SLOW
I want to be Slow
Slow washing dishes because washing brings me close, the flow, the water, makes me flow slow.
I WANT to be slow.
Slow enough to hear the birds, smell the salty waves, feel the wind and the sun
I want to BE slow.
Slow like Fernanda who refuses to rush
Because we’ve all given up too much already
to white supremacy, capitalism, the patriarchy.
I want to be SLOW.
Slow.. as….. ….. my plants…. in no damn hurry … to .. grow.
I want TO BE slow
Like I imagine Palestinian Jesus,
Who keep praying and preaching the reign, the realm, of “heaven” is here, now, today…. even if there is more to do, right now, we should rest, the glimpse of heaven is in this moment, now
when we can pay attention to now, when we can BE in the NOW, so I WANT to be slow. ..
Slow enough to take it all in, to dance…, to the rhythm of the flow.
I want to be LEEEENTO, un paso mas lento…paciencia para encontrarme, leeentoooo
quiero ir y ser LENTA para poder escuchar las historias de las abuelas
De fantasmas, de milagros, de amores y perdidas, de chistes inapropiadas y risas a carcajadas.
I want to be slow.
Slow enough to have the wonder… of a small child… to imagine the magical realism… to stop and see the shooting stars…
I want to be slow.
Like a siesta de la tarde de domingo. That doesn’t seem to end.
I want to be SLOOOOOOW.
Like 2 lovers meeting on an evening that never ends, when time stops and the conversation is deep and long and sloooow. UUF yea, I want to be SLOOOOOWWW
….
I want to be slow.
Hogar sin tierra
- Published in Exposed Brick Literary Magazine Issue Two: Boundless Land
I have a ritual for every time I move.
On my walls I put up and taken down pictures of many homes.
Ocean and mountains.
El Hogar Stansberry and 3 generations of women wearing our favorite color turquoise, like the sea.
El Hogar is a home, para los que no tienen home.
I did, but I was still seeking, searching, and searching for a more whole family.
Mine seemed broken, incomplete, too small.
I saw myself in left behind children.
I searched for family among them.
really my homes are boundless… in my privilege and restlessness and first/second generation immigrant land-less-ness
In my compulsion to move and move and move again.
From the east to the west
From the coast to the dessert and the landlocked tierra of my heart.
I’m good at making new homes
And good and leaving homes behind.
Leaving is familiar.
Keep uprooting myself with the hopes one day home will be easy, comfortable, sweet, a shelter.
Keep learning new languages, keep code-switching, blending in with my surroundings, looking up flights, scheming to find ways I can live in a van. Because maybe if I keep moving I won’t have to face my... self. Won’t have to risk hurting those roots once they take hold in the ground.
Pero los hogares no se encuentran no más.
Se plantan, se siembran, se cuidan, se observan... hasta que un día inesperado se comienza a ver un poquito de verde, una hojita, una ramita...
what we don’t see is the seeds. The tiny reproductive system that sacrifice themselves for new birth.
What we don’t see is the roots. The roots that are growing deeper and wider and stronger. They support, connect with community, and nourish. They are what makes the hogar.
Even an hogar that is in the soil of a boundless land. Sin frontera, sin bandera, without a land.
Land is home. It’s why we fight so fiercely for it.
And I long for home like that Brazilian word saudades- I love you, I miss you, I long for you.
I am like a plant in a pot that can only grow so deep.
Easily moved but dis-connected... from land.
I’m feeling like I might I just BREAK... the pot
It will be messy, unsettling,
soil, and roots and limbs will come, …. spilling…. out.
But only then will I ever be able to ... deepen... my ... roots.
And while home was once boundless, maybe now it can also be rooted in land.
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