Diablo! If only I had known. The beauty! The beauty!

(INSERT FRIVOLOUS EXCUSE FOR LACK OF POSTINGS, SPRINKLE PUNS ALL OVER IT)

Cool. Now let's get down to business.

About two years go, as I was preparing to leave Lima for the first time, I began writing "something;" lack of a better word means I have to use that vague title. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I was trying to create. At times it felt like an essay written in verse, sometimes it was just a series of one-liners, and other times still I wanted to take everything written down, blend it down, pour into a shot glass, and drink it down.

1 shot
is overrated
and too much
at once
1 shot

I took my first formal creative writing class with hopes of deciphering my head's contents. "If I can turn writing into schoolwork," I thought, "I'll force myself to dig that annoying sucker out." It's a lot like inviting all of your friends to a party at your place just so you finally have motivation to clean up your house and yourself: if strangers are going to judge my writing in person, it has to be presentable.

I was right and wrong. I sorted the contents of my brain but that only further  frustrated me, for I still couldn't get the most important things out and onto paper. Assignment after assignment, I handed in failed attempts of what I really wanted to say. Week after week, however, I got by. Nobody was going to challenge me to reach deeper, and, as a senior in college, I sure as hell wasn't going to challenge myself. Besides, I was getting by.
As I'd done my whole life, I self-pardoned my mediocrity and lashed out at others: either explicitly or just in my thoughts--I forgave my self-assumed shortcomings by highlighting them in other people. A disorganized, pretentious draft feels less so if it isn't the least organized, pretentious draft in class.

So grew my discontent
so suffered my content
so long inspiration
so long ago, I lost you.

There is one image, though, that stuck with me from that class. While discussing word choice, my professor drew the analogy that most writers are like baseball pitchers--accurate, and impressively so--but poets have to strive to be like knife-throwers: perfect, nothing less.

(Shout out to all the Gundam pilots out there)

At any rate, I left the class, bitter; I graduated from college, bitter; and that fall I left the U.S, bitter. While studying for a semester in Lima, I'd discovered a life that, to borrow James Baldwin's words, "seemed to be occurring beneath the sea, time flowed past, indifferently above us, hours and days had no meaning" (Giovanni's Room 281). While those on the surface battled waves and storms and the clashing of water to land,  I floated under all of it. Suspended between my ideas and dreams with neither urgency nor boredom to  push me. If you're not going to do what you do, you may as well not do it in a place you love.

Although, after a few weeks beneath Lima's permagray, I picked up a pen. Shortly after that, I decided I couldn't stay. Ironically, living in a place where I felt free to do and think and write forced me to challenge myself: I couldn't do this back in the states, really? Even baseball pitchers have to play in cold, rainy weather sometimes, and here I was writing a novel in English in a place where hardly anyone would ever read it.

Because here's the real secret behind paradise: it's exactly like love. Finding a place where you feel so connected and like you never want to leave is beautiful and warming: falling in love with someone will make even the most hardened of people feel like their insides are made of bubbles. Living in paradise, however, you realize you can't possibly stay. Much like how there is no such thing as "happily ever after" and relationships are actually the start and  the end of something really really beautiful

So, too, once you live in paradise curiosity creeps, and your old life comes calling. It's true that I don't belong in my hometown, a place which, culturally, resembles the Old South in the 1940s, but I couldn't remain in Lima.

Someday, someday soon
I'll find that place where I can belong
Belong and remain

And, though it may sound arrogant, I know Lima, Lima as I love it, will always exist in some form; for it wasn't so much the physical place that is Lima, as it was the people who surrounded me there. I want to close out this post by once again borrowing from Mr. James Baldwin, but with some modification:

I love a few people and they love me, and some of them are Peruvian, and some of them are American, and some of them are white, and some of them old, and some of them are broken, and isn't love more important than difference (The Fire Next Time 327).

I would like to thank everyone who I came to meet and know during my months in Lima, I miss you all deerly! And to all my friends, here, there, and anywhere, I'll try to keep you all posted as my different projects begin to come together. In the meantime:






Jam out to LCD Soundsystem and listen to my podcast!
https://soundcloud.com/pigeonratrad

I Remember Monday Making Our Lives Gray.

Yo yo

Cool, now that that's out of the way, let's get on with today's post. Don't worry, it won't be nearly as long nor as heavy-handed as the previous post...unless you like lengthy, heavy-handed posts, in which case: please don't stop reading, please read on, please, pl, p. 

But all foolishness aside, Deer Reader, I give you Gladys Knight and the Pips:

"Why?" You may, or may not, be asking yourselves right now. Well, let me tell you. If you're not familiar with this song, listen to the lyrics, read the lyrics, and draw your own conclusions before reading my take on it. (Go ahead, we've got time)

Ready? All right, here we go:

So I think, initially, you hear this song and think it's about a guy whose dreams of "making it," as they say, have been dashed, and so he must limp home on a midnight train to Georgia. The train probably leaves at midnight so the failed protagonist-in-question can avoid any and all embarrassment and flee the city with what little bit of honor he still has, right? So we're all done here? NO. 

Whenever you're reading anything or listening to anything or viewing any piece of art, one of your first questions should be: who's speaking? In the case of the song, who's the speaker, the narrator? If you notice, there are a few parts in the song where it changes from third person "He's leaving on the midnight train to Georgia" to first person "I'll be with him (I know you will) on that midnight train to Georgia." So now we know that the singer may also be a character in the story of this guy who's leaving Los Angeles and heading home. 

Why is point of view so important in this song? Because I think it changes the entire meaning of the song. We no longer have a story about some random guy who didn't hit it big in LA and now is heading home. Instead, we have the friend/lover/girlfriend/wife of this guy telling us that she's also heading back to Georgia because, as she puts it: "I'd rather live in his world than live without him in mine." Why isn't this narrator singing more about her life or the world she's leaving behind? Aha! See? Now we're getting somewhere. 

I think there's a lot to be said for giving up on a dream or simply failing at something and having the honesty to admit defeat to yourself if you genuinely tried and things just didn't break your way. BUT, I think there's plenty more to be said for having a real chance at achieving those dreams and falling short, not because of exterior forces, but rather because of self-sabotage--or better said, self-imposed restrictions that may have roots deeper than you can follow. Ya dig? 

So where do you come down on this? Is the singer right to give up her world in order to be with the man she loves, even if it means abandoning everything she's worked to create and  exchanging it for a world she know's nothing about? Are there more important things in life than achieving your dreams and doing what you're passionate about? Are there different kinds of happiness?

Is the midnight train to Georgia a sign of loyalty and love or does it represent sacrifice and failure?

See? Nothing heavy-handed about this post, right?

I wanted to post about this song and topic because it has a lot of relevance regarding chapter 2 of my novel-in-progress, so I hope your brains are warmed up and itching to do some critical reading! 

2 Quick notes before you begin, however, (I know, there's always a catch):

1) This chapter contains some pretty strong scenes and deals with some pretty serious issues, so please don't hold that against me.  Nothing is permanent in this ongoing work, but I am particularly proud of how this chapter turned out. But, as always, please shoot me any and all criticism you might have. 

2) I will probably only post one more chapter on my blog from here on in (I'd say be on the look out for it in about a month or so). The reason is I want to honestly try to track down an editor so I can maybe submit some excerpts to literary contests or agents. So for the sake of creative licensing and other boring things like that, I shouldn't post my entire thing online...unless of course I don't manage to find anyone who wants to publish my work, in which case I'd probably just post the entire thing here. So if you're a fan of free stuff, by all means cheer for me to end up on that midnight train to Georgia with my unpublished manuscript.  (Kidding, of course). 

Saludos, Deer Reader!

2

The 23rd: The rest of it

I decided I’d walk in through the kitchen, ‘just in case dad’s asleep in the living room I don’t want to wake him,’ I told myself. Though the kitchen is actually closer to his bedroom, and the real reason I didn’t walk in through the front door was because if he’d fallen asleep, drinking, in the living room, there’s a good chance I’d’ve woken him and then we’d have to talk. 

In any case, I snuck into my house through the kitchen, not nearly as quietly as I’d hoped, but every time I paused to listen for any sign of my awakened, annoyed dad, I heard nothing, so I decided to turn on the light in the kitchen.

My mother’s flight had left at 5 pm, but we’d left for the airport at 1 so we could have time to talk, yet everything in my kitchen was as it had been when we’d departed. Even the envelope of money my mother had left on the table to help my dad with those month’s bills was still just sitting there, right next to the day’s mail: unseen, ignored, forgotten. 

I don’t know why I was worried. I don’t know why I thought anything of it. Yet, I stumbled into the hallway and down into living room—the room I told myself I’d avoid—and opened the door. 

The tv was on a Spanish-speaking station, but I knew this only because the lettering on the screen. The tv itself was muted and served only to fill the room with a low hum and dress everything in a faint light. I focused for a bit on the screen to try to distract myself from my rising dread. I wanted, with all my heart, to be anywhere else at that moment. 

I closed the door and finally called for him: “Dad?” No response. My blood turned cold and my confusion became panic. I called again: “Apa? Apa! Estás?”

I walked down the hallway, opening all doors along the way, and turning on the lights to the entire house. He’s gotta be here, I thought, he’s gotta be. My house never felt larger and more foreign as room after closet after bathroom yielded nothing. 

Finally, I burst into my dad’s bedroom—formerly my parents’ room—at the end of the hallway. I turned on the light. Nothing. The room was eerily tidy, void of any signs of human life.

 I stood there for who knows how long and tried to gather myself. I closed my eyes and felt the entire room spin and soon I started to spin with it, and I became nauseous.

With the taste of vomit climbing my throat, I tried to open the door to my dad’s bathroom. It was locked. I immediately thought the worse and my nausea intensified. Without thinking, I lowered my shoulder and ran through the door. 

I’ll never forget the smell inside the bathroom that night: it caught me by the throat as soon I entered and forced me back. I’m still not sure if I vomited as soon as I got in or after I saw the naked, still body lying in the bathtub, but I could hold nothing back. The smell and sight and heat inside the bathroom forced their way into my body like a filthy, rusty blade: first I felt it in the pit of bowels, then the blade turned upward and ripped through my stomach, my esophagus, and finally out of my mouth and all over the floor and sink. It felt like my soul wanted to escape and was struggling to find its way out via all the vomit. In between retching I tried gasping for air but could only inhale the stench of my dad’s body, and I wanted to scream for help but I never caught enough breath nor could I find any voice. Eventually it all knocked me to my knees, and I crawled to where my dad lay. Covered in vomit, I reached into my pocket and tried to stop trembling long enough to dial 9-1-1 but couldn’t. 

Finally I just called the last number I had talked to (it was my house number, and it had been a call from my mother to remind me of her departure time) my house phone rang and I knew no one was around to answer either one of us. 

I snapped my phone shut, reopened it, and summoned enough calm to dial Danny’s cell number. Several rings and then his voicemail. I tried again. Several rings, but this time I heard his drowsy, annoyed voice on the other end: “What?”

Somehow I said enough to get across my dire situation because paramedics were at my house shortly thereafter. 

I spent the night trying to sleep in a chair in the ER waiting room, wearing a pair of scrubs lent to me by an intern. I thought of my mother as I finally faded into sleep. I must’ve missed her a lot because I dreamt she and I were waiting together to hear of my dad’s condition. 

* * *

The following morning I drank bad coffee and urinated almost every 10 minutes while I waited to hear any news about my dad. Danny would text me every so often asking how I was and how my dad was doing. “I don’t know. better I guess,” I responded almost every time. 

Finally in the early afternoon, an older, female nurse came into the waiting room and told me my dad had regained consciousness and he was in stable condition. I think I would've cried if I hadn't been so dehydrated from my night of binge-drinking-turned-puking and my morning of coffee-binging-turned-endless-piss-stream. I had so many questions for her, but couldn't find the words or nerve to say anything, and I think she sensed this and said “He’s going to be alright. He overdosed on sleeping pills and mixed them with quite a bit of alcohol. He may not have made it, but you got him here right in the nick of time.” I felt one heavy weight on my back replaced by another. “So we’re just monitoring his condition, but I think it’s safe to say he’ll pull through just fine. He owes a lot to you—“

“Do you need me here?” I finally said to her.

She lifted a perplexed eyebrow. I swallowed hard and tried again, “I mean, should I stay here and wait for him, or can I go home and try to rest a bit? And maybe…” I gestured at my outfit. She kept her brow up but said “Of course. He’s asleep now, and he’ll need to rest for all of today. We’ll call you if his condition changes.” She turned around and began to walk away. 

“Could you just tell him—” I forced her to stop in her tracks and turn to look at me. “that I went home but will be right back. You know? If he asks where I went. Please?” She nodded. 

I called Danny, and he picked me up and took me home. “That shit’s crazy, man. I’m really sorry.” He finally said after, what I felt, too brief a silence. I didn’t say anything. “You wanna talk about it, maybe?” He insisted. 

“No, not really. He’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.” I snapped. If last night’s ambulance ride to the hospital had been a flash of lightning in a thunderstorm, today’s drive back to my house felt like watching clouds in the desert sky, hoping, week after week, that they’ll finally bless a drop of rain onto everything. We finally arrived at my house. 

“Jo,” Danny said as I was opening the door, “I know this isn’t what you wanna hear right now, but you really should find a way to get in touch with your mom and let her know what’s happened.” I fought the urge to turn around and punch him in his unguarded face. “Thanks.” I climbed out of his car and closed the door. 

I don’t know why, but I decided to shower and change before returning to clean up the previous night’s horror. Maybe I didn’t want to soil the scrubs I’d been lent. Probably not. More likely, I wanted to try to wash away who I was last night; watch it go down the drain and pretend that I was just some janitor who, unfortunately, had been assigned this nightmarish cesspool. Since I’d been a janitor in high school, not only was this alternate reality preferable, it actually almost made me thankful. “All those years of mopping crap up will not have been in vain,” I told myself. 

Any and all delusion, however, fled my body the instant I saw my still moist vomit with streaks of red (I hadn’t consumed anything red night before, so, yes, it was blood) all over my dad’s bathroom floor. After a few hours, though, I was finished. Dinner and lots of water followed this clean up, as I realized I’d had nothing all day except for bad hospital coffee. 

‘Now what?’ I thought while standing in my kitchen.

To avoid Danny’s suggestion that I try to contact my mother, I went our living room, flipped on the tv, and the left the room in search of a book. Finding my Anthology of American Literature, I looked for the Nineteenth Century. I flipped past Crane, Dunbar, Whitman, Dickinson, Douglass, Emerson, Thoreau, reading several opening lines of poetry and prose until I found it:

‘To him who in the love of Nature holds…’ I read in my head until I got to end:

“So live, that when thy summons comes to join  

The innumerable caravan which moves  

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take  

His chamber in the silent halls of death,  

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,  

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed  

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave  

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch  

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

* * *

My dad came home two days later and he went back to work about a week after everything happened. As for me, I wrote my university and explained everything to them and my dean of students suggested, knee-jerkingly, it seemed, that I take the following semester off so to be close to my dad during this “difficult time” (her words).

I remember feeling furious at her and the entire university for it. “Difficult time?” Maybe it was the absurd assumption that one semester of me hanging out at home was going to be long enough for my dad and I to resolve an issue that had been 20-plus years in-the-making; or maybe it’s because I needed to lash out at somebody, anybody, and I was now living with the one person towards whom I could never direct my anger and hopelessness. Either way, I filled out a transfer request and began taking classes the following January at the local community college. 

“To hell with California, it’s dead-end place” I told Danny when he asked if I was sure about my decision. 

In reality, I didn’t want to go back to San Diego because it wasn’t far enough away. Somehow going back to California felt ridiculous—an indulgence—like the cigarette given to a prisoner right before the firing squad takes aim. No, if I was going to be scourged to the dungeon, I was going to have a say in the matter. 

During my first year back, I envied my mother; I was jealous she recognized the prison forming around us before I did and escaped from it without a trace. I envied her selfishness and hated her freedom. 

After a time, however, I only thought of her when I was inconvenienced by some inane, bureaucratic Arizona State nonsense. “I wouldn’t even be here, if I’d’ve just taken after my mother and learned to get out while the gettin’s good,” I used to joke with classmates. By the time I graduated, I hardly thought of her at all.

And not long after that, she stopped appearing in my dreams. 

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once." -John Green

Starting a blog off with a quote from The Fault in Our Stars?
(Uh oh, someone's  about to get heavy-handed)
You're absolutely right! And that someone is:

Blondie!

I can only PRAY that when I'm 35 (as Debbie Harry is in this video) I'll be even remotely as cool as she was/still might be. Sigh...

But to relieve all worry now (or perhaps to reinforce it) today's post will not be heavy-handed if not, reflective and somewhat whiny...you know, typical blog stuff.

So when I was in high school... 

(oh yeah, you know it's a good story when it begins like this. Pull up a chair, kids)

so when I was in high school, and actually even before high school, I was categorized as a "student with potential," which is an awful thing to be called because it implies not all students--i.e. not all kids--have potential, but that's a different rant for a different time. 

Anyway when I was a kid, I was categorized as having potential and being college-bound--again, the disturbing, casual use of these titles are beside the point to my story--so as such, I had counselors and teachers tell me what classes would best suit me, what types of schools would be interested in me after graduation, and what kinds of things I could study in college. I'm sure a lot of people who read this blog can relate to this particular part of high school, but it was strange to me because, traditionally, my high school hasn't performed the best in terms of academics...in fact, for a long time it was the most underperforming high school in my school district. 

Snap back to reality. So being one of the lucky few students identified as college-bound meant I was assigned a pretty rigid schedule and general, high school experience. Know what I mean? sports, extracurricular activities, volunteering, and piles and piles and piles and piles of homework. But the point I want to make is that I had other people helping me make--or sometimes just making for me--a regiment, a path that was going to lead me to what they called success.

I was a square. 

And I mean square in the old 1950s sense, I, for the most part, stayed within this structured life that had been created for me--and, to a lesser extent, by me--hardly ever did I venture outside of my 4-sided world. Inside of this world were people telling me that good grades, motivation, and enthusiasm were eventually going to help me find a good college and a career. So I stayed on my linear path and in my square life. And everyone in school knew who the squares were, since there weren't a whole lot of us--or maybe because all squares are easily identifiable because they have so much in common--4 sides, 4 corners. So squares and nonsquares alike knew who the squares in school were; knew the squares were the kids who turned in assignments on time (or even early), and knew who'd be busy, frantically working on personal statements and interview practice.

Bored yet?

Well let's for a second wonder about some of these squares, that is to say, what if they weren't all squares? What if the structured rigidness of high school tried to make us all squares and tried to tell us that only two dimensions of our personalities mattered? What if, however, some of us had more dimensions that we just couldn't show because we were told they didn't matter or weren't "college material?"

In short, what if some of us were cubes? 

What about it? Cubes are just a bunch of squares put together, right? Not exactly, a cube has depth, a cube can be profound, a cube has a face like a square and may appear to be a square if you're looking at it straight and can't see its sides. But there's more to a cube than just length and width. A cube living in this rigid structure is hiding part of itself because it's not sure that its depth will be appreciated since it's been mostly ignored up until now. 

In high school, I loved my English and History classes. 

I loved how literature could tell us more about people and a specific event in history than most encyclopedias (for anyone under the age of 20 reading this blog, go ask an older sibling what an encyclopedia was).

And I also loved how Human History followed a lot of the same patterns as most novels or plays: you had major characters, minor characters, reoccurring themes, irony, and satisfying and unsatisfying conclusions alike. I remember wishing there was a way I could just combine these interests into one thing.

"Just double-major." I remember most teachers saying to me. "Just double-major, or study poly sci because it's a major that you can more easily turn into a career." Even after I got into college and would tell my teachers back home that I was majoring in English and Spanish, their immediate follow-up question was always: "So you're going to become a teacher?"

Before I go any further, I just want to make it clear that I love teachers. I have several friends who are teaching at the moment, and I still occasionally talk to some of my old teachers from grade school and high school. But people who want to become teachers say they want to become teachers. They study to become teachers and work their fingers to the bone to perfect the art of teaching. (And I can tell you right now, NO ONE does it for the money...at least I hope not).

To make my point, however, people would ask me what I was studying in college, and as soon as I told them, would follow up with "Well what are you going to do with a degree in that?" I wish now I'd've just been honest and said "I don't have the foggiest, but I really like writing, reading, and watching movies," but instead I would respond with jokes or by expressing mild interest in law school. Basically, I would say anything to exit the conversation as soon as possible because I felt a little ashamed and annoyed that I didn't have a substantial answer for that question.

In fact, I still don't. 

Because even being a cube has it's limits. Oh sure, a cube has one more dimension than a square, and sure, there are places were cubes can be with other cubes--college is one of them, by the way--but you're still living in a world defined by just 3 dimensions, meaning that you have 3 directions to take and 3 parts of yourself to take with you.

And that's the world with live in, right? The universe, after all, only has three dimensions (4 if you count time, but for the sake of this post let's stick to 3). But if in a  2-dimensional world all cubes look like squares, couldn't we maybe, possibly, hypothetically suspect that some cubes whom we encounter in college have other dimensions that maybe we just can't see? 

The answer is of course we can and we should. Because of the tesseract.

The Tesseract, or Hypercube, is a theoretical 4-dimensional object. It's theoretical only because even if it does exist, we'd never have anyway of seeing nor showing it because it would have one more dimension than we're capable of witnessing.

Still bored? Probs not. Confused? Yeah, maybe. 

Ok. Just think of it like this: a line is a 1-dimensional  object because it only has length and no width. 

A square has length AND width so it's a 2-dimensional object. Also the square's faces are made up of lines. 

A cube has length, width, AND depth so it's a 3-dimensional object. All of a cube's faces are made up of squares. 

SO a tesseract would have length, width, depth, and _______ (whatever 4th dimension we've not yet seen), and all of a tesseract's faces would be made up of 3D cubes, get it?

So to bring this all home. I grew up reading books, keeping journals, watching history channel specials and actually listening to Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz when they would talk about the old films they were showing on TCM.

Up to this point I've gone through most of my schooling having no clue what I want to do or be, but just enjoying the chance to talk to people about things that interest me and interest them. 

Also, up to this point, I've done two things that make me feel like I'm staying true to myself: 

1) My year-long, undergraduate research project. (Which I'll send anyone a copy of...if you didn't give up on the post by now.)

2) The novel I started a while back and have used today's blog post as an excuse not to work on. 

Procrastination comes in all shapes and dimensions, kids. 

Also, if anyone is at all interested in this idea of multiple dimensions, I highly recommend reading Edward Abbott Abbott's (Yes, that's his real name) 19th-century novel Flatland. As a guy who last saw a good grade in a math class in the 9th grade, I can say this novel showed me the beauty of mathematics like very few things ever have. 

And remember, you may not know what you want to be when you're older, you may not know what you want to study in college, and/or you may not know how to turn your interests into a project or job, but all of that is 100% acceptable. Take it from this pretentious cube who fancies himself a tesseract, you don't have to ask the world for permission to do what interests you. You just have to work hard to do it. 

The Periphrastic?!

Hola, bon dia/bona tarda/ bona nit! Com esteu? Em dic Oscar, i venc de los Estats Unis. Ho sento, pero hablo nomes un toc de catala. Vosaltres parleu angles?

Not bad, eh? Considering I'm currently learning Catalan the same way I learned how to tie a bow tie--as well as talk to girls--I'd say it's not bad at all. In fact, I'd say it's not bad at all in Catalan, but I haven't learned how yet. (FYI, I learned to tie a bowtie and talk to girls on the internet)

Ok, I'll get write down to it. (Oh yes, you read that "write'). November is National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo; and for those who don't know what that means, please Consider the Lemming:

Now, while I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo, because I work for a living, and I'm trying to learn a 3rd freaking language via the internet--so cut me some slack!--I will post here, later, the official first draft of my first chapter of my first work of fiction. It's a blog of firsts! 

-How fitting considering it's November 2nd...

I hate you, voice inside my blog.

Be that as it may, let me say a few words about writing: 1) it's really really really hard. 

Ok, now before I post my draft, I would like to make a few things clear, and I'll start by quoting the aforeposted John Green in his author's note from his last novel The Fault in Our Stars

"This is not so much an author's note as an author's reminder of what was printed in small type a few pages ago: This book is a work of fiction. I made it up. 

Neither novels [n]or their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species. 

I appreciate your cooperation in this matter."

Could not have put it any better, which is why I didn't even try. By the way, if you're a fan a great fiction, go pick up John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. Honestly, it's an amazing work. 

AND yours truly already has a copy. In fact, I have one of the 150,000 copies which John Green himself personally signed. (#nerdgasm).

But back to his author's note: I agree with him almost 100%. I think the majority of fiction we oughta take for what it is, imagination, creativity, and a scope through which we view the human condition and try to learn more about ourselves as complex beings. Remember Barthes and all those dead authors? Yeah you do!

So I will say just a few words before we get to my draft: 

1) I AM NOT the narrator of this novel-in-progress. I am it's author. HUGE difference. 

2) To further affirm my first point: I am not an only child nor are my parents divorced nor did I ever attend college in California. 

3) This story is NOT about my life, not metaphorically, not symbolically, not (insert any other word)ly. 

4) The title of this work-to-be is right now The Translator but that can change at any moment, and it probably will. The title, like the draft itself, is a work in progress, and I'm posting the whole thing here because I genuinely want to hear feedback. So please be honest, but also be gentle. It is my first time after all ;)

-Two last quick notes: if you're genuinely interested in NaNoWriMo, or just wanna show off to your friends, here's the link: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

My friend Noah made this video all by his big boy self: 

So give it a watch, like it, comment, and show all your friends. Thank you again as always!

The Gray

Antes Que Nada

Before I jump into the story, I’ll tell you now that everyone survives. As a matter of fact, most of us go on to lead stable, if not forgettable lives. Marina is married, and she may even have some kids by now. My dad, well, he lived a few more years before going in his sleep, with the tv on, in an armchair, just before dawn one morning in January. Doctor told me it was a heart attack and that he probably felt nothing. I buried him two days later. And me? Well, I’m recounting the whole thing, aren’t I?

Why? At this point, what’s at stake?

I just have to know: did I do the right thing? Or was there even a ‘right thing’ that I could’ve done? If the answer to the former is ‘no,’ I’d rather not know why: but if the answer to the latter is ‘no,’ then I must know why not? But no matter how unbearable the resentment for my story, I gotta see to it that the show goes on; so I’ll retell it here, as I’ve done countless times in my head for the past few years. This time, however, I’ll pray that, mid-act, some member of the audience will leap from his seat, turn on the lights, and save the doomed players onstage.

1

December 16^th, 2010

I knew something was wrong as soon as I walked into my house and saw the stack of unopened mail on the kitchen table. “Apa?” I called. Or at least I wanted to; truth be told I was so panicked that I’m not sure I could make a sound just then. I felt myself getting tunnel vision.

My dad had no job and nothing to do all day, so, unless an uncle or cousin of mine came by, the mail was his only chance to talk to anybody before 4 pm. That’s how things had been for the past few years, for it used to be my mother who would receive the mail. But six years ago, my mother left us.

November 23^rd, 2004 (and everything that led up to it)

The day she left had in fact not been a day, it had been years. For years she was leaving us, drawing out the pain, trying to make it alright, the way an executioner might watch a victim’s wound bleed out over the course of several hours. All the while she must’ve hoped her victims would raise their voices in protest—or, at the very least, lose consciousness. We did neither. So when she finally made the decision to leave and move back to her home country, all my dad or I could do was avoid each other for the night and hope we’d have something more to say on the matter the following morning.

I’d always believed I was the linchpin in her decision—though, not in the way self-centered kids try to blame themselves for why their parents don’t love each other anymore. I was too old for that and didn’t need to make any excuses for my parents. At the end of the day, they were just too different: their upbringings, outlooks on life, and even the way they both spoke Spanish. They had two things in common: 1) of course, me, and 2) they both showed up in this country without the slightest clue of who they were or what they wanted. The latter, I’m pretty sure, led to the former.

I’d always felt that my mom pushed me school because she wanted big things for me, but I can’t say I ever shared her desire. My mom’s image of a successful son and my image of a happy me were mortal enemies; unfortunately, neither one of us realized this until after it was too late.

I was a senior in high school and was less than five months away from telling my godforsaken hometown ‘kiss my ass, I’m outta here.’ At my mother’s insistence, I applied to a bunch of top tier schools out East and may have even had a real shot of getting in, if my essays had included phrases such as “I guess I could do the Ivy League, I mean until I get back on my feet,” or “And please don’t just think of me as articulate personification of Affirmative Action, but rather as an eager cog-to-be.”

I didn’t want to go out East.

I barely wanted to go to college at all. When I was 12 my story “The Adventures of Captain Cacahuate and Mr. Maní” won first prize in a school writing contest and, from that point on, all I could think about was writing.  To be the Chicano William Cullen Bryant, a boy marvel who could take things like death and turn it into Thanatopis.  My dream was to melt my soul down into a dark, thick ink, dip a pen into that ink, and craft.   

In short, I should’ve applied to art school.

Instead, I accepted rejection from almost every school I’d applied to. I would come home from school, and my mother would be sitting in the kitchen with a disheartened look. Why? She would seem to say to me through her expression. Why is this happening? Why aren’t you more upset by this?

When I did finally get an acceptance letter from a school just six hours west in San Diego (‘College on the beach?’ I thought, ‘Hell yes’) it was already too late.

Off I went, nonetheless. I don’t even think I took half of my things from home; something told me I wouldn’t need to.

At school, I did nothing but drink and smoke for a semester before coming home for Thanksgiving Break to see my mother one last time. She assured me she loved me very much and was proud of all I had accomplished and that she simply could not stand to be away from her home any longer and she missed her family in Lima and I should work next summer so I could go visit and we’d see each other again—I don’t know that I’ve ever nodded so many times as I did that night. A few days later I drove her to airport where she kissed my cheek, said “Cuídate, mijito,” and was gone. 

I drove to a friend’s house from the airport and decided to start drinking despite the hour. “You’re young, Josie” Danny told me. (We met in kindergarten and when he saw my name was spelled J-O-S-E, naturally he thought it was pronounced Jo-see, and the name stuck. Danny doesn’t speak a word of Spanish, so I don’t hold it against him).

I got drunk and recounted some of my time in California to him: most of the stories were of girls I had met at parties. Girls who thought being from Arizona was super lame, but being bilingual was worth hooking up with for a night or, sometimes, part of a night if they were eager to get to another party off-campus. I told him of how much I had loathed the creative writing department at school, how “every single person in the department fancied themselves a prodigy in waiting.”

“Anything serious ever come with some of those girls, though?” Danny asked.

“Dude, you’re missing the point. I mean there was just so much ass-kissing, and ‘this is what I find works for character development,’ or ‘I read somewhere that so-and-so always typed standing up.’” I said and took another long swig of the vodka-cranberry-juice-soda concoction I had in my cup. “It just felt like nobody cared about their writings, they only cared about showing everybody else that they had writings. I swear, it was all this bullshit game of ‘bet I can get the professor to compliment this draft I whipped up last night.’”

“I don’t get it, man, how else are you supposed to get better if people don’t critique your stuff?” Danny, shot me an intense look. “I’d like to see some of your stuff, you know, to compare with theirs, but you’ve never showed anyone else your writing…I mean, other than you’re crazy-ass ex.” He laughed.

When I was 17, my high school girlfriend of just over a year once found me in a park once scribbling in my notebook and asked if she could read what I was writing. I read her the poem aloud:

Dear Child,

you must’ve known,

beyond that sunset you watched,

was another world.

And though you weren’t

ever meant to see it,

nor it ever to see you,

you must’ve known.

She took it as a queue that I was aching to be loved—by her. She spent that night trying to make me happy, and I spent that summer trying to make her leave. We haven’t spoken since.

“All I’m saying is: was it that bad?” Danny could detect that I was mixing my discontent for school with the fact that my mother had just left me, and he was probing me to be more honest with myself. I didn’t bite. “Yeah, Danny, it was. And the whole just feels like it’s been a huge waste of time.” I took another drink, “Honestly, I should’ve just stayed here; it would’ve been for the best and things might be diff—”

I stopped myself.

Danny hadn’t noticed the abrupt pause; he was too busy looking at his phone. “I don’t know dude,” he said still not looking at me “I’m not sayin’ it was ideal, but at least you got outta here for a bit. Besides, remember how stoked you were? You said getting away from here would be better for your head and maybe you’d find some inspiration for your writing.”

 I stayed silent.

“And I couldn’t agree more that it’d do you a hell of a lotta good to get away from this town, not to mention your parents with all their bullshit.” I took another long drink, closed my eyes, and let the world spin around me. “I should go home. I haven’t been there all day and my dad’s probably worried.” (If my dad had actually been worried about me, however, he probably would’ve called. I just wanted to leave).

Danny drove me home, the way he tells it, I tried to jump out of his car on the freeway—I can neither confirm nor deny this claim, but it’s probably true.

Snap Back to Reality

“Apa!” I called louder this time.

“¡Chingao, I’m taking a shit!” A muffled voice called back. I felt my face get hot. I looked down and saw I was clutching at the stack of mail so tightly that the ink on one of the letters had smudged into my palm.

 ‘Great,’ I thought, ‘now he’ll think I was worried about him.’ And again we’ll dance each other as uncomfortably as two strangers in a too-well-lit bar. I never liked making my dad feel like I was taking care of him, or that he needed taking care of—though, we both knew he did and why.

‘Has it really been 6 years?’ I thought while I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down. My dad came into the kitchen. “Pues qué chingaos pasa?” he was annoyed, maybe he was trying to look mad, but I’ve never been afraid of him (just afraid for him).
“Nada,” I opened my can of beer and didn’t look up, “I saw the mail and I wasn’t sure if you were home.” He went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, too, despite having been told millions of times by everybody that he needed to stop drinking. I’d always wished he would, but I never once said anything to him. 

"I'm too old to lie to myself and call it honor" --F. Scott Fitzgerald

So I've noticed two trends on facebook that I feel need addressing. Also, I ate a Caesar Chicken Salad a few days ago that really could've used a de-dressing. (Wordplay anyone?). I know, I know, 'blogging about facebook? Your writing must be going sooo well.' I'll have you know, however, that I've been dodging my writing for all of today because I recently discovered the Nerdist Podcast, and OH MY GLOB, it's awesome. If you are a nerd of comic books, literature, movies, comedy, acting, science, space travel, really anything. Name it and there's a podcast episode for you. Ch-ch-ch-check it out. (RIP MCA).

So my lack of productivity aside, on to the trends I've noticed on facebook--actually one's a trend, the other is just a post I've seen maybe once or twice. So let's talk of the latter before the former; that is to say, the former will come latter and for the latter you'll just have to come back for more.

I'm on facebook, as I am wont to be, when I come upon a picture that reads the following:

STOP CALLING IT HOMOPHOBIA 

YOU'RE NOT AFRAID,

YOU'RE JUST AN A**HOLE

Before I get into why I don't like the aforementioned picture, let me just make one thing clear: I'm not going to defend homophobia, not here, not now, not ever. We live in a point in history where fear of anything not heterosexual is just plain foolish and harmful. At this point, fearing homosexuality (or bisexuality or omnisexuality or pansexuality, etc.) is like being afraid of the Sun. Literally, these people fear something that's been around much longer than human beings have and is absolutely no threat to anyone's safety--again, I'm saying other sexualities are no threat. Homophobia is violence, and when it's not violence, it's just violence waiting to happen.  

Now my issue with the photo is twofold: 1) Actually, people who are homophobic are in fact afraid of homosexuality, and they're afraid that it exists between people because that means it could exist, or already does exist inside of them. Without getting too much into theory, (I've already butchered Barthes, so I don't want to do the same for others) I'll bring up two pretty important names: Sigmund Freud and Eve Sedgwick.

(By the way, they say you can tell a lot about a person based on how they lean on a desk)

Don't worry I'll make this short and sweet. Freud was wrong about almost everything he ever said about the human mind, but that doesn't mean his theories aren't useful for sake of analogy and metaphor. Specifically, he was one of the first people to acknowledge that all men and women share mental characteristics; in other words, even if you're a guy you have thoughts, feelings, reactions that are more typical in women, and vice versa.
What's that mean? It means that there is no such thing as someone who is 100% male nor 100% female as far as psychology is concerned.
Why is that important? It's important because we're all just on spectrum of gender and sexuality, some men are feminine, some women are masculine, some men are attracted to more masculine people, and some women are attracted to more feminine people (regardless of gender). Thus sexualities exist.

Now, what happens when some people (and I'll just straight up say it, mostly heterosexual men) don't want to accept this fact? Well, then you get what Eve Sedgwick coined as "The homosexual panic." If you can get your hands on her book Epistemology of the Closet, I highly recommend you read it. Anyway, to sum up what this "panic" is, I'll give you an example of it in a work of literature. The following is a segment of James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, and, just to give some context, the novel is about a young American, David, who is falls in love with a young Italian man named Giovanni and their time spent together in Paris (spoiler alert, it's the 1950s so the love story does not end well AT ALL.) The following is David describing his reaction to his first sexual encounter with another male, his childhood friend Joey, during his teen years:

"Perhaps it was because he looked so innocent lying there, with such perfect trust; perhaps it was because he was so much smaller than me; my own body suddenly seemed gross and crushing and the desire which was rising in me seemed monstrous. But, above all, I was suddenly afraid. It was borne in on me: But Joey is a boy. I saw suddenly the power in his thighs, in his arms, and in his loosely curled fists. The power and the promise and the mystery of that body made me suddenly afraid. That body suddenly seemed the black opening of a cavern in which I would be tortured till madness came, in which I would lose my manhood."

How about that? If you're looking for a good read, this novel has it all, and the fact that it's not a major motion picture is nothing short of criminal!

But back to my point, let' unpack this idea: as a guy living in the world today, I was socialized (like 99% of all guys) to be masculine. You gotta act like a boy, talk like a boy, play sports, be tough, be ready to fight, etc. Oh, and above all else, you CAN'T act the least bit feminine. What's that mean? Well, no crying, no expressing emotions other than anger or, occasionally, happiness, no wearing make-up. Get the picture? So that's where the panic comes from, that's what David is afraid of: losing his masculinity--being less of a man.

Now, any reasonable person knows that if a man is attracted to another man, neither one of them necessarily has to be "the girl" in the relationship, but that doesn't make the stereotype go away. (For goodness sake, just watch any sitcom that features a gay character). So homophobic people, or at the very least homophobic men, see homosexuality as threat to their masculinity. The thought process is "Well, if this guy is gay, what makes me so different?"

And here's where the conversation goes full circle, I'm not justifying homophobia, anyone who knows me already knows that. I will say this, however, try putting yourself in a position where you realize "Oh crap, I've just learned this thing about myself, and if people in my community (or family) find out about it, I could be hurt or shunned or misunderstood or even killed."  What then do you do? Do you maybe hide that part of yourself from everyone? Do you deny it so hardcore that you say horrible things about people who are openly gay? Do you scream horrible things at them? Do you beat them up? Do you kill them?

The American Psychological Association had homosexuality listed as a mental illness until the 1970s, so anyone who's older than 40 (the age of most politicians, doctors, etc.) lived during a time where if somebody was gay, they were literally considered sick.
What's my point? What am I saying? Just this, for those who seek equality for all and social progress, we have to realize we're fighting a lot of ignorance that, up until very recently, was supported by science and "facts."  If you don't believe me, look it up, look all of this stuff up. Also, look up how initially the CDC (the Center for Disease Control), yes real doctors from only about 30 years ago, referred to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) as the 4H disease (as in only Haitians, Homosexuals, Hemophiliacs, and Heroin-users are at risk) and GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). In fact, to this day, there are some places that won't let a man donate blood if he has had sex with another man.


Homophobia is an illness, it's an illness like drug addiction or alcoholism and I know for a fact people in AA aren't calling their members a**holes.

Whew. That was nuts. Well good night, deer reader, I'll write agai--
What's that? I have to write more? Oh. Right, I did say I had two things to talk about. Well, now that the heavy stuff is out of the way, let me quickly address pictures my friends put up that read something like:

"So-and-so will being be____years old this year" or "Such-and-such event occurred ___years ago"

And there'll be pictures of celebrities or old tv shows or a scene from a movie, etc. Don't worry, I'm not gonna rant about this one, I'm just going to say this: this. I'll add, however, that it feels like my generation is having a little bit of a midlife crisis as we creep into our twenties, and that is a bit worrisome. Listen everybody, we're aging. We're aging because that's what we're supposed to do, and I know other generations didn't have the internet and tv to constantly remind them of this fact, but we do, so let's all just take a deep breath and gracefully, majestically get over our teenaged selves and think about how cool it'll be to watch our little indie bands explode into super stars, to finally make real those things we dreamt of as kids, and to finally be in charge of things.

--You mean like the writing you're avoiding?
I'm ignoring you right now voice inside my blog.

Like I was saying, our time to take charge and make decisions is approaching, and we'd better get ready because we're fighting against history, and there's a whole lot healing we have to do before we can take the time to remember our youth. By the way, I'll be the first to admit that I am terrible when it comes to taking this kind of advice, if I'm debating I'll resort to name-calling and I'll often watch cartoons with my nephews and think "what happened to the quality stuff that was one when I was a kid?" But those questions have to be put away until we can answer things like "why aren't people treating each other the way those cartoons all raised us to do?" Join me won't you?

If this were a concert, at this point I'd drop my mic, but since it's a blog I'll stick to droppin' knowledge.

Peace!

"Time for you and time for me,/And time yet for a hundred indecisions,/And for a hundred visions and revisions," --T. S. Eliot

Forgive the slogging with regards to my blogging,
but there's been so much fogging and I've been dogging
my duties to my deer reader. It's all quite bogging
and really only alleviated with a good bit of jogging.
Now, however, I will resume my life's logging.

See gerunds can be...well, they can be something. I'm not sure what, but they're definitely something.




Time to shake off all the cobweeds and tumblewebs, eh DR? Just like bad sushi you eat at a carnival, I've come back on you! Rather than attempt to prop up some feeble, low-rent, sorry excuse for an excuse to excuse my absence let's just all agree that the past nine months or so have been nuttier than a snicker's bar.

In case you don't believe me, here's a small taste of what's been of my life:

I completed my first extensive research project; consequently, I've become a little obsessed with Spanish Films and Catalan Language (I'm impulsive and apologize for nothing. I'm sorry but that's just how I am)

I'll upload it or link to it or maybe just post the entire thing, if y'all are really that interested in reading it. Otherwise, all you really need to know is that I'm using this work as a base to apply to Master's programs in España. Que Visca Catalunya!

I know what you're thinking, "Wait a sec. You can't look into Master's Programs unless you already have a bachelors degree." And you're absolutely right.

I call this photo "Sucka Free"

Oh, and lest I forget, the last few months also saw the publication of my first work EVER.

Thank you Pequod, I take back every bad thing I ever blogged about you. If I could, I'd also take back those threatening letters, but why dwell on the past? Let's live forward.


3 quick announcements and you get your blogging's worth of Indie rock:

1) I'm taking a break from writing poetry

-you have to start something before you can take a break from it, smart one.

Gah! My second voice has returned to zing me and remind me of my lacks. Well, we all knew he wasn't far behind, and he does make a good point. Let me rephrase: I've given up on attempting poetry for the time being, BUT it's only because I'm working on other writings; writings which sorta feel a little more real to me, and writings that I feel truly get across what I'm trying to say and how I'm trying to say it.

-So, basically poetry writing was too hard for you?

Yes. But it's ok, "because I've got friends that are new friends and friends that are old friends and friends looking out."

2) Mi querido Tricolor won Olympic Gooooooold. A grito de guerra! 

3) Guess who's back in Lima?

Before I sign off, things to look forward to: A possible online podcasting show (provided I get the hang of audacity and band camp), a novel that I will post in completion as soon as I'm finished, Real Sociedad finishing in the top four in La Liga BBVA, much much more nonsense from this blog. Solid? Chau

"Mis manos son de tu color, pero me avergüenzo de llevar un corazón tan blanco" -William Shakespeare

Indeed, my hands are of your color, my beloved neighborhood,  but I would sooner hide them with shame than wave them with pride. Wanna know why, Deer Reader? (I know you do!) 

Because, for as much as I do wish to protect my home--for as much as I comment about how terrible it was, at times, to grow up there--all of my resentment, my pride, my reluctance to forget, and my desire to remember culminate in one simple fact: I left. I left the neighborhood on the first flight that would take me, and I stayed away for four long years--soon these four years will become five, six, seven...

I wanted to get out, I couldn't take it anymore. The streets which marked my neighborhood were walls to me, walls that didn't protect, but imprisoned. And  I thought, as I'm guessing a lot of people do, that if I didn't get out with my first real chance, I would never get another one. In a way I was right: in quite another, I could not have been more wrong. 

Part of me, I'm sure, believed that if I went away long enough, the neighborhood--all of hits horrors, wonders, and secrets--would disappear. I don't know where I expected it to go, but I knew that if it did go away, I would be absolved for having left: you can't, after all, have a trial without witnesses or evidence. 

But, the neighborhood didn't disappear, probably because I wouldn't let it; I couldn't bring myself to let it slip away. Wanna know why? (Uh huh) 

Because it wasn't done raising me yet, I may have been several thousand miles away, but my education was just beginning when I left, so here we are. So here I am, on the brink of returning the neighborhood, armed with a pen and WHOLE lot more insight on the world, and myself. And there the neighborhood is, trying so hard to keep it's walls up, to protect itself from the outside forces who would rather silence its history forever, and cut it's lifeline once and for all. "We're doing you a favor," these forces would say to "You're the one that left in the first place, right?"

Wrong. 

I never left. I just needed to take a couple of steps back in order to appreciate my neighborhood for its completeness, its wholeness, its everything. (It is hard, after all, to know you're in a work of art until someone holds up a mirror to your face). 

I hope you've enjoyed this little message, I know I'm usually a little funnier--and I'll bring the funny back as soon as I can--but for now, if you're interested, I'd like to tell you about home:

Four Years Later, What Have You Learned?

In my neighborhood there exists a mural, on 5^th street just east of Lewis, approaching Sirrine. As far as I know, this mural was painted sometime in my early childhood, for I cannot recall a time when the wall on which it is painted was bare, nor do I know the artist (or artists) responsible for it. I can, however, describe this mural and its significance. The mural is a timeline, painted with the pasts, presents, and futures of the neighbors.

The mural begins, on the western-most part: with a continuum of children—all multiple shades of brown—holding hands in the background, and in the foreground is a single person, brown as well. With more detail, this single figure looks out across the street, to whomever is walking by, neither smiling nor scowling but simply acknowledging the presence, as if to say: “I see you, I know: I know you, I know you’re okay.” The mural continues with symbols of African-American unity: an Ankh, a red and black tribal design, and a peace sign. These symbols, together, always present, signify the past, harkening to the unity and strength of the African-Americans living in neighborhood during the days of Dr. King. During the days where all they could do was hold hands, patiently like children, and hope and pray that someone would see them, someone would know their struggle and, neither smiling nor scowling, tell them “you’re okay; it’s all going to be okay.” And after long enough it was okay, and black no longer was bad, and white no longer was bad: they were just children who wanted to be seen and respected.

 However, it doesn’t end there—neither the story nor the mural. Suddenly the background color shifts: dark, cool purple becomes vibrant sea green: old world becomes new, and one is faced with Christ on the cross, and next to him his mother, Mary. Agony shared between mother and son, yet do they look peaceful, and both have their eyes closed. They have their eyes closed because they are assured that this pain is temporary and necessary, and that soon they will be united again in bliss. I call her Mary, but I should call her Maria, for she is represented as the Virgen de Guadalupe (Virgin of Guadalupe, or Our Lady of Guadalupe). And because she is so, she cannot be—and should not—removed from her symbolic presence in the hearts of Latino and Latina citizens. She is mother and witness, she cares for all of her children because she knows they suffer, and she forgives those who make her children suffer because she knows they, too, suffer. Maria hears cries of “un-American!” and “Go back to where you came from!” and “Get out of my country!” and she knows that it’s not anger, but fear coming out of those people. And Maria’s eyes stay closed because fear—like pain, like childhood—doesn’t last and things do get better.

The mural’s final symbols capture this final sentiment: a heart surrounded by roses whose thorns drip blood. Life, beauty, pain, and suffering: these are the images that punctuate the mural. No, they don’t in fact punctuate anything because they can’t, because the story doesn’t end with this mural—indeed, the neighborhood can’t end. The mural isn’t an answer to anything; instead it begs the question: Who are we? In the neighborhood, who are we? Are we the descendants of people brought to this country against their wills in order to be treated in the most inhumane manner imaginable? Are we brothers and sisters who seek a safe space, where we can shield our children from the terrifying things our parents once shielded us from?

Yes. We are all of those things, but unfortunately, not many of us know it. My neighborhood has a mural, one most people walk by everyday and say nothing about because they don’t have the words. I write these words now because I can. I write them because I know and I see and I am fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to tell. My neighbors would do the same, if only someone asked.