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WHAT DOES IT COST – TO BE A WOMAN?

Women – we are craftily complex yet beautifully simple.

Mothers – we are the founders of humanity and the keys to “home”.

Across the world, women have been drastically minimized, mistreated and manipulated. Words and insults are mindlessly tossed in the direction of women.

The Handmaid’s Tale and the “Gileadean state’s desire to own and control women’s fertility” is evocative and hard to watch without flinching through the fictional atrocities that occur towards fertile women. I’m so thankful I never watched this series during my own infertility struggles. It would have sent me to the psych ward. But, beyond the political messaging the series conveys, to me the show begs a meditation, what is the value of a woman? And why does the world insist it lies where our legs meet, at the entrance of life and lust?

FIRST – a love letter to women, from a woman. I’ve been asked by some why I choose to call God, “HER”? Here are my reasons. If we are created in God’s image, I’d like to start with some biology as foundational as X and Y chromosomes. The truth is, all humans begin with XX chromosomes – we all begin as “woman”. In the beginning, there is no Y, until it is introduced later by a male. Maybe we are the ones who traded our rib for a mate? But it is true, life first begins, as female. In fact, everything in nature is essentially female and blooms from her seeds. Now, as a woman, I enjoy being soft, sensitive and caring while being smart, composed and formidable. But I cry. I argue. And I’m here for the the ebb and flow of my hormones because I honor the changes my body endures on a daily basis. I revel in my plushness and feed it well. I embrace my sensuality. I delightfully use all of my feminine energy for good and serve the world with my own set of feminine powers. We women are the sand that slips through your fingers. Too wild to truly tame. Too loyal to lose. Too mysterious to master. I adore the feminine, like Maya Angelou, Eartha Kitt, Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker, Toni Morrison. To me, they capture our intellect and intrigue in a way that allowed their work to leave behind a lingering fragrance…that I personally want to find, name and own for myself.

If I bend my mind into a man’s, I can understand his pursuits in trying to capture the “value” of a woman and control its cost to the world – control it, market it, package it, sell it. But our value is otherworldly. Our value is overwhelming power over humanity and in the past it’s evoked either fear or worship – like Lilith or Aphrodite. The “Venus” goddess sculptures can be found the world over during the periods of Upper Paleolithic art proving the feminine form was revered throughout history often pointing to a matriarchal society during early human existence.

Who would benefit from a world without women? To doubt our power would be to doubt the foundation you stand on. Lift, lift, lift up a woman. Raise up your daughters cloaked in their feminine power. We need only but “be”. We need only to exist. Our superpower is just BEING WOMAN. We are both sharp and soothing, fierce and calming, calculating yet endearing and empathetic. We birth the world, cradle it and then preserve its humanity. Behind every powerful human being is at least one woman who cared. Leave us to our own devices, and our influence over the heart will overshadow the ego’s influence over the mind.

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WHEN DO “WE” BECOME MOTHERS?

As I anticipate the earthly birth of the tiny human growing inside me, I trip over the idea that I will also be born a “mother” through the experience of her birth. A love without limits has always flowed through me and it’s been my deepest hope that the abundance of that love would eventually be given to my own children one day. I just love to love people and the people who come through me will never be able to outrun my love which already surrounds them. Maybe that’s why I took pause when a dear friend harmlessly mentioned that I would soon be “transformed” into a mother, as if before I wasn’t and now I am only because a child sits in my arms. I thought of my Aunt Ruthie, my mother’s godmother, who never bore children of her own but was every bit of a “mother” to the child who needed her attention the most, my mother. I thought of countless mothers on New York City subway trains who curse, humiliate and berate their children in public out of their own unchecked pain. I thought of mothers of rape who love in-spite of an injustice. I thought of the mothers who birth babies only to hand them to someone else. Can motherhood truly be summed up as a transition or transformation? By that logic, who crosses over and who doesn’t? Are we born as mothers or are mothers later born?

In my life, I know many mothers; and, I know many sister-friends who are surrogate mothers in spirit. All struggle in their realities of the children they were given or the absence of children they want. I was part of the latter. I was hopelessly devoted to the belief that I was already a mother, just waiting for a child. There was no need for a physical transformation. I was born a mother. My mother was part of the aforementioned former. She was not born a mother but, through her choice to have me, was transformed into the best version of a “mother” possible for her. I’ve been able to recognize that ability to become something you never wanted to be – and succeed – is more admirable than many women are often given credit.

There are women who are able to have children easily and unexpectedly, but for some, their hearts and mind were not truly ready for motherhood – and all it entails. When does their transition begin? Could it begin when, they see themselves as the centerfold of humanity – women who raise compassionate humans who raise more compassionate humans. Could it begin when, they replace their pains of the past with an unwavering commitment to their child’s God-given potential. Or, could it begin when, these women awaken to their intentions that they became a mother in order to fill a void within themselves, or in their lives.

Without judgement, only in mindful prose, we meet back at the beginning – are we born as mothers or are mothers later born? I can only commit to the idea that love transforms us. No matter the vessel of love, physicality of love or consequence of love, we are never the same once we fully love another human being. I believe being a mother is a state of mind, a state of mindfulness. How much love are you willing to give, without asking for any in return…that’s a mother.

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WHAT IF I NEVER BECOME – A MOTHER?

As I tried to maintain my positive, pleasant and cheery tone for the empathetic nurse on the other end of the call, my voice died – under the cracks of pain – to hear her say, “I’m sorry, you’re not pregnant. It didn’t work.” I hung up before she could hear me lose my breathe to sorrow and tears. (note to self: I’m in awe of my ability to consider the feelings of other’s while I fall apart. Where does that come from?) I catch my eyes in the mirror; they are beating and pulsing, hidden beneath red veins and salty liquid. I pity myself that I don’t have the luxury to grieve and come undone in this very moment. Three minutes later, I join a staff meeting zoom with 106 strangers, at my new job. Five minutes later, I’m introduced and asked to tell them about myself. The meeting lasts an hour and as soon as it’s over, I release the hold of my frozen smile, click “leave meeting”, and I allow myself to fall apart.

Over the last five years, I’ve acquired a scattered online (slightly obsessive) collection of thoughtful baby names, articles on motherhood secrets, YouTube videos on non-toxic baby products and Amazon lists full of natural birthing books from every home birth documentary I’ve ever seen – all without any baby in sight. The audacity of hope…yet never once could I have imagined I would try so hard and fail so easily to be what I thought was my human right. I’ve never been matronly or even submissive. I’m a goal-orientated, career-driven, free spirit bundle of shy, awkward and humble energy. I explode over everything I set to mind. I am relentless in my pursuits; I am a quiet storm. This type of “failure” is new and foreign to me. So…after two failed IUI attempts, one natural pregnancy resulting in miscarriage and one failed IVF attempt, I have to ask questions I would never want to ask myself: what if I am never someone’s mother, what is motherhood and – why is it important to me?

My life, I am grateful for indeed. I have a loving husband who is also my best friend, a lucrative career, the respect of smart and kind people I call “friends”, healthy plants, living parents, a 102-year-old sassy grandmother and a healthy mind, body and soul. Where is the void that a child or two would fill? Unconditional love, is what my heart answers…but is that fair. To place such a burden on a child, who is soon to become a jaded adult, cannot be fair. If by exploding my love and energy onto another human life, I seek reciprocity of any kind…I have failed the meaning of “unconditional love”. To exist, to simply breathe, is to be worthy of unconditional love. I should find this inward love before I find my child.

There are so few examples to set my imagination on fire or help me see what life could be, without a child. What happens to a childless woman in her later years with no children or grandchildren to visit her? What happens when her lovers die and she has replaced all her plants and pets, four-times-over? Who does she love, and who loves her? Who holds her as she dies? Who finds her when she dies? I choke on the thoughts, because they have never been part of my imagined future.

“Dar a luz” is a Spanish saying “to give birth”, directly translated it means “to give light”. That’s what I want. I want to pass my light on to someone who comes out of me via the strongest kind of love two humans have ever embarked on, the audacity of hope…The relentlessness of our love has brought us to try, try, try try and try again, no matter the heartbreak, our souls will fortify the cracks with a faith that God will breathe life through us. I want to have children – and help them find their light, help them shine their light, help them be the light – and then teach them how to pass on their light.

My pursuits to motherhood have been devastating thus far, to say the very least, but there is a very real genetic-spiritual-female impulse that pulls me out of bed, rises me to my feet, kisses my husband with salty tear soaked lips and says “yes baby, next month, we’ll try again.”

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picasso

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WHAT’S IN…A YEAR?

At the dawn of each year, I look out and stand on the precipice of the unknown, hoping that the best is up next… I tally my losses and gains knowing that what lies before me will be more mystery, less familiarity. There is a certain exhilaration at the thought of starting anew. I am fearless in beginnings. Yet, I weaken under the thought that my experiences of the past will become more and more faint, drifting further from me, as the years tick, tick, tick away.

The year 2020 had so much sentimental promise. A new decade awaits. A new president awaits. A new hope for change awaits. A new marker staked in an already eventful millennium awaits. In my own optimism, I was certain this would be the year, it all came together. I would be wrong.

Before we could put away our Christmas trees, our party dresses or our holiday blues, Kobe Bryant, his 14-year-old daughter and seven others lost their lives in a horrific helicopter crash. Before we could finish mourning those souls, Covid-19 spread across the globe resulting in nearly one million deaths worldwide by the years end. While we prayed to God to keep our loved one safe from harm, the nation became polarized over the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. While we angered and raged in our homes and on streets, a most-tumultuous presidential-election was underway dividing the country into angrier mobs of protest. A slew of nonsensical news filled the screen: murder hornets, west coast wildfires, Kim Jong Un death rumors, stock market crashes, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle calling it quits on the royal family, etc… But then more death. First, “Black Panther” actor Chadwick Boseman at 43-years-old. Then, Supreme Court Justice and Women’s Rights Activist Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 87-years-old. The rock legend Eddie Van Halen at 65-years-old. And, “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek at 80-years-old. As if to soothe all these blows, the year would end with some reprieve: President-Elect Joe Biden to save the nation and a vaccine to save our families. This year certainly slapped the shit out of us, and then kissed us goodnight.

Running parallel to these events, were my own. Life has its ebb and flow. We are quick to showcase the positive but forbid anyone from prying into our negative. We humans are magicians. We can hold so much accumulated angst in our bodies, hearts and minds yet all the while we’re performing our best disappearing act for the crowds. We are truly masters at the art of disguise. This year a mask fell from my face. I revealed the mystery, the magic, the act.

I faced a pain I’ve never known. The pain of severe disappointment. The pain of loss. I see no reason to hide behind this pain any longer. In the past, I’ve lost lovers. I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost jobs. I’ve even lost my mind on occasion. But, I’ve never lost a child. I lost something that was growing inside of me. Something I had longed for over three and a half years. Something I worked hard to have. Something that I prayed for.

My miscarriage was the undoing and beginning of my new decade. I remember the day clearly when my husband and I saw our first positive result. Had I known, only seven weeks later, that I would see and hear a heartbeat that would eventually slow, then stop, then fall out of me – would I have been as in love? Would I have allowed myself to fall in love with motherhood so soon? Would I have contacted, interviewed and hired a midwife? Would I have purchased my long awaited list of birth books and baby books? Would I have given you a name?

My heart fell away from my soul and I’ve never seen a place so dark, so hopeless, so unfair. So to begin again now, to attempt a hope for motherhood, to invite the possibility of becoming so undone once again…is how I stand before a new year with eyes wide open, my back shielding the past and my most-humble voice saying, “Yes, let’s do this, all over, again.”

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WHAT IS OUR SOCIAL DILEMMA?

I did it again… I fell into the abyss of my YouTube feed! Mindfulness video after vegan video after travel video after cooking video and again aback to mindfulness videos…

Eyes wide open and mind tightly shut, I’m longing to be as confident, creative and efficient as the channels I follow. I begin to doubt the validity of my own “unknown” successes.

Wait! Stop! I count slowly, “One, two, three…” I use my self-discipline to click off the phantoms on the screen, after the count of “3”. I grab my jasmine green tea and put pen to thought as I begin my sanity check…

Our place, in this world, has now become synonymous with – an online presence. Why? What does it mean to have an experience not shared? Does the good I do still matter if no one sees? Am I still proud, if no one else approves or bothers to notice my efforts?

Time and time again, I challenge my actions with my truest of intentions in order to find my soul’s authenticity. I worry that a longing for attention or lack of self-love or inadequacies fuel our motivations. Round and round we go.

The state of humanity is in full bloom and, I believe, on the brink of budding into the highest level of consciousness known. At long last, we are arriving home. However, the collective ego is the greatest opposition to our growth. I worry that we are in-prisoned, inside ourselves, inside our longing.

Why do we ache with loneliness; why do we suffer; why do we seek validation? Author and Speaker, Charles Eisenstein has stated “we suffer because we are separated”. What are we separated from? The simplest of answers, yet the most profound of realizations – God. We have grown to believe that “this is you and this is me”, that “this is them and this is us”, that “this is mine and this is yours”. This is, the greatest lie, the ego has ever told us.

Social media disguises itself as togetherness, community building and virtual bonding. Yet, it is a drug that takes us to highs and brings us spiraling down into lows. During my own bouts with genetic anxiety and depression, is when I reach out for connection the most, even though my mind would rather I stay isolated in the pain. “Separation fuels anxiety” is another of Eisenstein’s claims and I can agree.

Are our social media accounts a cry for help? Do we use it to fill the void of separation? How long can we live without this drug?

Beyond the claims made in the documentary, “The Social Dilemma”, what is this medium doing to the human spirit? And can we survive this wall-to-wall barrage of influencers, content creators, trendsetters and brand ambassadors telling us we can do better? And, are they, really doing better?

I ponder these points as I sip the last mouthfuls of my jasmine green tea. Sitting in my kitchen, I feel whole. I feel, important. I feel successful. I feel satisfied – and no one is here to see it. I am pleased.

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WHO NEEDS HEART?!

What, the fuck, am I doing here? I should have stayed my Dominican-ass at home and taken my chances being on the streets. At least I would still be around the block, with people I know, eating those cornmeal, Colombian empanadas and waking up to Ramon’s pet rooster crowing at the crack ass of dawn. How did Malcolm X say it, “I’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled, run-a-muck!”?

These Job Corps recruiters had the nerve to hand me a flyer promising: horseback riding, fishing with fresh air…fucking mentirosos! Instead they walk into our rooms; wake us up at 6am every morning, make us stand in long lines waiting to take a 5-minute shower, give us a daily curfew, make us do back bending chores they call “J’s” and then lights out at 10pm. We can’t even mingle with the girls across the yard. They keep us separate so they don’t have to worry about having any babies on deck. I might as well be on Riker’s for this nonsense. This place looks like it could have been used as the prison in Shawshank Redemption.

Everything always seems to change for me, yet somehow still stays the same. I’ve gone from bad to good to worse and I’m only 17 years old. My older brother, Aldan, said this would be a good change for me. I trusted him, so here I am. Aldan has always found the thin line between fuck-up and prodigal son. He’s the one everyone always calls handsome because of his perfect curly hair and tall stature. He doesn’t have pelo crespo like me. He seems to dip right under the line of getting into any real altercations. Growing up in our house, Papi used to whoop my ass for the dumbest shit. My older brother, Luey (short for Luciano), and I had more balls to push back and demand what we wanted, but not Aldan. He just coasted through that madness and got beat the least. He is just a guy that everyone likes. For me, that’s my bro’ – my boy.

Now that I’m in here though, I have zero friends. I can’t even vibe with the two black dudes I room with and we all from Queens! I got into an argument with one of these rude fools that I room with named Tye because he tried to call me a racist after I told him his music is annoying as fuck when he plays it late at night. We almost fought when I told him Sean Paul was garbage. Racist?! Yeah, whatever. I love a black booty just like the next guy plus I’m 43% black! People always try to say Dominicans are racists. Dominicans and Haitians have so much history most don’t even know about. Like when, they forcefully took over our country for 20 years in the early 19th century. Or when, they take jobs from poor Dominicans by working completely for free and never paying taxes to help the country that helps them. I tried to tell this fool that D.R. can’t support that type of immigration – it is still a developing country! The majority of The Dominican Republic is poor-as-fuck! Yet Dominicans were the first to help aide Haiti after that hurricane in 2010. What are we supposed to do, give up our half of the island just so we won’t be called racists? Fuck that!

It would just be nice to have something in common with someone here or just have someone to kick back with and watch TV. I remember when Aldan and I were kids, we used to sit in front of the TV every day after school and watch every show possible on basic-channel TV since we didn’t get cable until last year. We watched every re-run and every sitcom that came on one of the five channels. Then we would make-up some game with our 99-cent store toys, cursing up a storm in English, too. Our Dominican campesino parents didn’t bother us about being in front of the TV, not doing homework or using every curse word we knew in English. They just kept us clothed, fed and alive. I guess I should thank them but somehow I always resented that they raised us like we were in the poor campos on the island instead of in New York City (Corona, Queens). My father was a taxi driver and my mother pretended to be an abandoned, single mother of three to get every welfare benefit there was. She had the system on lock for real. Even with all that extra money coming in, that still didn’t stop my dad from giving the three of us only $1 dollar a week as an allowance. Even as we got older, he still handed us one fucking dollar. I would save them up to buy candy or go to the arcade to place my four quarters for next game. Good times! But damn, we were poor. My boys back home laughed their ass off every time they heard about that crummy-ass dollar we’d get, “Yo, you’d have to save for like 3 years just to get a pair of Jordan’s, bro!” or “Maybe if you start saving now, you can take Vanessa out in like 3 months!” We would get harassed everywhere in Corona for having on jeans that stopped at our ankles and plaid shirts from the thrift stores, never any new clothes, nunca. Nothing in our lives was ever new. As far as our parents were concerned, we had it good because we were growing up in America. They figured they already gave us a better life, no need for extras, entiendes! As long as you showed respect, they had a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy going on with us. Life was frustrating for me as a kid. My older brother Luey said I was a little asshole until I was about seven. Somehow, I feel like I started on the wrong side from jump. I have to work so hard just to be average at anything.

I feel even more lost from where I am sitting now. I’m all the way up here in upstate New York, called Oneonta or some shit. I didn’t even know campos like this existed in New York. What I know and breathe is Queens – particularly Corona. It’s nothing like here and I’m wondering if it was even a good idea to have left.

I feel like they took all the ghetto-born, fatherless, chain-snatching juveniles from every borough, sold them on riding some horses and stuffed them up in this shit whole they call an “academy”. This is no prep-school. I may be from the hood but these guys here, are thugs for real. Just last week, I was in the TV room watching the Oakland A’s play those fucking Yankees (Mets for life!). I had money on that game for the A’s to win hoping they would send the Yankees right out of the playoffs. Right at the end of the 6th inning, this Iverson-looking black dude strolled up to the TV and clicked off my game to put on a movie. He sat down and got real cozy in his chair like he didn’t even see me intently watching the game at the edge of my seat. Some real Dee-Bo shit from Friday! I’m a baseball fanatic from way back and just off of pure principle I had to step to him.

“What the hell is your problem man! Can’t you see I’m watching that?!”

“Shut your Puerto Rican ass up, I watch what I want to watch motherfucka…”

I rushed the TV to turn my channel back on and, before I could get to the dial, I felt a deafening ring on my right jaw and then a blaze of fire creeped around the other side of my face. I was down, but I wasn’t staying down. I got a few swings in there but he fought dirty and hard. I could hear the cheer of every kind of hoodlums in the background, like a sea of roughnecks at an ass-kicking contest, as I got the wind knocked out of me, three times straight. I sucked for more air just to get some strength behind my loose swings. I got my ass whooped over that game. My 43% black genes couldn’t cut it for me that day. That was my first week and a “welcome” gift I suppose. Now, I just lay low and stay in a cloud of smoke to get my mind off of things. Like pretending I’m someone else or even just, somewhere else. I don’t belong. I know I’m different then the fools up in here.

That’s not the first time someone has called me a Puerto Rican or Mexican out of spite. It’s seems as if that is the easiest way to insult your identity or even declassify you, by being a Puerto Rican or Mexican. I always wondered how a Mexican may feel if he got called a Dominican. “You platano eating motherfucker!” or “Go put some socks on you Dominican maricon.” Say what you want but those little Mexican fatheads are tough bastards. They have heart. Somehow, that beat down took me back…

Aldan and I were out in Elmhurst late one night after meeting up with his new chick, Rita. She was this older, skinny, Ecuadorian chick with huge tatas and what seemed to be a scarred cleft palette lips. She was one of those teases that always delivered, ya tu sabe! Definitely the freak-of-the-week but she seemed to be cool enough. She gave us plenty of food and let us use her cable box from time to time. I was thirteen and my brother Aldan was fifteen. I sat out in the living room watching re-runs of Quantum Leap while she gave Aldan some quick head in her bedroom. I started to wonder why I couldn’t find a girl that would give it up that easy. Aldan could dance his ass off and that’s Dominican 101 for getting tang. Makes sense since he met her at a salsa club. The only tool in my box was a good bachata grind I learned in D.R. a few summers ago. We left her house around 2:00AM and we had just finished eating some tacos at this Mexican stand. As we were crossing Woodside, we turned the corner, to see about 5 or 6 kids jumping this lone, drunk Mexican dude. We saw them crack bottles over his head, stomp at his back, kick him in the face, spit at him and they even held him down while one kid pummeled his body like that training scene from Rocky tenderizing frozen meat. We couldn’t believe that this intoxicated, round, 5’3” Pueblo was still trying to get up and fight these little bums. Aldan huffed under his breathe, “just stay down man…” We made sure we stayed in the shadows under the 7 train by 74th and Broadway. Once those little assholes were gone, we ran over to check him out doubting he was even still alive. We could hear their laughing voices fading off into the streets. By the sound of their Spanish, they must have been Colombians. Colombian Spanish is all fucked up with words no one but Colombians can understand. We looked down at this Mexican but could barely see him. All the blood he was covered in looked like shiny black oil against the concrete in the hues of the moonlight. He blended into it all so perfectly, almost like they made him part of the ground with every impact of their fake Timberland boots. The street lights only gave us a glimpse of how badly he was beaten. Gracia’ a dio’ that I couldn’t see clearly. That’s not the type of image you want bouncing around in your head. What the hell did he do to get his ass kicked like this?!

“Yo bro, should we leave him here?” I asked Aldan.

“Hell no, Samuel! He could die, he is piss drunk…”

“But Aldan he looks heavy ass fuck bro, where we taking him?”

By the time we got him on his feet, his blood was all over our shirts and jeans! And we were going to have to find some way to get that shit out… FUCK I hate being poor! We almost didn’t give a fuck because they were handed down thrift shit anyway. We could come up with something and find a possible reason to try to get some new clothes out of Papi. We carried that bloody, chubby Mexican all the way to Elmhurst Hospital. Seven whole blocks away. It took all of my mental strength to not throw up from the smell of his exposed, iron-spelling, sweat mixed blood all over me and his musty breathe, soaked in the aftermath of vomit and tequila. He kept murmuring block after block and all I wanted him to do was keep his funky, mouth closed.

“Estoy mal buey…estoy muy mal…”

Aldan banged on the window next to the sliding door of the hospital as we dropped him off at the emergency entrance, then we ran like African track stars all the way back to 35th Ave.

Out of breathe and back at our 3 bedroom apartment, everyone was asleep. We had this apartment with ancient hard-wood floors that would cry every time you shifted your weight on them. It made it a bitch to try and not wake anyone up, especially Papi. In the living room was a dangling crystal chandelier; a few of the pieces were missing because of my impressive curve balls as a kid. It had probably been around since the early 1900s, algo asi. Mami and Papi were sleeping, although Papi had probably gotten home an hour before we did, finishing up a night of drinking and domino-playing on some corner with his gang of common-life friends. Mami was always home, never out. Luey had his own slice of a room but was never in it. Papi turned a section of the living room into a bedroom for him once he out grew rooming with us. Luey was certified mamaguevo, too. He was four years older than me and two years older than Aldan, but Luey and I were like aceite y agua from the beginning, como nunca se mezlcan.

“Samuel! porqué todavía está usted despierto mijo?” my mother called out to me in her sleepy but silky voice.

“No te precupe, Mami. Tato, Mami”. She could be a little naive at times which made it easy to give her any vague ass response. I could always get her off of me with a simple, “tato, Mami.” She needed to believe everything was okay.

Still drenched in this bastard’s blood, me and Aldan took our soaked clothes off, leaving that problem for tomorrow. Aldan jumped into the shower and I just laid across my bed wondering if Rita had a friend I could kick it to. What can I say, stressful situations would get me horny as fuck at that age.

But now, I’m sitting against this off-white, finger-stained wall in this quasi-jail cell called a dorm room, wishing I could just walk outside and get a fucking taco from the stand. Wishing to just hear the sounds and ruckus coming from Junction Boulevard. It’s hard to sleep here, too quiet and I get paranoid. The screeching trains used to be soothing because you knew nothing stopped, or ever ended in the city. Simple pleasures you take for granted you know. I feel dead out here. I wonder if that chubby, Mexican is even alive. What do I know, he could be laid out on the corner right now with a bottle of Cuervo falling out of his hands. I guess you could say I cared. I don’t like to see people in pain…but who cares if I have heart? Who gives a damn anyway, one thing I know for sure…he isn’t thinking about me.

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WHY CAN’T I CALL YOU “MOMMY”?

My first memories of my mother collide between two moments. They both exist in the first home I can remember, a two-story, three bedroom townhouse in Silver Spring, Maryland where we relocated after leaving New York City in 1987. I spent my toddler years there, ages 2-4. I have several vignette moments of that time, tucked deep into my memory. My Pre-K Catholic school with nuns disguised as teachers, rides home with my dad trying to teach me how to snap my fingers, whistle or blow bubbles with my gum. I can see my room, my toys. I can still feel moist funk from rolling down a hill into dog poop. These moments are all there, collected in the most sacred part of my memory. Yet, I only have two vivid memories of my mother from that time. It was as if she was my fantom inside a faint, lucid dream. Why is that?

In her early 30’s, her job required her to work away from home a few times a month leaving my dad and I at home until she returned. I don’t remember her coming or going. I don’t remember any tearful goodbyes and I don’t remember missing her – ever. I only remember one particular night when my dad, in his sick yet playful humor, was chasing me around with a dreadful Freddie Krueger mask which was part of his Halloween costume, finger-knife gloves and all! My mother came home and screamed, “Luis, stop that!” as my heart nearly fell out of my petite chest. I was saved. At the time, my dad was my father, mother and playmate – he was my world, but that wouldn’t last as all his flaws would eventually reveal. However, the root of why my mother and I share a strained connection, I believe, begins here, at this home. To this day, we have to work on our connection constantly in order to feel halfway comfortable around each other for an extended period of time. She comes and she goes. I’ve loved her for her independence and I’ve loathed her for her indifference.

She was a fabulously, driven woman. The perfect blend of a 1980’s badass Pam Grier persona with the dainty, whimsical nature of chocolate Farrah Fawcett. She always wore her hair shoulder length, her lips coated with cranberry red lipstick and long, red fingernails to match. Not to mention, she was dripping from head to toe in the most stylish 18k gold accessories, complete with a pinky ring, belly chain, anklet and toe ring. Since I can remember, I was always so breath-taken by her beauty – even as a toddler. To look at her would make me feel so happy that she was my mother – my delicate yet strong, beautiful mother. I had no real concept of self at this time. I only knew that I came from a beautiful person and I knew that meant something special. I was proud just by association.

One night, I heard, “Shit!! Gahtdamnit…it’s gone! It’s gone!”. My mother’s aggravated voice bellowed from their room down the hall. Curiosity always consumed me, so I followed my parents’ voices into their bedroom, turning the corner into their master bathroom. My mother was wrapped in a towel, still wet. My father at this point was on his knees near the shower drain digging at something. I stood there watching silently and observing their exchange. He was looking for her gold belly chain which must have fallen off during her shower. Back then, I can remember that my mother had a unique ability and tendency to stew in her aggravation over a situation. She did this silently most times, but it was a relentless tension that anyone within an inch of her could detect. It was sharp and uncomfortable. My father tried to recover her lost belly chain for as long as his knees would let him then perhaps tried to find a way to make her laugh it off.

Later that night, I remember sifting through my overflowing treasure box of toys trying to find a tool that could rescue her belly chain. I figured I would “Macgyver” my way into that drain, find her gold belly chain and receive her praise, love, kisses, smiles – anything. I just wanted her to be happy with me. I never did get that chain. 

Weeks went by and there was a particular day that she and I were in the house alone. My father could have been outside tinkering away at something in the yard. But on that particular weekend morning when my family was complete, I found myself comfortably sitting, crossed-legged, looking up at the TV watching WrestleMania and loving every minute of it. I was in the un-used 3rd bedroom that they had converted into an office study complete with a new 1980-model computer, computer desk, bookshelf with tons of books, a couch and my favorite TV. 

My mother walked by the doorway. I could see she went down a few steps then reversed and came back, now standing in the doorway looking down at me. She just pondered me, for what seems like eternity in my mind’s eye. No telling emotions on her face of hate or love, just indifference. There were no words. I may have nervously smiled as I tended to do at that age, but no words.

The only words she said were, “You know, you don’t have to call me Mommy if you don’t want to.” Immediately without fully understanding why, a painful lump started to swell up in my throat and my heart shuttered. I easily remember that physical reaction as the first time I ever felt such a sensation. “But, I want to call you Mommy…”, I said in almost a whisper as I pushed through the choke in my throat. She looked at me for a few more moments and then turned and walked away to carry on with the rest of her day.

WrestleMania continued to roar in the background as I hung my head, looking toward my crossed ankles, picking at some dry skin that would soon turn into eczema. My 4-year-old mind echoed only one thought – she doesn’t want me. She wasn’t proud to be mine like I was proud to be hers. It would take me at least three decades to ever recall this moment to her, with honesty and truth. She laughed it off and said, “I was just giving you the option…lots of people called their parents by their first names.” I smiled and coyly accepted her reasoning but never letting her know how heavily I’ve carried this encounter. Where do you place the unresolved? How do you convince the unconvincing? Needless to say, her response, nor more my pondering of it, have ever soothed my need to feel wanted by her and maybe, it never will. I’ll have to find a way to accept what’s never been said.

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WHAT’S IN A NAME…?

It’s best we start with my name. There is so much in a name; the letters, the culture, the family, the history. If there are few letters, you are easy to remember, like a 4-digit code. If there are too many letters, it is considered “unusual” or “ethnic”, and people will likely shorten it somehow anyway, with or without your permission, much like those who carelessly begin an email with “Hey M” or “Mic”, even though you never gave them the slightest inkling you preferred this to your full name.

However, my parents thought it best to name me: “Micaela Teresa Valdes”. On paper, it doesn’t quite present any issues, but looks can be, and usually are always, deceiving. My American mother told me she was nearly 8-months pregnant with me when she found herself at home watching an episode of Star Search in their one-bedroom, high-rise apartment on Boyton Avenue in The Bronx. A baby girl name wouldn’t have been her first priority considering that she never intended on being a mother, let alone swollen with pregnancy expecting a child in less than a month. The name was “Micaela” (pron. Mee-Kye-Aye-La). I know, you didn’t see that one coming; not to be confused with Michaela (pron. Mick-Kaye-La). She told my father about the name, likely mispronouncing it, since my mother to this day cannot say my name correctly. I always chuckle a bit at the irony. However, my father was Cuban and it fit into his mouth like the perfect puzzle piece completing his family portrait. I was his “Micaela”. He loved the name. During my childhood, my father and his mother, my Grandma Carmen, were the only people I can remember who could say my name with easy, and most importantly, like it was a normal name.

Since birth, I’ve been called Mickey, like the mouse, by everyone in my family – with most of my mother’s family calling me “Mick-Kye-Ella” on several occasions; Hopper, was my father’s nickname for me; my cousin Jeanine called me “Mica” (pron. Mee-ka) from the beginning; and finally I submitted to American conformity, spending all of middle school and high school with my alter-ego, “Mick-Kaye-La”.

Yet and still, that submission couldn’t save me from decades of painful attempts made by well-intentioned teachers, principles, intercom announcers, softball coaches, basketball coaches, camp counselors, friends’ parents, graduation officiants and baristas who questionably squeezed out any number of syllable sequences that start with the letter “M”: “Michelob”, “Mikalala” or “Mickey-ella”, “Macalela”. I was often impressed by the creativity that can emerge over the confusion of a seemingly ethnic, seven-letter name on a little chubby, black girl who doesn’t really look “hispanic”. 

Yes – throughout my childhood, I’ve had several names until finally deciding on an appropriate one in adulthood. In college, I became enlightened and pumped up with a “take me as I am” India.Arie spirit that I just went back to “Mickey” but I changed the spelling to “Mikki” to make it more edgy. But, people still chose to spell it however they saw fit, like “Miccki” or “Micki” or “Micci”. I guess the “c” in my name really confused them?! Once I began to work in the professional world after college, that name just felt too immature. I couldn’t stand the sound of being summoned by my boss with such an adolescent nickname like Mickey. It felt sugar-coated with patronization. It was no ones fault, but I felt small in every email, in every meeting and in every assigned task. Several bosses thought it would be a good idea to guess how to pronounce what they called “my real name”, which was always noted in my email signatures or displayed clearly written on my work badges. “Wait don’t tell me…is it Mi-chella?!. No, I know, it’s Mik-ela, right?!” they’d say. “No, it’s actually pronounced Mee-Kye-Ay-La”, I’d softly respond as if hoping not to offend them. “No, it’s not. It can’t be. It looks like Michaela. You know, Mick-Kaye-La.” And we were back to this…the audacity of Americana culture and my inability to shake my high school alter-ego. I became more embolden with age and began to say, “No, that’s not my name or how it is pronounced.” I’d tell them it was a Latin-based name and that there was even a great salsa song by Pete Rodriguez called “Micaela” as if to normalize it, making it a cultural curiosity. 

While working as a Producer at Amazon LIVE, I once engaged a fellow co-worker, who identified as a Jewish-America Princess, in a debate over the legitimacy of my name’s pronunciation. Yes, wait there’s more… In the open work space we all shared, on-lookers were both horrified and intrigued by her coy boldness in correcting me on how my name is really pronounced until finally she asked me, “Well, what does your husband call you??” to which I coyly replied, “Baby Cheeks.” The room broke out into a laugh of relief that I had now ended her silly debate, with an equally silly rebuttal.

While I realize my name often trips the tongues of people in the United States, it shouldn’t be my burden to indulge anyone’s apathy of culture. Many people have sliced and diced my name into so many pieces despite my efforts in offering them numerous amended versions. Yet I finally realized, why do I still have to shorten this name of mine into four or five bite-size letters – “Mikki” or “Mica”?

Yet, here it stands – I’m still torn between the two. I have debated my name, defended my name and mix-and-matched my name over the years so many times, never getting any closer to discovering who the person was behind it. It may seem inconsequential to feel burdened by the mispronunciation of a few measly syllables. But, I offer this – as I grew, I had no idea who “Micaela” was or how to proudly own those seven letters. I had customarily shifted and twisted my name for so many people that I lacked any identity behind any name I’d ever been called. Let that sink in…

It was this realization that emptied me one night laying alone in bed wondering how and why a 35-year-old woman could come so easily undone by negative words, thoughtless gestures or even the bitter indifference she perceived from those closest to her. Where did this begin, this feeling of unshakable invisibility. Who was the real “Micaela” and will she please stand up?! Who was this chameleon that learned at a very young age to shift her identity and make room for everyone in her life to feel comfortable? Why didn’t anyone give her a sense of self or should she have been born with that? Why did life slap such a complicated name on such a simple, unsuspecting soul?

To be human, is to be flawed, wabi sabi. Your flaws are innate honesty. The path to questioning my soul’s identity and “sense of true self” led me so deep into my own thoughts and past experiences that I had more questions than answers and more confusion than clarity. These relived tales must be vocalized in writings. My relationships, sanity, weight, career and self-esteem have all slipped in and out of my control, relentlessly.

In the end, what can we really base our identity on – what’s behind our name…? Take a long look back, our stories are the treasure maps which will lead us to the answer. And this, is how I plan to find my unlabeled identity.