Tag Archives: Poroto

Loose Teeth and Blue Green Streaks

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There are a ton of milestones happening in the Mala household.
Last weekend, 14 year old Mapu asked for my help in putting blue/green streaks in her hair, which meant with her dark, thick hair, a two step process involving bleach. Some parents and teens may find it strange we went in on this together and that Mapu came to me for help with something most parents find out about AFTER the fact. But luckily for both of us, we have an open enough relationship that she knew it was something I was willing to do with her. After all, when she was in elementary school I was the ever present PTA mami volunteering at school events, creating a translation program for non-English dominant families, and chaperoning school trips with a variety of hair colors: hot pink, fire engine red and varieties in between. The combo of my style and mouth even caused the school principal to advise my daughter, in front of me, to not end up like me when she grew up. I’m kind of proud that she is rebelling a little.
Two days ago my five year old walked into our bedroom with her fingers in her mouth. She was showing off the fact that has not just one but two loose front teeth. She yelled, jumped up and down and promptly started rattling off the impact this had in her life. According to Poroto she was growing up and the tooth fairy would come. This was a sign that 5 years old was getting closer to 14 years old and eventual adulthood and,
“I can then do whatever I want!”
I won’t front. I teared up a little, not just because yes, it was one step in growing up but also because I wished it was as easy as she made it sound.

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.

The Mami’Hood Goes Back to School

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Call this a state of temporary bliss. A gift.

I am sitting in a cafe in the middle of the day – ok it’s really a chain restaurant that offers free wifi- but don’t ruin the image.

I’m sitting in a cafe in the middle of the day with an iced coffee and my fingers tapping away. My four year old is not pestering me to play a Dora game on the computer or to play with her princess toys. My 14 year old isn’t asking for the computer so she can update her very serious role play where the future of genetically modified vampire clone warriors is at stake.

It’s back to school time.

I never wanted to be one of those mamis, the ones in the commercials who joyfully run through the aisles of the office supply store because they are getting rid of their kids for a few hours pero here I am.

On Thursday, La Mapu started high school (!!!). She had to commute via the subway for an hour and go through a metal detector (Oh thank you NYPD secured DOE public schools). But despite her worry and mine (none of us slept very much the night before), she made it and actually liked it. She scored a new friend (a young woman who has never been to school before). Getting la Mapu into high school was a nearly two year process that involved tests, open houses, interviews and essays. I’m pleased that the hard work we both had to put in was well worth it (so far) pero the fact that we had to go through such a process pisses me off.

The only thing that pissed me off more than the high school application process was the Pre-K application process. Really wanting Poroto to attend a full day public school program meant putting myself through two lotteries, none which yielded ideal results. In this second round of the NYC Public School Pre-K lottery- Poroto was on of 46 percent or so that got a spot. She didn’t get a spot in our neighborhood. Nor did she get a full day spot. On Thursday I stood in a crowd of people outside her assigned school for over an hour- in the rain, with poroto. El Chileno came with thinking it would be a quick process, but he left to go to work. Clearly this was mami’hood business.

Once I made it inside the school, I was given a number (17), a stack of papers to fill out and we waited…….for two more hours. We sat through one assembly listening to the new principal of the school tell first and second graders that they were in school because President Obama wanted them to get good jobs and make a lot of money. We then sat though a second assembly where the principal told students that in the halls they should be “still, silent, and straight”. Umm yeah this was when I was ready to walk out and say fuck pre-k. Poroto – who napped and was more patient and quiet than I have ever seen her- begged me to wait a few more minutes because she really wanted to go to school. So I waited and finally our number was called.

The actual registering was fast. I had all my papers in order. The only confusion I caused was by checking off that my daughter was Latina and not white. With half an hour to spare before her first class, Poroto was an official public school Pre-K student.

Asking her, she’ll tell her her first day was boring, because I had to sit with her for orientation, making the grand total of hours spent in a public elementary school yesterday 5 and a half.

Pero back to today – with me sitting in a chain restaurant cafe, finishing my iced coffee, almost not annoyed by the ambient noise around me (note to self – next time do not forget your headphones), finishing a personal blog post! I left Poroto at Pre-K land’s special door. She didn’t cry. In fact we both skipped away happily in opposite directions, excited about the changes in our lives.

(PS – please consider donating to Poroto’s panderia fund which I will be renaming Mala’s cafe writing fund).

(PPS- I need to find a place where I can have a glass of wine while Poroto is in Pre-K. That will make this even more fun)

Cuarenta y Ocho Horas

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My three year old is sleeping under the Puerto Escondido sky and yes I’m a little bit celosa. I miss her silly maniac ways and have found myself repeating all of her catch phrases over the last two days without her. Like “stupid asses”.

Yes, she is my child.

The break hasn’t happened yet, nor has the breakthrough. There is still an older child to mami and even though she spends most of her days not wanting to interact with me, she needs me. I still have to work to pay rent and electric and gas and eat. There are big blog issues over at the other site that I need to fix. And the poems.

Creo que hay tres, una de la primavera, una para Haiti, y otra donde soy la puta de mi papa. They are dancing in the back of my mouth. Waiting as patiently as they can for my hand the guide the pen so they can be born just a little before being unleashed into the wild/mundo.

Pero casa mala isn’t ready yet. I am not quite ready. The conditions aren’t right. I was thinking this morning as I struggled to find a poem I wanted to read at an event next week, how I need to organize my space better. It was like when I gave birth. I wanted quiet and darkness. Tomorrow, la Mapu will be at school and la casa will be mine. I will set aside a space, an altar to the work that will be done.

PS : I had a whole other angry post that I was going to write this morning about other issues but I’ve let it drop for now. Suffice it to say, I stay am struggling with some things and my level of comfort. Pero that’s ok.

PPS: No I haven’t gone on a date yet. With la mapu with me it just hasn’t happened even though there have been offers. You all will be the first to know porque I kiss and tell (most of the time).

1 Year and 3 Years

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On Saturday Poroto will turn 3. Around Christmas time it was my one year anniversary of being single and yes for me the two things are connected.

Poroto is high energy, free spirited, and independent. Oh and I should mention demanding. She thinks she is the center of the known and unknown universe and wants the rest of the world to acknowledge that too. While I try and write from the table at Casa Mala, she wants to watch Go Diego Go in Chinese (she likes watching common U.S. cartoons in different languages). While I’m on the phone on a conference call about the latest in the immigration justice struggle, she wants to jump on to say hi. While I tutor, she sits beside me and my students doing her own “homework” and on our daily subway commutes, she waves and greets the booth clerks and fellow passengers, all of whom are her “friends”. She demands ballet music and leaps and spins through the kitchen and excitedly talks about her upcoming trip to Mexico. She knows she’s going to Oaxaca. Did I mention she’s only turning 3?

When I decided to embark into mami’hood 2.0, I did it thinking that I would be doing in partnered. Poroto wasn’t planned pero after much thinking and hand wringing she was wanted. I had expectations of her growing up in a more “traditional” family than I did, even if her father and I were anything but traditional. Pero I grew restless and in many ways I think that is why she is restless too. With la Mapu, I knew I would be doing this on my own and I opened myself up to a new vision of family that included fellow activists who would hold her during marches and help her color during political education classes. Pero with poroto I closed my vision again I think. I limited the definition of family to this nuclear entity that really just devoured itself.

At first I felt like a failure. All th messages tell women like me, women like my mother and so many other women that we need to strive to create these “whole” families and anything that falls short is failure, worse than failure. It’s pathologized, especially if you’re a woman of color. You are seen as not being able to cut it, as deficient. “Why the hell did you have children anyway” we are asked in studies and in the stories of women who are sterilized against their will for “doing it wrong”. Hell I’ve asked myself that question. Looking at the rent that’s behind, the electric bill that three months (well now only two months) overdue, and the actual counting of pennies to figure out what we can and cannot eat this week, actually this day(porque aqui we live by the day and honestly that’s ok), I have asked myself why did I choose motherhood again? I especially ask this when I’m really broke and really frustrated with the hustle.

I am thinking about the messages I have been receiving over the past few weeks. Other mujeres struggling with the demise of their relationships with their partners and faced with the continuing development of their relationships with their children. How did I do it, I’ve been asked and I answer that I am still doing it. Everyday.

I think of la mapu, born into single motherhood in a medical birth environment and how calm she always has been, confident almost always, que no matter what shit would get taken care of. And I look at Poroto, born in a dark room in a birthing center with the help of a midwife, and how poroto always wants more, demands more. Age is mellowing her out but I also think that my own settling into a life that fits me is settling her down as well.

PS : This post was written over two and half hours and I’m ok with that. It felt damn good.