History

My grandma arrived this morning with gifts, as per usual. This time around, though, the gift wasn't a bathing suit or a top, a book or a watch. It was hundreds of years of family history in one little box.

This diamond first belonged to my great great great grandmother Raquel. She gave it to her eldest daughter, Anna, who gave it to her eldest daughter, Sara, who gave it to her eldest and only daughter, Liliana, who happens to be my grandmother. Lucky enough for me, my grandmother for some reason decided I would be the next to inherit this little treasure, perhaps because I'm the eldest granddaughter.

And so it has skipped a generation. Tears and a small box in hand, my grandmother ceremoniously took out this beautiful necklace and put it around my neck as the rest of my family sat on the kitchen counter looking on.

I'm not sure that it matters how much it's worth or even how absolutely perfect it is... But I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed by the tradition and history embedded into this piece of carbon turned to stone.

What did these women, whose blood I share but whose lives I know little of live through with this jewel around their neck? What sights has it seen? What experiences has it known? What hurdles has it gone through so that today it sits around my neck and not another eldest daughter's?

It's kind of crazy how such a tiny object can encompass so much.

I'm done. Done with the hardest semester of my life.
Feeling like a literal weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
The sun is out, its 75 degrees, and I'm ready to slip into absolute bliss.
Sleep, read, eat, repeat for the next month.
Life is so damn good.

Sometimes

I want to write the things no one can read

It was cold. Really cold. But we all came together to stand next to each other, subtly leaning for support, to listen to poems that made sense out of absolutely nothing under the moonlight. We patiently waited as one person lit the next's candle, struggling to keep the flame alive. What an unfortunately appropriate metaphor.

There are no words to express what happened on Friday in Newtown, CT because irrationality, outrage, absolute disbelief... Those are feelings we can seldom articulate properly.

Every time the wind extinguished the little light that we were hanging on to, someone made sure to walk over and offer some of their own. And that's an appropriate metaphor too.

We can't keep idly standing by as innocent children – children out of all people – get murdered. We can't pray anymore if it means we'll remain on our hands and knees. 

No one wanted to leave.

But the kids didn't either.

Something needs to change.

We shouldn't fear the end of the world.
We should fear that the world as we now know it won't end.

I know we're all going to feel this way one day...

I just hope it's soon.

And then maybe one little thing falls into place,
And maybe it's not that bad,
In fact,
Maybe – just maybe – life's pretty damn good.

Well,

Things could be worse.

But they could also be a lot better.

I feel like I haven't done enough.
Like my college years are slipping by right underneath my feet while I go to bed at 10 pm on Friday evenings.
What am I doing?

Today

I woke up at around 8, after snoozing my alarm for literally (and I wish I were one of those people that use the word "literally" when they're actually not referring to anything literal at all)... an hour.
Finally made it out of bed, and unhappily waddled to the bathroom, where I stepped into the shower that was a few minutes later almost impossible to walk out from. It was cold. 36 degrees.
Freaked out about possibly having tuberculosis for 10 minutes.
Went to breakfast, where I pretended to do work and in actuality people(person)-watched as I had my untoasted bagel and really shitty coffee.
Went to class. Read for class. Went to class again. Went to another class.
Came to my room and wasted an hour doing god knows what, went to dinner, a meeting, and back to my room. Wasted another hour. Newspaper meeting, freezing walk back, 20 minute chat in stairwell because anywhere else means something more, back to wasting time.


And while that was probably the most boring and uninteresting thing that I have ever written, sometimes you just need to sit in front of the computer and write.

Mind If I Move In Closer?

It's funny how it's usually the littlest of things that affect us most.

Hermana duda, solo esta noche, dame un respiro

My heart goes out to both the Palestinians and the Israelis that have been put in danger because of a war that has proven, for the last several years, that this conflict can't be solved with violence.

Quiero ser un árbol.
Quiero que me vistan hojas verdes,
Que me hagan lucir bien.
Que los frutos rojos hagan sonreir a alguna muchacha
Que se siente,
Se repose en mi tronco lentamente
Y me haga compañía.

Quiero ser un árbol.
Quiero enojar a las hojas,
Que se pongan bien rojas,
Que se vayan.
Quiero que floten con el viento,
Que llenen el mundo
De tonos rojos, amarillos, anaranjados.
De crujidos 
Fuertes, gratificantes, pesados.

Quiero ser un árbol.
Quiero estar sola,
Que la nieve cubra el piso.
Quiero poder sentir el frío,
Sin que nadie me moleste,
Que el cielo nunca este celeste.
Quiero ser la envidia
De los de adentro,
De los de abajo,
De los del centro,
Y los de arriba.
Quiero que la naturaleza
Sea sola mia.

Quiero ser un árbol.
Ya no quiero estar sola.
Quiero que mis hojas vuelvan,
Que llenen los jardines, parques,
Calles, veredas, terrazas, ventanas
De color, de alegría.
Quiero ver renacer al mundo,
Silbidos, vestidos estampados,
Manteles, frutas, verduras y sol,
Sonrisas, hasta enormes carcajadas.
Quiero recordar lo que es vivir,
Quiero recordar lo que es sentir.

Quiero ser un árbol. 

Busy Bee

Yesterday was one of those days. I was literally working all day, but didn't actually manage to get any work done for classes. Hundreds of pages sat unread on my desk as I went about meeting with advisors about summer program options, editing articles and laying out the newspaper, going to a lecture about writing, and going back to lay out the newspaper again.

In the midst of all this, I got a text message from my friend, who runs the student café on campus. She asked me whether I could run back to her room and get her more comfortable shoes. She was wearing boots with small high heels and she was uncomfortable.

While this seems like a relatively small demand to make, it bothered me immensely. Besides the fact that she knew she was working and therefore should've worn more comfortable shoes from the get-go, was she really so incredibly busy that she couldn't step out for 10 minutes to get shoes? Did she think that what I was busy doing (which was something, as no one is too idle on this campus) wasn't as important as what she was doing?

There was a New York Times op-ed a few months ago that talked about the United States having a vast culture of "busyness." People have a sense that if they're "busy," they're being productive, they are important. This culture is more than visible on this campus. In fact, faculty often jokes around that we shouldn't play misery poker – a game to determine who's most miserable of all, who has more work, more things to do.

The problem is that this 'busyness' is self-made. Just like my friend could've definitely stepped out of the student café for 10 minutes (because no one is really that essential to the function of this café that if they are gone for more than a second it would crumble down to pieces), most of the busyness we feel is created out of a need to feel productive and needed.

I'm guilty of it too. It's impossible to feel any kind of self-worth in a culture like Swarthmore's without over-working yourself. You can't feel important without at least once beating everyone in the room in misery poker. It's as ironic as it is pathetic.

I don't know how to change it, and I'm not sure I can. I just know that when my friend texted me, I had a feeling she thought that nothing I could be doing would be as important as what she was doing – That no place that I was in could need me as much as that café needs her. And it was unpleasant. Not just because it's not true, but because no one wants to feel that what they're doing is not worthwhile. We might have trouble understanding people's extended commitments to things we find unimportant or uninteresting, but that doesn't mean they are. Most of all, we shouldn't make our own self-importance make other people's self-importance seem not important at all.

1 Day Until 4 More Years

I heard Bill Clinton speak today, and for those 30 wonderful minutes, I didn't doubt for a second that Obama would still be our president Wednesday morning.

But now I'm scared. I'm terrified. I'm horrified that all that Obama has done for me (and for so many others) as a Hispanic, as a woman, as a student, as a human being will go undone in the next four years.

So I refuse.

I refuse to believe that equal pay won't be granted for equal work.

I refuse to believe that civil rights will be selectively granted.

I refuse to believe that we don't deserve universal health care -- that we should be the only developed nation without it.

I refuse to believe that women won't have the right to their own bodies –- rights to make their own decisions concerning abortions, birth control, etc. just because some white middle-aged asshole thinks he can better make them.

I refuse to believe that the (already steadily improving) economy will be fixed using trickle-down economics -- that illusion is more effective than arithmetic.

I refuse to believe that anyone but Obama will get the 270 electoral vote ticket to stay in the White House because I refuse to believe that we're that blind to what's sitting right in front of us.

I refuse to do anything but move forward.

Do you?

It was probably time to move to blogspot, wasn't it?