Category Archives: writing

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.

Checking in

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I have not been doing as well as I would like when it comes to my personal goals in this new year. So far I am finding myself coming up against the same frustrations of not enough quiet time in this very crowded two bedroom apartment. My very soon to be five year old is as energetic as ever and that wonderful, curious energy is demanding. My teen has her own demands, as does my mother, especially as we balance cooking, cleaning, and caring for each other’s feelings as we deal with some tough issues in the family. My dear baby sister, whom I love, has her own demands and she doesn’t even live here.
I haven’t been writing like I should, like I promised myself I would.

I have taken some time to assess some these frustrations and how many of them are of my own making. I am not good at saying no. I am not good at drawing lines around my needs. Watching my mother in her role of information carrier regarding the state of my very sick aunt, I can easily see where I learned this behavior. We give until we are so emotionally exhausted that we shut down and shut out.

For me alot of this comes from feeling like I don’t deserve to take space/time for myself. I placed myself in this role of young single mother twice so I should deal. What the role of a big sister/older daughter is and should do is followed as if in a script, not according to my vision of how these positions should play out in a way that feels good. I even see it in my relationship with my partner. A few weeks ago it actually pained me to tell him I couldn’t do something because I was writing. I actually apologized and even as I did it it felt excessive and unnecessary.

Awareness is only one part of this. Changing patterns and rebuilding relationships around a different way of playing your roles in life is a completely different matter. I am working on it.

Reading and Writing

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My four year old is learning to read and write. A few months in Pre-K has made her interested in identifying the letters of her name, her sister’s name, my name. My journals and and notepads and filled with scribbles that look more and more like letters and words. Sometimes in between the letters are stick figures which together, in preschool hieroglyphics, tell a story.

I visited Poroto’s classroom yesterday and was impressed with ho quickly a group of 14 4 year olds adapted to new routines including sharing lunch at a communal table, borrowing books from the library, helping new classmates find their cubbies. There were of course things I didn’t like – like the counting of children by their assumed gender- it’s amazing and scary how quickly children are taught to identify themselves into two neat categories.

In this period of transition I feel like I’m learning how to read and write again as well. I am struggling with finding space and time to write. Despite the fact that my mother’s apartment is bigger than what Casa Mala was, the actual space to be creative- the quiet needed- has been hard to come by. I blame the additional distraction that cable tv offers everyone, myself included. I do have a dedicated desk space, something I didn’t have at Casa Mala. It’s been helpful as new opportunities to write for major publications open up. I’m still trying to organize myself. Many of my books are still in bins and will likely stay there until this transition shifts into another one.

There isn’t anyone to show me the new routines though. No one to hold my hand and no one to celebrate the letters of my name and what they create and will create. I have been creating alot lately – controversy, poems, performances. I’ve reclaimed writer as I try and claim space.

But I’m still learning to read and write and translate the signs the universe is whispering to my soul.

When Two Hours Isn’t Enough

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The kids just had their first full week in school. Poroto’s Pre-K is now a full two hours and 10 minutes and I didn’t write one damn post on this personal blog.

What the fuck? What happened to my euphoria, my joy, my looking at this extra time as a blessing and a gift?

Well I got a cold for one and having a cold while mami’ing, and tutoring and trying to maintain a long distance relationship means my ass was more tired than usual and no one wants to sit next to the sick girl in the cafe.

But I also will admit I got lazy, picky, and resentful. I would pass by the cafe and find it too crowded, too noisy (I lost my headphones and can’t afford to buy another pair right now), and I was feeling sick of drinking coffee and buying coffee. I wanted to write in a bar but there are no bars in the hood that are open when Poroto is in Pre-K and the ones that are don’t have wifi. So I would go to my mother’s house, drink rum and cokes and open my laptop but there at my mother’s (where I also tutor) I would get distracted. I would gather all my tutoring materials. Vacuum. Take out the garbage. Chat with the neighbor who thinks I should move back home. Watch bad reality tv because my mom has cable.

The resentfulness came when I was trying to work. I would look at my calendar and my emails and realize that I still had to reject all the invites to cover events as media because I didn’t have enough time in the middle of the day to drop Poroto off at school, go into Manhattan, cover the event, and then to come back to pick her up. So many of the Fashion Week events were happening on school nights and as a single mami (yes I have a pareja pero it’s complicated) I’m responsible for dinner, checking homework, ironing clothes for the next day, waking the kids up, making breakfast etc.

When I was going through both rounds of the NYC pre-K application process, I engaged in fantasies of Poroto being a full day Pre-K program and I would have my days back. I dreamed of getting a part time job so I wouldn’t be so broke. Pero no one is going to hire me for an hour and a half a day.

So I’m still broke, still without enough time. I know a part of me just needs to get over this. Figure out some sort of routine that works and that allows me to write/be productive in the hour and a half I really have to work and hope that the rest of it will fall into place.

Submit to the #ComeCorrect Spring Fever Blog Carnival!!!

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Lady in Red. Posted by Rocka-Bye Baby! Reblogged by Come Correct

Submit to the #ComeCorrect Spring Fever Blog Carnival!!!

“When all else fails, masturbate like its May,” ~La Bianca

You can’t describe it but you know it when it’s here. You notice the sun warming the air and your skin flushes. Hot. Unrelenting. This heat is brazen. It slides beneath the hem of your shirt and strokes the skin of your thighs. It fingers the zipper of your jeans. It begs, cajoles, climbs into your mouth and between your teeth and trembles there.

Spring fever is here. And there is no better time to #ComeCorrect

Bring it on!

If you are a black gyrl who knows black feminist sex is the best sex EVER…..if you’re a Puerto Rican mami who believes radical women of color cum harder….if you’re an Asian boi who loves bondage…if you’re an activist building an archive of intimate relations in rural communities….if you’re a professor teaching a class on Sexting While Black……

Bring. It. On.

The way it works: Write where you live, but send in a link to your post (and/or HTML or embed URLs if it’s a vLog or image) by midnight on Monday, June 21, 2011 to bettacomecorrect@gmail.com (just in time for summer!).

There are ZERO restrictions. Previously published posts, images, and videos are all welcome! The organizers are cis women of color and we strongly encourage contributions from trans and cis women, nonbinary and trans* feminists of color

Don’t hold back–this carnival is so very Not Safe For Work (#NSFW). We want it to burn the glossy off your monitor.

The #ComeCorrect Spring Fever carnival will be hosted across the interwebs @:

Come Correct
Crunk Feminists Collective
Latino Sexuality
Mamita Mala
Manifest Freedom
New Model Minority
Nunez Daughter
Pretty Magnolia
The WOC Survival Kit

If you’re interested in hosting, shoot us an email. If you’d like to curate the next one, let us know!

Questions, comments? Hit up bettacomecorrect@gmail.com or ask online at http://bettacomecorrect.tumblr.com/ask.

Your #ComeCorrect curators this #FeverSeason are:

Pretty Magnolia

The WOC Survival Kit

ABOUT COME CORRECT:

BECAUSE BLACK FEMINIST SEX IS THE BEST SEX EVER…

COME CORRECT WAS CREATED BY THOSE OF US HAVING AND COMMITTED TO HAVING TRANSFORMATIVE EROTIC EXPERIENCES WITH/AS BLACK FEMINISTS. (AND BOTH! OH BOTH!!!!!!)

THIS IS ALSO A WAKE UP CALL TO ANYONE WHO INSISTS ON INTIMACY WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY, CONDONES VIOLENCE AGAINST BLACK WOMEN, OR REFUSES TO BE TRANSFORMED BY THE ECSTATIC MIRACLE THAT BLACK WOMEN EXIST. YOU ARE SERIOUSLY MISSING OUT.

~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kismet Nuñez is one of the Skillsharers of the of the 3rd Annual INCITE! Shawty Got Skillz workshop at the 2011 Allied Media Conference! Help us get to Detroit! Click here!

Call for Submissions : aaduna … a timeless exploration into words and images

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This is a project that yours truly is intimately involved in. Please consider submitting.

aaduna seeks to uncover new and emerging creative visionaries, especially people of color, in the realm of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and the visual arts

Submission Philosophy:

aaduna seeks to broaden the current online paradigms associated with publishing works by emerging writers and artists especially for people of color. From a multicultural viewpoint, aaduna comprehends the fact that while cultures and ethnicities tend to exist separate from each other, that development is a political, social, and contrived construct. Therefore, aaduna seeks to erase such artificial distinctions, and welcomes submissions from emerging writers and visual artists whose work goes beyond expectations based solely on physicality or cultural characteristics. While aaduna is primarily interested in providing a viable publishing platform for people of color, the world is huge, and there is a widening audience for other artists whose creativity reflects voices that are divergent; voices that are powerful, and voices committed to change.

The aaduna editorial policy is committed to presenting work in the manner and style that reflects how the creative person behind the work wants to see that work presented to the public, realizing that the most effective judge of any work’s quality and import ultimately rests within the marketplace. It is within this reality that aaduna will be a conduit for providing the public with works that are stimulating, enjoyable, insightful, open for vigorous discussion, and in some measure, a catalyst to embolden the intellect, imagination, and human spirit.

aaduna does not provide honorarium. However, aaduna will work with each published artist to build an appropriate platform that may lead to a wide variety of market opportunities.

Aaduna si dofa rey. (The world is huge.)

Continue reading →

outlaw midwives vol. 2 call for submissions

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From Guerrilla Mama Medicine

call for submissions

outlaw midwives zine vol. 2

focusing on pregnancy, birth, and the baby year

for and by: mothers, friends and allies of mothers, doulas, midwives, birthworkers, childbirth educators, childbirth advocates,

intention: to create a zine for pregnancy, birth, and the first year of motherhood centering the lives of working class, marginalized mothers and birthworkers.

submit: photos, drawings, visual art
poems, essays, fiction and non-fiction
tips, suggestions, lists of resources

check out the outlaw midwives manifesta and website: http://outlawmidwife.wordpress.com/

outlaw midwives: creating revolutionary communities of love

some suggestions for topics on which you can submit…but these are just suggestions…

suggestions for those trying to conceive. and for not conceiving. stories of conception, abortions and miscarriage.

what are the social, economic, legal consequences and limitations for marginalized mothers to make choices about how, when and where they will give birth.

tips for the first, second, third trimester. relationship with doctors, clinic, midwives, family, friends, etc.

how do we resist the high infant and mortality rates?

what are the ways that community could support the childbearing year, mothers and families?

how have you navigated through the systems of welfare, protective child services, hospitals, etc?

reflect on the state of midwifery today. what do you see as the positives and negatives? how has legalization and licensing affected mothers and families access to care?

what would you want to tell a soon to be mother about pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood? or write a letter to your pre-mother or pre-pregnant self about what you should expect. what didnt you expect to happen/learn/experience in pregnancy, birth, the baby year? write a letter to you daughter and/or son about what you learned/want to pass on about pregnancy, birth, baby year.

what was your personal experience/story of birth? pregnancy, the baby year?
what did you learn/are you learning from the baby year?

what do you wish someone had told you about early motherhood and/or being a birth worker?
what do you wish you could have said to someone, but didnt?
what is your vision/ideal of how pregnancy, birth, baby year could be?

what family/traditional wisdom did you receive about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding? what practical tips do you have for working poor mothers?

breastfeeding vs. bottle. what are the social, biological and economic influences and consequences of the choice to breastfeed or bottle feed?

what to do with the placenta? placenta art, consumption, burials?

why did you become a birth worker? what has been the highlights of the experience? what have been the difficulties?

what does ‘outlaw midwife’ mean to you?

keep it simple

deadline halloween october 31st

send submissions to maiamedicine at gmail dot com

Poema Para Arizona : Los Pies Adentros

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No son los zapatos,
Sino los pies adentros.

Shoes were things mami and abuela before her never skimped on,
Even if we didn’t have socks
Or the socks had holes.
El pie
Each pie
Was unique enough to deserve it’s own special casing
That eventually would take the form of it’s wearer
Y ahora nos preocupamos de zapatos y papeles.

Es que ellos no saben que la magia es en los pies
no en el cuero
tampoco en la suela.
Cada uno de los diez dedos
estan cansados de trabajar en las tierras ancestrales
Y en las maquiladoras
Sueñan de los tiempos de baile and juegos de niños.
Ahora se colaboran
Kilometro por polvoroso kilometro
Caminando hacia algo prometido
Hacia la sobrevivencia
Marchando por la libertad
Corriendo de la injustica
Cantando viejas canciones de cuna
En lenguas denominadas ilegales.

Si nos identifican por los zapatos
Dejamos los zapatos a un lado
Al lado de los caminos ya hechos
Y las que se van a hacer al andar.
Forzándolos a mirar las arrugas
Incrustadas con historias y cuentos
Forzándolos mirar las unas
Pintadas de colores del arcoíris del sueno.
They don’t know
That the magic is in our feet
That we will now use to fight
A luchar
A marchar sobre la planeta que fue brindado a nosotros hermanos
Porque nos miran los zapatos
Sin entender que la magia es en los pies.

My first reading of 2010

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I haven’t written as much as I would have liked in this week that poroto has been gone.

Correction, I haven’t written as much poetry as I would have liked. I’ve written two pretty good blog posts: one about Haiti, the other about the SOTU by the POTUS (ja ja those acronyms crack me up).

Pero I am now in a corner and will probably have a poetry writing bender as I always like to do at least one new poem whenever I have a reading. I have a reading this Saturday, January 29, 2010, at 5:30 pm at the Bowery Poetry Club as part of the NYC Latina Writer’s Group.

For NYC peeps, the Bowery Poetry Club is located in Downtown Manhattan at 308 Bowery
(Between Houston and Bleecker)
You can take the F train to 2nd Ave, 6 to Bleecker.

Pero check this out peeps, you can watch me online. Apparently The Bowery Poetry Club livestreams all of its happenings, so from coast to coast, continent to continent you can hear me spit some poetic puterias.