Month: April 2011

soy * maestra

A reason why I love the neighborhood…

Overheard at the hairdresser’s this weekend, one Nepalese esthetician said to her younger sister, a Nepalese cosmetologist (no, I don’t know the difference between an esthetician and a cosmetologist: I only know their titles from reading the licenses on the wall.  I do know the difference between a cosmetologist and a cosmologist, will give myself credit for that) —

“The doctor said I can’t have any sugar.”

“What can you eat, then?” (Clicking noises for sympathy.)

“No rice… no potatoes… no corn, especially not corn, the doctor said, and no tortillas… no fruit… no oranges, no strawberries, no pineapples… if I have an apple, only half… no juice… no cookies… no sodas… no cupcakes…. no pancakes… nothing.”

My kind & patient hairdresser, a self-described “African woman in a Mexican mujer/cuerpo” b/c her great-grandmother was an African woman from Africa who lived in Mexico and married a Mexican, echoed, “¡Eh!  What can you eat?”

“Spicy peanuts.  I can eat spicy peanuts.” 

Cacahuates picante!  Ah, the little graces in our lives.  I actually think a Nepalese diet would be a vast improvement (smoked fish, black soybeans, pumpkin vine tips, lentils) over traditional American fare, but I also understand love for cakes.

*
Prayer: For the women in my neighborhood who see me at the market or hairdresser & ask if I’m Filipina, or Vietnamese, or Thai, or Japanese, and I wish my response were all of the above y la Mexicana. 

When the women ask me what I do for a living, I say, soy maestra. 

I am a teacher.

by Categories: empathies, Poetry & Life, prayers 1 Comment

barbara * ras

Elena says Barbara Ras is conducting a workshop at the Ruskin Club in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 7.  More information here!

   

“There were feathers and the light that passed through feathers.
There were birds that made the feathers and the sun that made the light.
The feathers of the birds made the air soft, softer
than the quiet in a cocoon waiting for wings…”

from “A Book Said Dream and I Do”
by Barbara Ras

by Categories: Poetry & Life Leave a comment

pomelo * rosa

A week of poet-delights!  Restoration arrived in the mail, a surprise gift from heart-of-gold poet Christina Pugh.  Then I attended a reading by Louise Glück, whose A Village Life sold out within minutes after her question & answer session ended.
A Village Life: Poems

From morning until late afternoon, I sat under a grapefruit tree reading psalms… one after another… until rust-colored hummingbirds shrieked at me in hummingbird language: “Eeeeeee!”

I wasn’t even reading aloud.

The last time I presented a threat to hummingbirds, I was using my power drill to uproot an old satellite dish my association deemed unsightly.

How do you say, “Peace. I mean no harm,” in hummingbird language?

My little English department sponsored a regional conference, where I enjoyed fellowshipping with over 90 attendees.  We hosted 25 panel sessions with approximately 75 presenters.  “Just add mini-cheesecakes, fresh fruit, and cucumber sandwiches,” I said. “Presto! Now we have instant Bloomsbury… within budget.”

So, all that’s left for the rest of the semester are registration week, two annual assessment meetings, one assessment report, one action plan for next year, a smattering of committee work with “next steps,” one year-end internal budget review, appreciations to the adjunct instructors, capstone portfolios to evaluate, papers to grade, final catalog edits, one survey monkey (pas de jokes ’bout survey zebras or survey giraffes or survey elephants, s’il vous plaît), and other quixotic miscellania.

God will carve out quiet spaces for me to review my notes for a lecture at Cal State and a reading at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, both later this month.

None of this goes forward without prayer… we are nothing without grace.

*

I had fallen
asleep in the sunlit
room    the only sunny
room in the house

and I dreamed
you were talking:
Well, and don’t
you see, your voice

rising as in clear
discovery    (Fact
is the sweetest
dream)     your hands

in transport    to drape a large
book    an atlas
its jacket as an ocean
several pages

–from Restoration (TriQuarterly Books 2008)
by Christina Pugh

by Categories: inklings, Poetry & Life 1 Comment