This is the life, Xilo! 

This is the life! 

We're on the trampoline. I ran out to join him and he giggled and laughed. He's young enough to have that squeal sound that slips in at the end of a full belly laugh, remnants of a sound from babyhood. 

He stands in the middle, releasing his weight to the force of my body falling into the trampoline. Small kids are so good at releasing and going full weight into something. He's laughing and I'm running circles and hops around him figuring out what shape my feet should take once they leave the surface. 

I try out a pointed foot, but the immense give of the trampoline doesn't allow for a fully softened knee on descent. My legs feel stiffened with this method. 

I try bending my legs in the air with pointed feet but this feels even more contrived. I'm doing some kind of pas de chat now. 

Then I try to copy Xilo and release my ankles and knees and hips and spine, trying hard to not judge the  felt physicality of the motion. I'm trying hard for one moment to discard a lifetime of body memory. A lifetime of intuitively measuring degrees of flexion and extension, percentages of weight and shape. 

I stop and lay in the middle of the trampoline and Xilo is taking his turn hopping, running and jumping around me. 

I see through the frame of tree branches above us and watch the uneven swirls of blue gray clouds in the dim sky. There's a rumble of thunder. 

"Did you hear that?" 

"yeah" he says quickly, with a big smile and…..those eyes. He was already hearing and waiting for me to notice the sound. He was waiting for me. 

I see a tear in a leaf. 

I see a bird

I see the taught web skin of my palms. 

¿Cuanto Cuesta?

I don't take anything for granted

everything is earned

everything is justified 

the value is set

the cost paid

the cost

Cuanto Cuesta?

I was raised in a world where my presence and existence had to always be reasoned out 

why are you here 

who invited you 

do you know the owner 

I'm always paying 

I'm going around calculating the expense of a look, a smile, a handshake, a hug, a kiss, a fuck, a relationship….

each step is weighed; 

the measure of a thigh-knee-ankle-hip-bone and its equivalent in visibility 

a tag-reference-name drop-letter of recommendation 

Cuanto Cuesta?

I'm earning my keep but I'm not sure who's my boss

I'm wasting my time, holding space for that white chick's purse

I'm paying the expense for someone else's experience

I'm generating the lived knowledge for the next text book on marginalized queer Xicana old ladies who used to have achievable dreams 

¿Cuanto Cuesta?

I leave my house with good intentions; holding my own space, 

loving myself, 

forgiving my parents, 

acknowledging the ancestral trauma, 

staying truthful and honest with my own desires...

but then,

all it takes is one gringa like a black hole sitting in a chair

all it takes is one westernized man making assumptions

it takes the end of May to remind me I'm out of a job

taking me to the end of my rope

to the end of my ride

my hope 

is gone

se vaya

se fue

I want to decide 

and make a decision 

to quit feeling like my life needs to be measured 

I want to be active and pro my life

and right now I don't have the means

I spent all my value on paying for my presence up to now

and I'm thinking of reaching in 

real deep 

to carve at the remaining marrow of energy I may still possess 

to pay for a way out of this cycle 

at the moment though it looks like I don't have anymore left to give 

except a heaving last minute effort to push my children off this scale 

so they can float 

I'm aware of the space between my head and the ceiling as I walk to the master bathroom. 

I can smell the plastic from my shower curtain and hear the polyester in my new pants ordered on Wish.

I just finished breathing heavy over dirt and tool and planting beets. I've started a garden.

In my front yard I check on my potted plants and the small fig plant I thought was dead, my partner had faith, I didn't. Now I threaten it, demanding that it grow into a tree and not a bush. It's not that I have the power but I like pretending I do.

I live in the house I grew up in. Most people think that's quaint and nostalgically beautiful, but it's not. It's been traumatic, depressing, and I'm still leaking residue of that anger.

The house on our left is now up for sale. No one has come to view it since the quarantine. The last people who took a tour came only a week before the stay- at-home order.

I don't know if realty is an essential business but if I was homeless I think I would.

I hear the cars drive up and my little boy says to me, "hey mama, look! Its our new neighbors!" I lean forward from my folding chair situated on my front porch and I watch as the 4 people emerge from their 2 cars. As they each walk toward the entrance of the house, they are adjusting face masks and placing on blue latex gloves, some of them see us and they know we are seeing them with suspicion only because the circumstances have changed and they perceive an air of cautious judgement, 'why are they breaking quarantine to see a house?' But really, my first thought was, "there must be a dead body inside and they're going to investigate". It doesn't take long for me to realize that that isn't the case and this is just what life looks like from now on, blue latex and mouthless faces. The people finally leave.

My little boy sits on my lap and we talk about our leaning mailbox, the many times a car has crashed into our lawn, and what grandma (my mom) used to do when I was little. I tell him that she used to have three yellow rose bushes in the front garden, cut from her mother's garden. I clearly see the images, I can smell the water pouring from the hose, I can feel the space, of my grandma's garden, the proximity between my young skin and the rose leaves, my hands and the succulents, my forehead and the pink  crepe myrtle.

Then my other  neighbor, who lives on the other side of us, emerges maskless from his home and crosses the street with a plate of Bar-B-Q, he's been grilling since early this morning, he grills for every occasion or holiday.

Today is Easter.

He ignores me, he won't even look at me. I've tried greeting him and he just grunts.

My neighbor hates me. He hates me because I divorced my husband. He hates me because I now have a female partner. I'm not guessing at this, he has said as much in front of my kids to their dad. They no longer let my little boy play with their grandson, they used to be really good playmates. It took my little boy about two years to get over that. The days and nights I would sit with him, holding his gaze as he fought back tears for something he couldn't understand.

I grew up with these neighbors, they moved into their house only months after my parents moved into ours, 1973. I played with their two daughters. We went to preschool and high-school together, we shared life stories, their mom taught me how to cumbia. But their dad, Ramón, was mean. He belittled his daughters and kept his wife imprisoned. He was a tyrant.

When I was still a baby or toddler, my dad would work late and Ramón would get drunk and bang on our front door demanding to see my mom, he was infatuated with her and wanted to rape her. My mom was beautiful. He terrorized her, scared the shit out of my brother and made my sister rage with hate.

I remember him making fun of my dad cuz my dad went to college. He would also make fun of my dad if our house wasn't neatly tended. He would say things like, "you went to college, and you can't even afford to keep your house in good shape, man! " or "you need to cut your lawn, man, you went to college, and you don't know how to do that!?"

He was jealous and it was vitriolic. He haunted my childhood. All the kids who lived on my block knew to stay away from Ramón.

Once when I had my own oldest two children, we watched from our kitchen window as he killed a small oppossom with a shovel. We were stunned, we couldn't move as he kept pounding the shovel down on something, we heard the metal hit something soft and the sound of grunting. My kids had been watching that possum for days, and were excited to have a wild creature to track and make stories about. On that day, after watching the killing, they both looked at me and searched my face for a way to respond. They still remember that Ramón claimed it had rabies.

As I watch this old, small, man cross back to our side of the street, I want to yell at him, to demand his attention, to rage with the fear he made us all feel so many years ago. My jaw tightens and I lean my head against my little boy's back as he sits on my lap, "hey mama, did I ever tell you I saw a car drive down the ditch once?"

I often feel like I'm exploding

I often feel like I’m exploding.

My universe cracks open and some new THING oozes through the cracks or floats like dispersing lint, or seers me with warmth the way the sun feels when you step into it while moving away from a cold spot.

I know I’ve been a slow learner

?

Slow to mature.

Slow to understand what I think everyone else understands.

I’ve always felt like there are a group of ‘knowing’ people or persons..humans who know things, who understand things like loving, feeling, gravity, being, living; things I’ve struggled to understand, they ‘know’ these things, its like common knowledge to them, they practice these things as if it were as easy as drinking water, and I don’t like drinking water. I’m in my 40’s now and I’m still amazed at the people who ‘know’. I’m convinced they speak a secret language. One of them may say to another, “Yeah, it's difficult being outside today, it's so hot”, and there will be a pause, and lowering eyes, and some deep breaths before the other person says, “I know, its difficult”. And I’m positive they were talking about existential feelings of BEING and I’m listening, not able to get past the ‘it's so hot’ part.

I want to know this language.

I’m drawn to those who do.

Every time I’ve confronted someone who I think speaks the secret language of knowing, they deny it, they say they don’t know what I’m talking about, of course, I don’t believe them.

Now that we are all trapped inside, my mind is spinning and my stomach feels the edge of nauseous, I’m trying to make this a moment where I can devote some time to knowing. I pitched a tent in the backyard, filled it with pillows and sturdy outdoor blankets. My cat Potato loves the tent, he stands at the entrance of it and waits for cats or humans to join him, he takes the best naps when there is another soul next to him.

I sit in the tent and read and then look at my Instagram account and then read again, and then attempt taking notes but then get annoyed by our lack of technology in 2020 that should allow me to take digital notes on a physical 3-dimensional book. And then I search for any possibly note-taking apps that can verge image and handwritten text and well typed commentary, but there isn’t such a thing (if you know of an app that does this, DM me). Then I go back to Instagram and then I spend some time on GIPHY and then I eat. Who knows if my knowing has increased or matured.