The Blog

Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Things are starting to settle down and I have more time to think. Not sure that’s a good thing but I make do. I haven’t been able to sleep since Efrain and Dad left not sure why and I don’t want to make assumptions. Aunt Sol invited me to go walking this morning and it was a great distraction. I came back so tired I slept for a few hours afterwards. People here walk out of necessity and it almost seems offensive to walk for pleasure. We walk throughout the town and share the street with cars, trucks, motorcycles and horses. There is no one else on the street walking for health or pleasure like us but we walk fast and with a purpose. My aunt and uncle tell me this is the first walk they have been able to go on for months. Violence took over even this small town and walks were almost prohibited, unless you wanted the occasional, grab, stab or gun shot. As we make our way back from the long walk we pass by the local cemetery. Monuments erected for those who were loved in other lifetimes and in this one. The entrance to the cemetery reads “El Jardin de los Recuerdos” or the Garden of Memories, I am glad I am wearing sunglasses because my eyes water. Almost everything makes me teary eyed these days. What a beautiful title to an otherwise painful situation. The people in there are not dead they live with us in our memories and right now I feel more dead then alive. Am I a memory in the minds of my friends and family? If I have to stay here will they think of me?

I remember when my mom and sister where in my shoes how guilty I felt that life for me went on while theirs stood still in Mexico, the holidays that had to precede, the food that was eaten, the gifts that were unwrapped and the laughter that had to take place without them. Now those things are being had without me and the knot in my stomach grows. I try to let life happen for me too but it is difficult to accept that there’s no room for my dreams now and there hasn’t been for the past 23 years. My aunt and uncle try to cheer me up with some freshly squeezed orange juice a woman pours into a small bag and sticks a straw in. Then off to some freshly made “gorditas” filled with delicious local cheese and strips of green chilli peppers.

I need to make contact with home so I take off to the local “Cyber-Café” to check my email and fill myself with news of home. It’s bad enough that the local Mexican news keeps reminding me that Amy Winehouse is dead. That and the Norwegian tragedy are the only news from outside of Mexico I hear. I sift through my emails once again and come across two that make me sob in the middle of this little cyber café. I know people are looking at me wondering if I am ok not knowing if they should say or do something, but I can’t help it. Sonia CC is the wild and crazy woman that encouraged me to write a blog. Figured it would keep my mind from thinking about something other than home. In some ways she was right. She has read my blog and decides to make me her new mission; she loves my blog and thinks I should share it with the world. I think she’s nuts but she has now gotten her talented designer husband involved in this mess and he wants to secure a website address and a name for my blog. Her email and her husbands genuine interest and like in my words is comforting and brings meaning to my life at a time when there is none. Crazy woman also decides to tell me that she has shared my blog with her sister and that they might want to share it with other women in the Imperial Valley who have an organization based around educating Latina women. I am touched, flattered and oh so inspired to keep moving forward even when I don’t want to. I’ve always thought it would be nice to share my life with people but I figured I am not that interesting, and really I am not. More than not interesting my life is not unique. There are thousands of people just like me in a similar situation with less than I have and more stories to tell. Only I was talked into telling mine on a blog by some crazy woman and I am glad I was.

The second email comes from an unlikely source but not an unfamiliar one. I think this email touched me most. For the record I only share names of those who have allowed me to or want me to so if people remain nameless it’s not by choice but out of respect. The email was from one of my best girlfriend’s boyfriend (stay with me people). Although, he has known me for a few years now and knows of me and about me he has never had an opportunity to hear my story. Rarely do we share such intimacies with acquaintances but in this case my girlfriend shared my blog with him and he felt compelled to write to me. I was touched by his kind words, he shared that he was in the military once and had been away from home and knew what it was like to be home sick. He apologized for not offering to help earlier but for me that email was enough. My words are shared not only to make me feel better about the situation that I am in but they are shared in hopes that someone will find solace, comfort or education about this difficult topic of immigration.