its lips aren’t moving
Unless your mouth
Is creating the action
 
You say you love pussy
Unless it gets too loud
Speaks up
Has an opinion
Is smarter than you
Or makes you feel inferior
 
You say you love pussy
Still, you hate
When it talks back
Challenges your authority
Or tells you ‘No’
When that’s not what you want to hear
 
You say you love pussy
Until it surpasses you
Or rejects you
And then you curl your lips
to whisper ‘cunt’
Or sometimes,
you pull out hidden, cold steel
To silence it for good
 

While visiting Pittsburgh, I’ve been captivated and controlled by the overwhelming pull of nostalgia. Everywhere I turn, every corner I round, recollections lie in wait, surfacing as the opportunities present. History lies in every nook and cranny of this town for me, and I confront the specters of my past no matter where I look.
 
Driving through my old neighborhood hit me hard, the houses cloistered together, less space than I recall between them, crowded in by the flora and fauna that have overtaken the gaps, the green almost overpowering everything. No matter where my eyes wandered, they soaked in crumbling houses, years of poverty and neglect taking their toll on the worn, dusty siding and slowly weakening wooden porches, the steps sloping and buckled. This place tells a story of people who work too hard for entirely too little, those who spent their lives in one place, only dreaming as far as their next paycheck could carry them. My parents were hard workers, but they were also fortunate to be in professions other than manual labor, and as soon as they had the means, when I was a college student, they escaped to a borough five minutes away with larger, well maintained homes and better schools.
 
I gazed at the curve and angle of the streets where they converged, remembering the sensation of rounding those bends on my bicycle, tires swishing along the concrete, or how familiar landmarks would present themselves as I turned a corner walking these streets, signaling my approximate distance from home. In my mind’s eye, the softball field sitting tall on the hill was lit in the dusk for an evening game, and the candy store on the main road above was no longer a boarded storefront, but bustling with neighborhood kids buying penny candy and cans of pop. I remembered the descent and ascent along the steep hill to and from my Catholic school, where I first discovered the existence of religion, and that people take it seriously.
 
The asphalt of the basketball court at the abandoned school above my street sat silent, the wire of its fence twisted and tortured. This was the spot where I spent most of my summer nights watching boys I crushed on dribble and shoot, its floor marbled with cracks, tiny green weeds struggling to survive in its divisions. It’s amazing anything can grow there at all, with the scorching power of the sun soaked by the black top, yet tufts of vibrant shoots manage, and the irony is not lost on me that I am one of them.
 
My former home looked tired, its white siding dirty and grey in patches, the wood frame around the windows decaying and splintered, the black paint now faded and chipped. I looked at the tiny back porch roof, where I would climb outside and sit on hot summer nights, hoping for a breeze and relief. I drove by the houses of my childhood friends, heard their voices echoing in the alleyways and in the wind, calling my name, as if I were pedaling too fast for them to catch up.
 
Earlier in the day, I had driven to the campus of my former high school campus, which was an imposing convent where my education was doled out in the basement. Wandering along the outside of the gigantic mansion, compact windows cut into the stone to let in blocks of light, I realized how much of my becoming was predicated on not having enough sunlight to grow and become. Standing there on the hillside, overlooking the dilapidated town below, I felt the same energy I had when I was an anxious teenager: a persistent desire to venture beyond those walls and the constraints that held me back. There was so much that was kept in shadows, and that I never felt comfortable about inside myself, until I left that dungeon, and left home.
 
Most of the people who grow up here stay here, and don’t venture beyond the city, let alone the neighborhoods where they grow. And while I feel there is an intimacy that can be established with a lifetime of depth established and explored in one location, that has never been my path. I have always been too hungry for different experiences and for the world outside my door and beyond. Everything is a constant reminder that I am an anomaly.
 
At the same time, I love the familiarity here, like discovering an old lover in the dark and knowing where every curve and slope leads, being able to feel my way around with comfort. So much more stays the same despite superficial changes. Rather, it is me that returns evolved, memories intact…welcoming every ghost.

The nurse complains:
‘She’s a princess. Her sister does everything.’
 
In the room,
mesh blinds watering down sunlight
the mother,
her legs in malleable air casts,
tubes and air latched to her body,
unable to stretch,
the bloody line across her
pelvic bone aching from
its separation
 
The mother handles
her perfect baby
like sweet, fragile perfection,
as if she might dissolve
back into her blood
with a wayward glance
 
She frets over the diaper,
trembles changing a shirt,
worries she’s isn’t doing something,
or anything,
right
 
The sister commands the corner,
barking orders,
her hands experienced
from four little mouths
over the years
Her frustration
splashed across her face
when the mother
asks, pleads
for a second of assistance.
 
Sister leaves the room to walk,
the silent father follows,
and the mother
curls her handfuls of joy
into a ball upon
her heartbeat
 
Mother beams in the dim room
placing her lips upon the
butter soft top of her daughter’s hair,
then pours out her heartbreak
in a monologue to the room
 
How her last baby
ran out of her body
and fell through her fingers
in a torrential, bloody flood
Clumps of lifeless tissue
and water named Rosa,
after her great-aunt
How her joy
gave way to hopelessness,
her body a tomb
of childless despair
 
This was her miracle,
the tiny yolk sac that grew
and thrived,
and lived to be
placed in the nook of her arm
 
She holds her like glass
afraid she will disappear
or melt to the floor
molten, and untouchable
 
She worships her existence
exalts what she thought
could never be created
in the canvas of
her womb
 
She touches her with grace
and the deepest affection
earned by those
who have suffered the
annihilation of lost promises
 
To the nurse I want to reply:
‘She’s the bravest princess I’ve ever known…
 
and that makes her a warrior.’

This April wind howls,
fierce and unrelenting,
Scratching dust from the earth,
Stripping the asphalt blank
from woeful memories
and disappointment
 
I wish it could do the same
for my heart
That I could breathe in its
keen edges and
exhale, feeling polished-
no-
forgiven-
no-
chaste
 
That I could inhale such
force and magnitude
it would render
me pristine,
beautiful

Frequently now, I hear comments from co-workers or friends about how I seem to be ‘melting’ away, or I am becoming ‘skinnier’. I always politely thank people for their compliments, which I am not great at taking, and if pressed, will share what my routine is that seems to be working for me. Occasionally I have written about how instrumental movement has been for my mental and physical health this past year while navigating divorce, custody issues, rebellious teenagers, graduate school, a full-time job, and the absolute nightmare that dating has become in modern day.  With this has come disciplined dietary shifts that have had a great influence on my universal well-being, but that I inwardly battle, at times, to maintain. Let’s be real: changing habits is fucking hard.
 
But while these things work for me, I recognize that what I do may not be for everyone, and I’m not into shouting my ‘truth’ off the rooftop, or insisting others should replicate my routine to attempt the same results. There’s an awful lot of preaching that seems to happen when people begin to lose their physical mass, and while I get the excitement, and why a person would want others to share in that feeling, that’s just not my style. Of course, it might be because this isn’t my first time at the weight loss rodeo, and I understand how tenuous the relationship we have with our bodies can be when we are battling the scars of former wounds.
 
When I started working out, it was the only way I could see myself navigating through the collapse of my marriage without driving myself into complete despair, and I wanted desperately to be healthier to be around for my children if I was flying solo: if it weren’t for them, this journey might have never come to be, as they have been a huge motivator, and now serve as my ‘encouragers’. I was extremely fortunate to win some private fitness lessons at an auction, and working out at home has been my saving grace. I don’t have time for gyms or group things with the reality of a heavy schedule and the ambitions I am determined to see to fruition. I had to recognize that I needed to meet myself where I was, and realize that what works for many other people just doesn’t work for me.
 
I also think there are dirty secrets that no one talks about regarding weight loss, such as: if you have been heavy a majority of your life (as I have), there is a mental construct of weight that never leaves your mind. In other words, no matter how much my body changes, I carry with me the constant notion that I am a bigger girl in a smaller world. It’s a specific way of thinking where I am constantly navigating as if I am still physically larger: I get nervous having to squeeze by people, I worry if my ass will knock something over when I pass a table, I must mentally pep talk myself into clothes that I know will look good on me now but wouldn’t have a year ago, and it has taken me forever to be sexually comfortable with positions where my body is more exposed. Despite losing a quarter of my weight, I still ‘feel’ myself as fat. I wouldn’t call it body dysmorphia, because at the age of forty-one, I’ve grown comfortable in my skin and have learned to accept and love many of its imperfect parts more than I did when I was previously at my smallest size two decades ago. Rather, it’s a reminder that the weight I have born is carried in more than just my body, and even with therapy, there is a notion that I will always be that bigger girl, because of all the big ‘things’ I have endured.
 
Another secret no one talks about is how hard it is to tell where you stand with people when you lose weight. It’s difficult to distinguish those who get ‘you’ and those who are now attracted to the shiny outer packaging of a thinner form. Despite enjoying the health benefits of a smaller body, there I times that I miss being a bigger woman. There was no pretense about who accepted you are versus wondering if they merely want something else, such as affection or sex. When men introduce themselves to me in online dating apps and call me beautiful, it doesn’t feel authentic. And not that I don’t believe that I am beautiful, because I’m finally hitting a stride where I understand exactly what my worth is, but it often sounds hollow ringing from their mouths. I often wonder if I put photos of myself when I was heavier into my profile if the response would be the same, or if there would be as many suitors. Other words that create the same ingenuity: sexy, hot, gorgeous, pretty. There is a part of me that will never be content to be boiled down to my physical aspects, and that will always insist that my intellect, creativity, and intelligence be the most notable aspects. And if I can’t be seen through those lenses, I prefer not to be noticed at all.
 
The last secret I’ve noticed is the guilt I feel in my success. I know that for every pound I lose there is someone trying just as hard that can’t shed the weight they want. And I know that this can happen for numerous reasons, because I’ve been there many a time myself, starting a routine only to self-sabotage, or fall off the ‘healthier you’ wagon. Discipline is fucking hard, and exercise can be grueling. It’s not fun for everyone, and not everyone eventually finds that it brings them everlasting joy and happiness. Emotional baggage can be a bitch to discard. Trauma often lingers in the body, and I’ve found that I can’t see physical changes without confronting those parts of myself that feel tossed and broken. After all, a larger body is weaved from a construct of necessity: it is literally creating a buffer from the harshness of the world we have experienced, a soft suit of armor so to speak. I believe we hold psychic damage in every cell, and the process that comes with releasing that heartache can be enormous work, and until our minds and hearts can let go, the body often clings to its protection, as it should. I’ve also had to learn to cut myself slack: if I am exhausted from a day that felt like a mental lobotomy at work, my body internalizes that, and it may need to do nothing more than park itself and allow me to get lost in a book or television show. Sometimes I fight through those moments, and sometimes I give myself permission to just be a damn sloth. I have a set number of days a week for exercise that I rigidly maintain, but on the days I can take a breather, I no longer allow guilt to creep into my mind. I’ve come to terms that I am not a superhero, and do not need to always exercise like one either.
 
It’s an odd thing, to undergo such an enormous change and still feel the same, to carry many identical insecurities while discovering new confidences. I like to think of it as a form of metaphysical growth. While many picture the chrysalis of a butterfly, emerging new and dissimilar from its original self, my metamorphosis feels closer to that of a snake, shedding old scales for new. Underneath, I haven’t really changed, and the best parts of me never will. Rather, I emerge ridding myself of the things I no longer need to carry body and soul, the physical weight being just one.

My Dating Brochure Has the Following Sponsorship Levels and Packages:
 
There’s only one,
and it’s platinum,
because I have come
to the conclusion
in my life
of 41 years that
settling is a form
of living death
where you are
sleepwalking through
your own existence
 
The numbness that
coats the heart
from inauthentic love
is no longer an option
as the minuscule
amount of time
that remains
gets eaten by
the seconds
ticking in my mind
 
Here are my requirements:
brains, beauty, fire, ambition
 
It means that you:
Can hold a conversation that spans
from dusk to dawn,
Are easy on the eyes and have a
voice that soothes my soul,
Have the drive to get what
you want while enjoying the pursuit,
Know how to love women-
truly understand how to nurture
her soul with the heat of your touch-
and grasp that feminism
isn’t a dirty word
 
I desire dates that feel
like we are on miniature
adventures from the world,
where it’s just two people
orbiting each other in
their own private universe,
and all those around us
are nothing more than ghosts
in the background of
our private, vivid, macrocosm
 
I crave words that are kind,
softly spoken, caressing my soul,
syllables that excite me,
that tell me you listen,
hear, adapt, or
meet me in the middle
 
I hunger for hands that know
how to move across
the slopes of a woman,
a body that moves in time
to my own,
a syncopated rhythm
build from confidence
and experience
Someone who gets
that just because I asked
you to pull my hair
on Friday,
it doesn’t mean I want
the same on Sunday
Someone who knows
the value of an ask,
where consent isn’t a
theoretical concept
but a living practice
we worship in
each other
 
And if you prove so worthy
I offer my heart,
it comes with a pure devotion
to body, mind, and soul,
and I will not hand that
priceless jewel
over for anything less
than everything
I want,
So I can
give you
everything I am
in return
 
If you don’t meet
all these requirements
save us both the time
and frustration
so that I can
cut through the endless
noise to find
the one sweet track
I want to play
over and over and over and over…
 
If you feel you may be
such music,
my muse,
that rare individual
I am seeking (but
not needing-there is
a firm difference
between those two
actions)
then…
you know what to do

1. Noun: the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.
 
But what happens when the middle class
has shrunk to
nothing
and you are being told
over and over again
that it is YOU, never them
 
YOU must do better
earn more
be more
so you can
be just like US
 
So that you can have
custom cabinets with
marble countertops
moen faucets
and a numbered
parking space by
the center of town
 
You can be
in walking distance
to the city
that your ancestors built
with bloody, calloused hands,
the family home on
canyon road
sold for a fraction of
what it was worth
 
You look around
and suddenly
the people in your neighborhood
aren’t you anymore
 
The light skin and
turquoise splashed
upon their bodies as
they walk without a care in
the world
because they do not walk
through this world invisible
 
unlike YOU
 
They will always say
it’s not intentional
but their actions
will always speak
the words
their lips know
they shouldn’t mouth
in public
 
The privilege they
carry sits in the
cells of their flesh
and it is indivisible
from who they are
 
They will look through
the specially colored
glasses that have been
crafted by their identity,
the ones that tell them
that others should
bend in discomfort
to meet where they stand
 
They pretend
the advantages they
stand upon don’t
lift them to a warped vista,
one where their shoes
don’t have to sink
into dirt and dust
 
How beautiful it
must be to only
see the world
when it’s clean
and in one’s favor
 
They will tell you the
only way to their path
is to follow who they are,
their patterns,
their demands,
their supposed self-sacrifice
that has been bought and
paid by the generations who
came before them
so that their tab
was already clear
 
They will look at you
as they invade,
slowly, and make you feel
that you are the one
who does not belong
in your skin
in your culture
in the center of your own gravity
 
You will begin to
wonder why you are here
and if you truly
have a place in the
world you once knew as
your own
 
You will ask for
a seat at the table
except the chairs
were already reserved
in advance
a long time ago
before you ever
had the freedom to
request one
 
They will echo the
same things like a
record with a stuck
needle:
YOU must do better
earn more
be more
so you can
be just like US
 
They will tell you
how they think
you should put
the small bit of security
you have managed to
carve for yourself
on the line
 
They will tell you
that it is never them:
it’s the economy
it’s wages
it’s demand
it’s never the fistful
of dollars being
shoved into the
pockets of modern day
colonizers
from the last connection
you have to your
roots, the land
 
It’s never the decimation
of culture
and neighborhoods,
communities crying
for hands that want
to build them up,
rather than
construction on the bones
of all you ever knew,
sold for a profit
 
It’s never THEM

 
 
 
 
 
 

First of all, I’m going to ask you to check your privilege at the door when reading, whatever it may be, because this will not a discussion based on comfort. This is a conversation based on truth, and the narratives we spin to allow ourselves to feel good about change aimed at benefiting the few over the many, and generally, those 'white' over everyone else.
 
Gentrification.
 
I always have my heart split between two places: my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, and Santa Fe, NM, where I currently live. This week, I watched as an art installation in Pittsburgh was taken down for making people ‘uncomfortable’ in East Liberty. It was a black billboard with white letters that stated, “There Are Black People In The Future”. There are multiple ways you could interpret this statement. We could talk about what will hopefully be the return of black culture and presence to a segment, and specifically corner, of the city that has been lost to redevelopment and chasing money. It could be argued that it is a bold reminder that black people aren’t going anywhere, and no amount of new, shiny housing and boutique restaurants are going to erase them from the existence as a force in the city. For me, the most poignant element of this installation was its physical presence upon a building where I was a silent partner in a business that brought diversity and vibrancy to the city for years, Shadow Lounge. It was a black owned business that opened the door to black culture for so many in beautiful, unrepentant ways, and it was lost in 2014 to the gradually increasing cost of existing on a corner that it essentially created. To me, it felt like a beacon, a bat symbol of sorts, to remind people that the return must be inevitable, and that one day, that corner may again belong to the history and culture of those who cultivated it.
 
Fast forward to my life in Santa Fe, where I am beginning to see the same. A new set of apartments close to our downtown area recently went on the market for rent, with studios starting at $900 a month up to two bedrooms at $2200 a month. New Mexico ranks 48th among the states. Our economy, education, and opportunity are in the bottom ten. We have families here with strong roots and ties to their heritages and the land, and who should be able to afford to sustain themselves to stay in the homes and hometown of their origin. Yet, many of those who work within the city cannot afford to live within its limits.
 
As a single mother of four, housing has been a tense issue for me. I absolutely lucked into the space I rent now, but at the cost of more than a third of my income, which I work my ass off to bring home, often putting in weeks well above 40 hours by serving our community and one of our most vulnerable populations, new families. And I am not alone. There are so many parents I have met here who are just one catastrophe or incident away from their life becoming irrevocably changed for the worse. Saving small amounts of money feels like a luxury, let alone enough to cover a $2000 housing deposit.
 
One argument I hear is that employers should pay more, and absolutely, they should. I’ve been advocating for myself to receive a raise for 9 MONTHS. But who is going to mandate that? And who is going to put their job on the line to make it happen when trying to take care of your expenses month to month? How do you ask people who are already under-resourced and struggling to fight against a system that is inherently set up against their benefit?
 
There is a consistent argument made that just having more housing will alleviate the issue of affordability. Except when it is only made to serve certain populations, and particularly those who are economically stable and sound. I watched this happen slowly in East Liberty, when they demolished two towers of low income housing, promising a place for citizens to return. Many could not, and still can’t. Instead, many of the empty buildings in the area were bought and revitalized to suit upper and upper middle class whites who want to live close to a Whole Foods and the convenience of walking to upscale restaurants. Never mind that when the neighborhood thrived as a black community, there was an entire walking plaza where a road now cuts the center, and its paved presence essentially undermined the black economic marketplace that once allowed for a community to sustain and care for its own.
 
I believe that change can be a vital, positive force that can have a huge impact on allowing communities to survive and thrive. But it can’t be at the expense of those who put in the most work and effort in that space. It takes consciousness, thought, and a commitment to culture, tradition, and meeting people where they are, rather than telling a population that they should just ‘demand’ more, to fit in the vision of a developer whose main goal is to be as financially successful as they can.  
 
There is a tone deafness to such statements that smacks of privilege, and not truly understanding what it means to be impoverished, under-educated, or discriminated against.  I, for one, am tired of the middle and lower class being blamed for our inability to have ‘better’ simply because we do not keep up with the ask of those who are in positions of financial power.
 
It’s so easy to label development that benefits only a few as ‘progress’. We like the concept of shiny things, cleaner spaces, and convenience. But often projects sold as a boon to the surrounding community only serve to be a boon to themselves financially, and in the case of Santa Fe, we should be demanding to have honest, gritty talks about the kind of housing needed to serve this community, rather than focusing on luring young professionals and families. There is something to be said for taking care of your own, first. Are locals being sourced first for our higher paying jobs, or it is an effort to attract imports who we believe will bring something that doesn’t already, or doesn’t need, to exist here?
 
I’m not a Santa Fe ‘local’, but Pittsburgh is as blue collar, and just as working class, which is part of why I love it here so much. People are warm, genuine, and real, and there is an inherent goodness that I haven’t found in many places. And they are deserving. They deserve an education system that helps rather than hinders, economic prosperity, and to cultivate their culture. They deserve to be part of the factor in the decisions made by those who are often removed from the salt of the earth. They deserve to live in the city in which they work.
 
We may not be comfortable calling it gentrification, yet. But when it looks like, talks like it, and builds like it…it is. And take it from someone who has already had a front row seat to its devastation: Santa Fe has everything that makes it ‘Santa’ to lose.

I’m going to say some things in this piece that may deviate from what I believe we are conditioned in society to believe what parenting should be, but seeing how I’m not in the habit of silencing my voice, this should be no surprise to anyone who reads this blog.  
 
First, as I documented in a previous piece (here), my elder children and I have had a rough go at it lately due to some poor choices on their part, a breakdown of communication, and a refusal to follow rules. I offered them a contract, which pretty much was just a commitment to responsibilities I have been repeatedly asking them to follow through with, and I gave them a weekend to decide. They declined to sign it.
 
So, for the week of their spring break, my kids were on their own, and I was with my younger two children for the earlier part, before heading to Texas for a conference generously sponsored by my employer. It was devastating to hear my kids say aloud that they didn’t want to come home. The twins and I have always been close, and I have been the one mark of stability in their entire lives. We have muddled through some very dirty waters and always managed to come out on the other side unscathed. And I am incredibly protective of them, and their hearts, because I have been their ‘person’.
 
The weekend they were gone prior to their decision (because they just opted not to come home, which is part of the pattern of behavior that I was hoping to cease) I spent a lot of time by myself. Doing things for myself I don’t feel I get to do as often as I should. I cleaned my entire house. I read. I spent time with friends. I wrote. And the quiet that descended, which I felt would mark their absence with profound desolation, surprised me. For the first time in ages, I felt such bliss and peace that I didn’t know how to process it.
 
We are taught to revel in the ‘joy’ of our children and parenting. What we aren’t taught is how to cope when parenting feels like it may drown you. How when you are waddling in so much emotion of your own while simultaneously worrying about how to manage the emotions of others, it’s a miracle that our ships aren’t collapsing and sinking. Or maybe they just are, more than we realize, and many of us spend more time underwater, holding our breath, than we feel we can admit without receiving scrutiny and judgement from others.
 
I was able, for the first time in months, to enjoy quiet. When my younger children were with me at the beginning of the week, I could engage in their presence in a way that I haven’t for a while, because I wasn’t worried about interfacing with the twins, and the tension surrounding our relationship. It gave me time to think, examine, and critically evaluate what elements of our relationship I was okay with and what I was not. It also gave me time to address the situation with my younger kids and have some deeply difficult conversations. My son asked me outright if his siblings were using drugs, and we had an open talk about the choice to use substances, and what that means for someone still in the throes of development versus an adult, and the consequences that can come of that. It also created an enormous amount of anxiety for my younger kids who were genuinely concerned for the safety of their brother and sister, and who vocalized it often. Both I, and their father, addressed this with honest conversation and additional counseling. As my six-year old told me, “I can’t get through this without my therapist.”
 
This is not to say that I abandoned my older kids entirely. Even without phone service, I was in touch with my daughter via messenger, and asked her daily if they were safe, and if they had a place to stay. But I didn’t spend all my time mentally fussing over what they were doing, or where they were. They returned the Monday after deciding to leave, looking worse for the wear from the weekend, packing up new clothes and gathering what they might need for the week ahead. I hugged them, told them that I loved them and that when they were ready to sign the contract, they could come home, and then I wished them well as they left.
 
By that point, I had three days of peace behind me, and I felt much stronger about my decision, which was an excruciatingly hard one to make. But what I am realizing more and more post-divorce is how essential and necessary boundaries are for me to thrive, and how intolerant I have become of toxicity in any form. Our relationship had become a cesspool where I felt walked on and over, and I am done, as a human, and particularly a woman, with accepting those situations for myself in the name of keeping peace. To me, it feels like a form of suppression that women constantly receive the message that they must be the ones who must hold the fabrics of family and society together, as if men can’t grab some corners of the cloth rather than focus on tearing off the pieces that no longer suit them. So, I decided that I am finished with relationships where healthy boundaries don’t exist, and that must be a full-blown effort in every aspect of my life, including with my children. And truth be told, I feel I am making the best parenting choice I could ever make by showing them how to advocate for what they need emotionally, and by modeling what it means to decide for yourself how you feel you should be treated and what you deserve.
 
When I came home on Wednesday, my daughter was in the house, doing laundry and eating cookies her siblings had baked. I informed her that I would have someone staying with the dog when I was out of town, so they couldn’t come and go as they pleased. She sounded slightly unsure of where they would be staying past that evening. As I approached leaving the next day for my conference, I had a strong moment where I freaked over the interstate travel and distance, and I worried if they would be okay in my absence. The thought of canceling crossed my mind, because I felt guilt at the thought of leaving. But I also reminded myself that I worked diligently to receive a grant to attend, and that my professional career, as well as my other passions, were just as important for me as my children. Despite things being rocky and uncertain, I could not put my life on hold while my kids were struggling with their own discovery and journey. They will be graduating high school in a year, and leaving as legal adults to really be on their own, and I am not doing them any justice by putting myself in a position of being ‘on-call’ only when they feel they need me. I, too, have a life that deserves tending and love.
 
I was very thankful to receive a great deal of emotional support from many of my fellow conference friends, who encouraged me that I was being the best parent I felt I could. The physical separation was exactly what I needed. It felt good to be in a space where I could take time for myself outside of feeling responsible to a job, child, or dog, and it was sorely needed to give me strength and perspective, especially as I pondered that my kids may not choose to come home at all. One of my favorite moments came when I engaged an older couple in the hotel lobby in conversation over the woman’s unique wooden watch, and we got thick into a discussion of parenting. She turned to me and said, “I think it’s bullshit when people say you can’t divorce your kids. We certainly did with one of ours. Sometimes you just need to say I can’t do this anymore.”
 
On the way back, I received a message from my daughter as my plane prepared to take off, that she and her brother were ready to sign the contract, and wanted to come back. I told them I would in later that night, and would meet them at home. We were all exhausted, and agreed to discuss the contract the next night.
 
When I woke Monday, I began to feel some of my original stressors creeping. They had left dishes everywhere although I had asked them to place them in the dishwasher. My daughter had been in my room the night before without permission and took my phone charger cord. The couch was askew, and their items were scattered all over the living room I had scrubbed clean. That night, we talked over the contract, negotiating a few items, but I was annoyed that they kept turning to watch television rather than giving their full focus. I asked my son to take out the garbage, and for them to load the dishwasher.
 
By Tuesday, I was feeling tense as similar behavior continued. When I woke Wednesday morning to find the garbage had still not been removed, I sent a message warning them that they would lose the privileges of technology for 24 hours, per our signed agreement. I returned home that evening and nothing I had asked to have completed was done. My younger children assisted me with cleaning up, but I was also clear that it was not their responsibility. The other side of the coin is trying to make sure that they do not overcompensate to make everything feel more stable, because that’s not healthy either. When they got home, I asked my older son to hand over his phone, and he aggressively refused. He asked me why I didn’t just take the garbage out myself, and why must he, since he was tired from dancing, worry about any of these requests? And then he told me to fuck off, and that I was crazy. My younger son, still awake upstairs, after I left to go to my room, was lying in bed crying himself to sleep, and my heart just cracked.
 
Once more, I was DONE. So, I calmly told them if they did not want to participate in following the contract, they could not stay with me and would find another place to stay, again. The next day, they informed me that would be choosing to leave. This time, I took their keys, and repeating myself, told them I would prefer they live with me, but I understood if they felt they couldn’t live by my rules and boundaries and needed to be elsewhere. It was clear to me that living on their own and finding places to stay was probably harder than they expected, and they came home expecting us to just fall back into our previous routine without them having to make a solid effort to change or shoulder the responsibilities I was asking. I believe they felt I would just be grateful they decided to return, and would let the same negative patterns slide in exchange for their presence.
 
So, I found myself living without them once again. I informed their school guidance counselor, whom I have been consistently in touch with since this started, to make sure they are getting support in school, as I had received notice that grades were dropping. This being round two, I took solace in the silence left behind, and felt my own anxiety and stress begin to dissipate at a much faster rate. Over the weekend, my daughter was in touch to let me know they needed to get clothes, and I gave them windows of time when I would be available, but they never appeared. At one point, she said that she would just call my friend she had previously asked to help her get a key from me, and I made it clear that would not be happening. On Sunday, I sent them a message that I would be home with their siblings and I had Easter baskets for them, if they wanted to stop by.
 
They got there in the afternoon, looking ragged and exhausted when I pulled into my parking lot. Instantly, my son began picking a fight about his longboard I have stashed in my trunk, which I confiscated a month ago, and I almost asked them to leave, except my daughter interceded calmly. We got inside and I asked how they were, and my son made a snarky comment about his failing grades. While living on his own, he also missed submitting a scholarship video for a dance program he hopes to attend this summer, and a deadline for another application. My daughter was also behind in submitting paperwork for the overseas trip she hopes to attend. Real life consequences were beginning to catch up. I asked if they were staying, but they weren’t sure.
 
The kids all sat to watch a movie, and it felt good to have them all in one place. The twins left after a bit to try to get my son’s computer, which he left with a friend and needs for school, and my daughter came in a couple hours later, saying my son was having an anxiety attack about coming home. She took him some ashwagandha, and they returned in the evening, informing me that they were not staying but would be back the next day, maybe. As I must think of not just them, but all my kids, and the effect of this situation on each of them, I told the twins that the back and forth wasn’t working. They were going to need, soon, to make a solid decision about what their plans were. Either they were stay and follow the rules/boundaries, or they were going to need to be on their own, without vacillating for convenience. My son again told me I was crazy for kicking my own kids out, and they grabbed their bags and left to stay at a friend’s house.
 
I settled in to watch a movie with my dog, and just try to unwind and shut my mind off from the continuous tug of war. About half an hour later, I heard a knock at the door. The twins stood in the door frame with their bags, and said they decided they wanted to stay. I stepped back to allow them in.
 
We’re three days in, and while things aren’t as blissful as when I was on my own, I’m not seeking perfect peace, or a perfect home. I will have time enough for that when they leave next year, and I now have a taste of what I can look forward to. But I am asking for a healthy dose of respect, and recognition of boundaries, which I will be the first to acknowledge I have failed to provide at times when they were younger. I was raised to believe that self-sacrifice was the ultimate hallmark of womanhood, especially when it came to being a ‘good’ mother, and with the end of my marriage, struggling on my own, I can now see what a huge disservice I, and others, have been given. This is not to say that parenting doesn’t require giving up certain aspects of who you are or were that should be surrendered, but it also doesn’t mean that we exempt our children from the list of toxic contributors simply because they were born. Or that we allow the notion of ‘family’ to override our abilities to feel healthy in our relationships.
 
I’ve been told by well-meaning people that I shouldn’t be writing about this with such openness, and I’ve had to tell them that I am tired of following a model where we pretend that parenting is an endless joy that we should all just revel in 24/7. I couldn’t survive if I sat with all of this and had nowhere to put it into the world. As someone who comes from a family wrought with substance abuse and enabling, I feel that the best gift I can offer myself and others is the power to be public about my struggles rather than hide it behind a veil of ‘doing fine’. There is no greater way to continue an unhealthy cycle of denial than to just sweep it under the rug of ‘not airing our business’.
 
I’m also tired of people putting parents on a pedestal, as if our relationships with our children are any different than those we engage in the real world. Yes, raising children is meaningful, and chock full of beautiful moments. But parents need to have permission to feel imperfect, without feeling judged and criticized for needing the basic things that all humans should be asking for and giving in our love based relationships: respect, kindness, compassion, and joy. And if you are childless and judging, I am going to tell you straight up to fuck off, because unless you are in the thick of raising independent humans that you are required to keep alive for 18 years, you don’t get to say a fucking word about what I should be doing, how I do it, or when I do it.
 
What makes putting these words on paper worthwhile are the people who have approached me about their own stories, and connected with words of support. About substance abuse in their own families that they don’t feel they can discuss openly, how they were horrible, shitty teenagers but now love their parents, or how they are struggling with similar issues with their own children. We live in a world that is more connected than ever but where people seem to feel more and more loneliness as the pressure to maintain public perfection bears down greater and greater. It’s not worth the effort to preserve the façade, and it only drives us further apart from recognizing our own imperfect humanity in others.
 
I’m optimistic my kids are planning to stay, because I know that we all love each other an enormous amount, but just need to learn where our borders lie. It’s putting in the work to figure out how we navigate where we do not intrude on each other too much, allowing us to live in healthy, individual spaces that still touch. Yesterday, I only had to ask once for my daughter to empty the dishwasher, and for my son to take out the garbage. That’s a damn good start from where we were a week ago, and I’ll take it. Here’s hoping we’re learning to tread water where we were once drowning, with enough love to keep us all afloat.

San Antonio turns out to be warmer than I expected, even though I previewed the weather on the internet and intentionally ditched my winter coat in my trunk at the park n ride by the airport. I can see The Alamo from my hotel room, one block away. It appears through the veils of trees, the golden stone popping out amidst the green, and looks like a small, squat block in the midst of skyscrapers.

I'm here for a conference, and during my lunch hour, I stealthy sneak out and stroll over to my destination. I pass a cantina, the same one I hear music drifting from until the wee hours of the morning, situated in a small, recessed valley with intentional waterfalls, the water glowing a soothing, Caribbean blue. Now, it is quiet, and the only noise escaping is the water loudly hushing me as it falls upon itself.

I approach the road leading to the Alamo, a wide stretch of cobblestone, where a horse pulls a cinderella buggy festooned with lights for when the sun drops and couples want to pretend they are living the unattainable fairy tale. After I cross the street, I explore a statue to my left, large and imposing, made from granite or marble, etched with words babbling something about fire, heroes, and the state.

The main building of the Alamo proves itself as small as I imagined from the floor to ceiling view in my hotel, the rough exterior cobbled from cut rocks, with carvings and ornate detail surrounding the arched, double wood doors that feel out of place next to its ruggedness.  It looks like a short, fat man against the grey sky, whipping his Texan flag around with fervor to distract from the imposition he's missing.

To my surprise, the main attraction is merely one part of a compound, and I venture into a miniature plaza hidden by a rock wall with a huge, gorgeous tree sitting in the middle of the stone walkways, its branches reaching out in all directions, the arms thick and inviting. What I wouldn't give to curl up on one of its biceps and daydream the afternoon away.

Under a portal is a long house, filled with a variety of historical objects and placards that dole out the history leading to, and describing, the battle of the Alamo. In the first room, it describes how the building was built by Native hands, ones eventually bound as prisoners as other colonists arrived and claimed what no one really owns as theirs. I lose my appetite and merely drift through the remaining spaces, watching the throngs of people, noses pressed to glass, intently absorbing narratives that were written from a centrist view that likely excludes someone’s truth. I am glad I haven't eaten.

I escape the long house, peeking in an end room partitioned by a glass wall, so you can see the makeshift hospital but cannot explore it. Closing my eyes for a few seconds, I try to imagine how many died or developed infection from the rudimentary tools and not yet known methods of medicine that might have preserved their lives. The beds are narrow, wooden frames lined with simple, white cotton sheets, and there are only two. 'How did anyone survive', I question internally.

I emerge back into the plaza, and detour through the gift shop. Instantly, I find candy cleverly fashioned after buckshot and musket balls, and grab two for my younger children. The thick crowd envelopes me as children run everywhere, screeching and playing with fake weapons and raccoon caps. I saunter to the book section, finding Davy Crockett's autobiography for my son, and an easier reader about the same for my daughter. The line to check out snakes around three sides of a square, and as I patiently wait, I watch the father in front of me as he continually removes the faux rifle his three year old keeps hitting his brother with, threatening to remove and return it, but the kids know, as I, that his promise is nothing but empty air. Finally, I reach the counter, and they try to get me to buy a tote bag, but I politely decline, paying for my gifts and escaping back to the soft heat.

I've had enough at this point: of jostling crowds, group photographs, skewed history, the boom of muskets, the screech of children that remind me of those from whom I am estranged. My boots smack the stone as I quicken my pace, clenching my bag, finally coming full circle to the front of this monument representing our thirst for conquering. I throw a glance toward my right shoulder, catching one last glimpse of the tree with its arms thrown open to the world, and I wonder how something so gorgeous can emerge from earth soaked with fear and violence. How closely it resembles this country, one arisen from feeding on the bloodshed of so many, thriving best in its own oblivion.

I want you to close your eyes and imagine that your words are physical objects based on their properties. If they are words of kindness and consideration, what would they feel and look like? Soft and squishy? How would they change or effect the person you sling them towards? If they are harsh and cruel, how do they appear? Heavier, sharp? What kind of damage would they do when they made contact?
 
I was recently at a conference where the importance of language was discussed, and it was mentioned that we now know that words can affect a person’s DNA. I want that to fully sink in: what you say, how you say it, who you say it to, and how it is delivered, has the potential to alter someone on a level that creates cellular changes. At the conference, the presenter* discussed how certain words used in the context of describing specific populations should no longer be applicable: vulnerable, empower, under-served, and non-white. Take a moment, say each word out loud, and think about what you associate with it. Do you associate vulnerability with weakness, as many do? Who has the right to give or take away power? Why must ‘white’ be the core measure of description, and what does it say if it is?
 
As a writer, I like to think that I am conscious of language and choices around words, but when specific words are embedded in the net of a society, we don’t often stop to meditate on what we are using, the context in which they arrived, and why we say what we say. More important, we don’t frequently ask, ‘what is the longstanding effect that your words carry with the intense power they hold to alter gene expression,’ especially when ‘we’ are people who have the upper hand in the dynamics of existence.
 
The conference I was attending was referring more specifically to nomenclature around childbirth, and how varying populations are often labeled, yet simultaneously ignored. But while I was away, I had a fascinating text conversation with someone regarding my children, and the parallel between the two struck me deeply.
 
I always refer to my children as biracial, because according to society, that is the technical term we consistently use to describe children who have parents who have come from distinct ‘races’. Except, as my exquisite, lovely texting company challenged, what does it mean to people as biracial? If race itself doesn’t exist except as a social construct, which I am fully aware of, what is the purpose of such a term? And beyond that, why I am utilizing a word that continues to perpetuate separation and difference, and in the process, delivers inequity, based on something that is imaginary?
 
To say that something resonated for me would be an understatement, and in later reflection, along with just feeling icky for using a word that has the potential to create such unrecognized harm, I had to confront the amount of privilege I carry to use such words without thinking about them. And that I have taught them to my children, without putting in the mental and emotional work to determine the effect, hit me square in the heart.
 
My thoughtful texting companion asked me how my children knew they were African American, and the discussion veered in the direction of self-identity, which fascinates me. Even though my son sports my fairer skin and wider, more manageable curls, he solely identifies as African American. On the other hand, my daughter, with her richer tone and tighter, darker hair, verbalizes her identity as white and black. As a parent, I realized a long time ago that I wanted my children to decide who they are and how they want to be addressed. They each have their own distinct path in this world which will partly be shaped by how they choose to identify, and in reaction to the lens in which others see them. While I can offer what has created ‘me’, who they determine they want to be is (as it should be) solely up to them.
 
This now means, for me, altering the language I reference regarding how they journey through this world. If my son has determined he is African American, I can call him just that. It may confuse other people, but it’s not my place to take up their discomfort and soothe it. We all could do better if we sat in discomfiture and took the time to do the emotional and intellectual work required to be more unbiased, rather than just continue with what is easy and familiar. For my daughter, I feel ‘dual-identity’, since that is how she speaks to how she sees herself, could be appropriate, although I am waiting to have a conversation with her to get her input first about what language she prefers.
 
I ask that we all continue to reflect on the words we distribute, and that we attempt to do so with as much respect and love as we can with an eye to humanity as a collective. When people remind us, and challenge us, to do better, to reflect internally despite our own discomfort, show up and do the difficult work. Sit in dis-ease and consider how to change, and why it is important to do so. Recognize when you have done wrong, and apologize when appropriate for what you have been perpetuating. The only separation that stands in the way of understanding are our self-imposed barriers and prejudices to others.  I would rather work toward a world where we strive for equity and egalitarianism, with language that reflects that consciousness, than simply preserve unnecessary difference. More so, I hope to eventually live in a world where I won’t have to explain my children’s identity at all, and they can just be.