writinganddancing

[writinganddancing]

Alternate life (to write)

I went to University of Miami for college and law school. I ultimately succumbed to Miami culture and wore make up everday and counted calories and fell in love with a Miami boy.

[writinganddancing]

Inner Circle

Something we don't talk about enough:

Energy is Contagious. The people you surround yourself with reflect who you are, and they determine how you feel. It's hard to be optimistic in a circle of skeptics. If you are the only goal-oriented person in your circle, it will be easy to lose motivation, and you won't be held accountable.

Remember this: When you choose your inner circle, you choose your energy.

...Want to write about what this means to me/how intentional I am about energy and inner cirlce people, etc.

[writinganddancing]

Today's poem: South Beach

The sunrise is here and I feel the waves hit me

Or rather, rolling and rolling over my body

here in the blue vastness, it's me and the sea

la-di-da-di-when I am anybody

And this is my home, in My-AM-MI.

yesterday morning the cafe con leche scalded my mouth

The sugar, the cafe - burned on my tongue

Kinda like my half-gringa skin does here so south

and last night's festivities are still here - as if hung

because the beach never sleeps, only wanting the fuck

with our skimpy clothes clinging to our skins

waiting to be unstuck

and the "intz intz" of the club, filled with the hialeah mens.

if you danced until 5AM - surviving with only one earring missing

with the cafe burn still tingling - even after your kissing

then you will fall on the beach to see the sun rise with the ocean

and you laugh at the evening's commotion

as the waves roll and roll over you - a soothing, toxic potion.

[writinganddancing]

Baking (not finished)

I ran into V, my neighbor, on my morning walk with my dog today. As usual, she was also out walking her dog. She's older than me and we seem to be pretty different people, but we have a neighborly kinship. Awhile back, we discovered that both our fathers are Cuban. It cemented something between us. V told me her mother had just died and she was going out of town for a ocuple of weeks for the burial and helping with all the things. I wanted to hug her but we don't have that kind of kinship. V's brother had died unexpectedly from covid a few months back and a few months before then, her father had died. She has lost three members of her immediate family within less than a year. I don't even know how someone holds that in themselves, let alone still walk and expose any part of their self to the world. But here she was - in front of me. Telling me calmly. She heard the concern in my voice - and I worry she did what too many of us do - try to make some else feel comfortable just because we are humans and are dealing with uncomfrotable things like grief. She told me she hadn't really processed anything. She was just moving - methodically. doing what one does when the third member of their immediate family dies? I don't know. I had nothing to say - even if I did, there was nothing to say. So I told her - would you like some cookies? I'm baking cookies today - I'd love to bring some to you. Yes, of course - she would love to have some. Ok, I can do that. I will bring you cookies. I can create something and bring it to her. I can bake.

My mother, a southern woman - though a Texan one - which is it's own special culture, baked all throughout my childhood. Some of my favorite memories as a child was to be in the kitchen when she was baking; if she'd let me, I would help. 2 cups of flour. A teapsoon of baking soda - a TEASPOON, NOT A TABLESPOON. Must not to be confused (as a child will do - and hence, only sometimes she'd let me). I couldn't wait until she would turn on the electric mixer and I could see all the ingredients blend together to make something else. Three or four different white materials - flour, sugar, baking soda, salt - all to be used together to make a cookie with the butter and egg. I just loved watching something be made - one whole thing out of a bunch of different things. How did she know? How did she know these things would make that dough? that pie filling? She had a box of handwritten recipes she was always pulling out. The secrets were in there. But still - I didn't really understand who had at one time figured all this out. But I watched - and participated when allowed - and was always so impatient to see how the final product would turn out. Of course whatever came out of the oven, I was immediately wanting to take a bite into. I LOATHED waiting for whatever special to treat to "cool off." My mom made cookies for all kinds of occasions - birthdays, classroom parties at our school, a treat for when we had been good, holidays. Christmas was the best. For at least two weeks in December the kitchen would have something baking in its ovens or stove - cookies, crowbars, fudge, candy covered pretzels, pies. It was a child's sweet dream.

At some point in my adult life (always unclear when that began) - I started taking on baking myself. First, with cookies.

>>>GOING TO COME BACK AND FINISH.

[writinganddancing]

Writing and Dancing

I need to create. I need to explore and learn and unlearn and lose myself outside of the world I've been living in. I feel most free and most alive when I'm dancing. And I feel like I am doing/creating what comes most naturally to me when I write. Writing somehow feels like my mind's answer - or my mind's parallel - to when my body dances. That doesn't make sense. But I guess it does not need to. I need to have a space to write and just let these essences of me thrive. That is this space. this blog.

Clearly, at least for the time being, it will not be very good writing. But the point is to have a space to write bad writing. Uninhibited writing. Nonsensical writing. Sad Writing. Reflective Writing. And to push pass the limits. To try out things I never even thought of. And to just thrive in the creating. the writing. the dancing.