Category Archives: relationships

Mami’hood Lessons : Delayed Gratification

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An important lesson for kids as they move out of toddlerhood and into preschool age is delayed gratification. You can’t always get what you want when you want it. This has been a hard lesson for the five year old in the Mala household. My constant single mami work from home presence has come to mean that most of the time Poroto gets what she wants when she wants it. It also mean that I am a horrible disciplinarian and boundary maker. If I’m writing and poroto wants to play, I’ll usually hit save or put down the pen and play. If I’m tutoring and she wants a snack or a drink, I will continue my lesson on solubility while preparing a bowl of cereal or sticking a straw into a juice box. Hell even my 14 year old has come to think that I am always available. When he comes home from school and I am tutoring she will announce how her day went, ask for a snack and to use the computer. I usually pee, shower and shit with the bathroom door open so I can field questions from my kids. I don’t have a separate office space I can lock myself into when I am on deadline. I’ve really failed at setting and sticking to boundaries and teaching my kids that they are not the center of the universe.

Amazingly, my children’s expectations of getting what they want, when they want it at home, hasn’t transferred itself into their classrooms. I will admit that I wasn’t so worried about it when my now 14 year old started school. She has a fairly chill personality and a go with the flow attitude. My now five year old is a different story. Before she started Pre-K, I imagined getting an endless stream of teacher’s notes and phone calls. I envisioned dreading parent teacher conferences and getting called into the principal’s office. I underestimated my energetic five year old’s ability to distinguish between someone who wasn’t playing like a teacher and someone who wouldn’t follow through, like me. My five year old is thriving in Pre-K. She follows directions, plays well with others, and moves from one activity to the next with ease. Once she comes home however, it’s a completely different story. So maybe her bubbly personality isn’t the problem but my inability to hold firm is.

Growing up there were a ton of boundaries set up for me. Most of them relating to expectations around grades and privileges. As long as I did well in school and stayed out of trouble, I could hang out and do other things. It helped that I liked school and studying. Yes, I was a nerd and was rewarded for that. But there were also boundaries that didn’t make sense. Like how my sister was allowed to throw violent tantrums that disrupted my sleep and ability to do homework to the point that I had to move out. There were guilt trips for writing instead of accompanying my mother on walks. I witnessed boundaries being set out up in front of me to respect but I was never allowed to create my own or taught how to do that. So no has been the hardest word for me to utilize. I take on too much. Swallow too much. Allow my time, space, work to be disrespected and I’m teaching it to my kids. Not a good pattern.

I especially allowed many boundaries to be ignored in most of my past romantic relationships. Wanna call me drunk at 3 am? Sure I’ll wake up and spend hours on the phone with you even though I am a single mami to two kids and have to wake up early to take them to school. Want me to do some work for you for free and without me getting any credit or acknowledgement? OK because I want to show how much I love you and respect the work that you are doing. This goes double if you are a radical man/woman of color. I will then seethe silently and quietly mourn the death of my own creative work.

I am trying to change that pattern in my current romantic relationship. When my partner and I are in different time zones, which is most of the time, it’s easier to demand respect for my boundaries. I can slip into my routines of writing and mamihood. I go to bed early and wake up early. Sometimes this means conversations are hurried and light. We are both busy people with commitments and we respect that. Sometimes there are moments of jealousy or neediness on both sides but we work through them. And I will admit that I still ere on the side of sacrifice meaning interruption in the name of a good relationship, which is not a good habit. When we are in the same time zone it gets tricky. I usually feel so bad about all the time we are apart that when I am out of town visiting him or he is in town visiting me, I drop everything. I don’t write everyday. I try and tutor less even though that is my main source of income. I feel like I have to entertain my partner constantly and be accessible all the time. Instant gratification.

But what happens when you have an adult who wants instant gratification and a five year old who wants it too? I felt like I was smack in the middle of this question during my partner’s last visit here. It was a slice of semi-reality. My older daughter was away with my mom and sister but I was full time parenting my 5 year old. My partner, who is a great father to his own teen son and amazing with my 14 year old, has some work to do with my five year old. I feel like he’s not used to an energetic five year old and he’s not used to dating a single mami. Hell people I have dated have no idea how to handle the single mami thing, especially regarding how much time and energy it takes to solo parent. I also know that it is really hard for me to accept help and experiencing him set boundaries with my five year old drove me to tears at times. OK many times. To me a lot of the boundary making felt harsh and made me feel like a shitty mother. I mean you’ll have to excuse me, the current election cycle has made the fitness of single mothers into a national issue (again) so I’m admittedly sensitive about that. Plus I’m not sure that any of us : my partner, my five year old, and me, have really figured out how our new family configuration will look like and how that getting to a good place for all of us will be a learning process that will take each of us out of our comfort zones. Perhaps that is the biggest lesson in delayed gratification.

Here’s to working towards loving endings.

Loving my Self From the Inside out

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One of the things I have been working on during the new year is loving myself more.

Not in “that” way, although that could be part of it.

What this has meant is confronting some of my blocks, patterns, and behaviors.

One thing I have been doing is getting better at expressing my needs and saying no. Sometimes this leads to arguments and there are some people that I have issues drawing boundaries with because of trauma and fear of violence. I am confronting relationships I pushed aside because of resentments and I am working on being clear in my current relationships. A work in progress but a work.

I have been paying attention to my voice – that running conversation I have with myself everytime I do something. My voice usually is telling me there is never enough time, I’m not educated enough, cute enough, worthy enough and a million and one other scripts it learned from not the easiest of childhoods/adulthoods. This voice has led me to do alot of shit half assed and not follow through. So I have been working on developing new scripts : telling myself that I do have enough time etc. and so on. And not to sound cheesy but it does help.
With some loving encouragement I submitted two fellowship applications based on a long history of media and mami worklife. Even if I don’t get the fellowships, the process of stepping back and looking at my lifework was extremely empowering and affirmative.
I’m ready to apply for another fellowship this week and even managed to draft a comprehensive outline for a dream book project that had been eluding me for years….YEARS.

I have been paying closer attention to what I put inside me. I’m not unhealthy but I have noticed that I eat out of boredom and when I am stressed. I am trying to make better food choices and also exercise more (which I have been terrible at).

I am confronting fears about my own health. The last time I got a check up of any kind was when I had poroto five years ago! Being uninsured and broke hasn’t helped but I did take the baby step of making an appointment to get a full gyn check up. Given how so many cancers run in my family, especially among women, and given a history of the state telling women in my family what they could/should do with their bodies, this simple task actually took alot of emotional/inner effort. The appointment isn’t cheap (175) but I can get financial help if I can prove my brokeassness, which is also stressful but I need to do it.

So those are most of the things I have been thinking about, working on, working with.

Notice blogging isn’t on the list. Not sure what to do with that/this part of my life.

TwitterPut@ (Or Just Plain Put@) Revisited

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The term twitterput@ was birthed from a relationship, that doesn’t exist anymore, with one specific person. I mourned that loss for a very, very long time and along with the eclipse/solstice came a letting go. That is not to say that crossing paths with with said person doesn’t invoke some pangs of regret (that is regret, not guilt, don’t get it twisted), I think/hope I can move on a little from that back into my normal game.

Dancing one night at la Kueva and engaging in some Paraguayan take-out, dancing in Detroit morphing into conversations about retiring to Oaxaca, and twitterputeri@s that I choose over actually going out have reminded me, reawakened my put@ tendencies in a way I had put into semi-retirement as per a request from my broken heart.

Pero la Mala vive…with big plans for el new jeer.

Azul RIP Con Rosado

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Tienes que desaparecer como lo hizo el.
Out of sight
Out of mind
and you
remind me
that I was wearing you
when I met him.

Tienes que ir con tu hermana
la rosada
who also started to remind me too much
of what a failure I am at relationships.
A crear nuevas memorias
encima del cuerpo de otra mujer
who may have better luck
quien quizas transformara tu color de luto
en color de festival

Jubilido
Retirado

adios

The Cocina vs las Calles : Historias and Enabling

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I’m contemplating a break pero I don’t know exactly what from or how. I’m tired, physically and emotionally. Two weekends of rallies/marches in a row along with the usual hustle of single mami’hood and tutoring work remind me that despite the fact that a friend in the movement says I look like a college student, I am approaching my mid-30s.

Emotionally, I am trying to figure out patterns in my life that I keep on repeating and how to stop them, especially when they leave me feeling so gross afterwards. For example, during a surprise visit to casa mala by an ex-lover/partner in various struggles, we got to talking about bad relationship habits, especially among heterosexual Latino artist/activists. We both admitted how we fall into stereotypical machista roles in “taking care” of our partners. Partners are supposed to take care of each other pero what when the taking care of is one-sided or falls into the fucked up expectations of what mujeres are supposed to do for their hombres. When both are activists/artistas and both are doing critical important work, why does the mujer make the shared bed, cook the breakfast, serve the breakfast, clean up and el hombre is left to do his work? It is something I am guilty of allowing and I have to question where is that line of supporting fellow artists/activists so that they can do their important work and sacrificing your own shit because of internalizing fucked up gender roles? You know that saying behind every great man is a greater woman? Pero si los dos are in the same fight, doing parallel work, why should anyone be behind the other?

Yesterday after a marcha/rally in the Mala’hood, some gathered in a casa for some after protesta food and drink. Someone commented that women need to go in the kitchen to prepare the food so los hombres could go in the sala to chill. A few of the mujeres hemmed and hawed and made comments back and never mind that it was the mujeres who were behind this particular event, pero in the end, the mujeres ended up in the kitchen and los hombres en la sala (there were two hermanos who did go to the kitchen- so props to them). I don’t hate on la cocina or on the important work that mujeres do there, not just in terms of preparing sustaining foods but in terms of passing down history and plotting our own work. Pero porque siempre nosotras en la cocina and on the streets? Creo que I would love nothing more than to have an hermano in the struggle preparar me una comida or even mejor for us to prepare that meal together, sustaining ourselves and passing down history and plotting.

Pero creo que the absence of this and my own guilt in having perpetuated this means that for now, I remain soltera except for the pedacitos de companerismo that I bring into my life by invitation only and sometimes all I really want/need is a thank you and some mutual respect.

Tis The Tiempo

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Finally the Christmas season. I’m not just happy because I’m a sucker for Navidad and I am. Not the Christy part so much but the lights, the food, the decorations, the music. I am a navidad puta. Pero mas que nada I can see the end of the year and beyond that the start of the new one. I need for this year to be over. I want to really bury the dead, and not just the loved ones who actually physically left my world this past year, but the dead pedazos de corazon that I invested and got little return on. I will admit I’m not quite ready. Just when I think I’m over something, my poet’s heart gets caught on something, tearing a little piece out and time and distance haven’t done what they gave me their word they would. Lots of promises were broken this year.

Last Christmas there was no navidad dinner at casa mala because of the illnesses in the familia and my split with el chileno. But this year I have Navidad dinner planned. I’m making Mexican, pero Oaxacan Mexican which I was inspired to do because of the mala’hood. It ended up being ironic because Mexico seems to be pulling many people I know to her. Pero I’m excited by the prospect of cooking, drinking, singing, and being with my familia in my casita that it has been such a struggle to stay in.

Also I’m getting a head start on the whole starting anew by dating again! Well ok, only one date pero it was such a good date that I was reminded of the cliche, you never forget how to ride a bike. Not that I rode my date….before you all get any ideas. It was just really good conversation and quizas a beso or two. Pero I had given up in many ways of trying to date. It just wasn’t a priority with trying to survive and well yes, heartbreak. Dating is hard work. I have two kids and am struggling economically and you want me to tell you what my favorite color is and shit? Please. ja ja. Pero the very good date reminded me how it’s important to connect with other adults and take time to sit with people and just talk and be yourself. And myself is pretty awesome. I’m still struggling with my heart investments and lack of money despite working 2 sometime three jobs (no cell phone right now and 6.80 in my bank account). Pero I can see the end of this year y se que en la primavera que viene, something beautiful will flower.

Casa Mala Lives, Pero Mala is Worn the Hell Out

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In many ways I’m feeling like a failure, even though in the eyes of the world I’m not. I’m just doing what I have to do. I’m working long ass hours so I can pay rent and keep taking care of my children. This means however that the things I do out of love and compulsion: writing, blogging, poetry, organizing aren’t done, or are done in pedacitos because by the time I get home, or poroto is napping or asleep for the night, all I want to do is lay the fuck down. I have to prioritize what pays my rent, my utilities, my metrocard and food. Health care is a luxury I haven’t had the benefit of in almost three years, even as mujeres in my family get cancer or cancer scares and hey, I’m getting to “that age”.

I have small moments that sustain me. Margaritas, sex toys and cupcakes (oh my) with some amazing sister/mujeres after a reading. Late night phone convos that remind me that I am not alone in how I think and why I do do what I do to the point of exhaustion.

What I think I sacrifice the most is my mental well being. This isn’t sustainable and I need to know how to make it so.

Letting Go Con Amor

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This seems to be a recurring theme for me these past few days. I believe in mensajes y señales, some sent to me from ancestors in my dreams, some sent to me in emails and the actions of others. People placed in my path pero their placement isn’t a guarantee of anything, not of love, not of continuity, not of support. Lessons and then what we take from them and how we move forward.

For me it comes down to prioritizing now. I need to prioritize my survival. That goes beyond the pressing need for a roof over my head and the head of my children, how I will pay the bills, feed the hungry mouths attached to growing bodies. There are some relationships that will shift, shift into places I may not want them to go pero want has little to do with sobrevivencia. Getting through also means tiempo for words, pen on papel, and learning how take care of my corazoncito that at times is too generous and too hopeful for it’s own good.

Mercury is in retrograde and apparently this is supposed to meddle in the way things are communicated, put out to be heard and interpreted. Listening is an art of translation I have learned, tied to personal histories and things that are more often not said, pero shown, through movement and arte. No se if it’s too easy to blame the estrellas and planetary alignment for my dreams, which have involved me traveling and revealing deceptions that feel like politeness. Pero I don’t want niceties any more. Diplomacy is overrated. I ask for realness, honesty, even if it hurts yourself or another.

No one said this shit was easy.

The Third Invisibility/Silencing : Deliberate Cropping

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I’ve written a few posts on some of the invisibility/silencing that I experienced at NN09 and that happens quite often actually in so called progressive spaces, even how some of this erasure was deliberate, on my part and on the part of others. Pero there is a third invisibility/silencing that I won’t write about here, except to write thatI won’t write about it here. It’s the only way I can feel remotely good about the self-censorship I am functioning under. The self-imposed gag rule goes against my nature and instincts. Pero that’s what pen and paper are good for, that’s what poetry readings and presentations are good for. There are poems and stories and images drawn out con palabras that will be spilled onto public floors from my mouth and then gone except in the minds of some and well if the presentations are recorded I guess (which I suck at setting up pero I should get some video of me reading).

It’s funny the things we don’t write about, talk about, show. Even the things that everyone knows. Family secretos and mentiras we tell ourself to make ourselves feel good, less guilty, carry less blame. Pero we know. We know who knows and how and if that not knowing carries meaning or changes anything (or not). It’s the avoiding of conversations and the questions you don’t ask because you don’t want the real answer even though las respuestas are acted out right in front of you in signos and codes and motion and sound.

Ay I’m happy I’m going to a book release event tonite. I plan on sitting with a glass of vino, or at least trying to if I end up bringing my kids. If you see me there and I am with my kids, please tale em for a walk around the block or something. I’ve got poems that need to be fed some cabernet.

Personal vs Political business : Tokenizing and White Knights

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Remember when the internet was about personal experiences and tying those into wider, more universal realities?

When I started online many years ago it wasn’t about action alerts and news. It was about my life. It was about me as a single young activist boricua mami feeling mad isolated as I protested, mami’ed, spit poetry and fucked. Yes, I said it fucked. It was how I came into contact with amazing other mamis and eventually how I helped start VivirLatino, which has since blown up to a level that still bugs me out. Like for real, to think I go to national conferences and am on radio shows because so many years ago I started writing about my life is una locura. And I am constantly reminded that the way the internet has changed, shifted from personal to political to careerist and that changes how we deal with one another.

The internet used to be about communication and connection. It was a space that was an extension of real life experiences and where the way we talked with each other mattered. It was why the mami’hood was born, because white “radical” mami spaces had no problem using racial epithets and men had no problem moving their attacks on mujeres to new spaces. Pero now, with people making careers out of blogging, with the blogosphere being about what orgs pays you to parrot their message, suddenly talking about how we interact with other in public is considered divisive and airing dirty laundry and not fucking critical in terms of how we build movements together.

I call bullshit.

I call bullshit porque I have never been good about that line between the personal and political. It has gotten me into trouble, has made me feel unsafe physically, and has led to heartache, and not just my own. Pero if we cannot talk about how we interact with each other personally, how the fuck can we expect to work together to move shit forward in the struggles?
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