Tumbling through the desert

Last weekend I journeyed off into the desert, the one where palms sway in gentle winter winds, where golden light hits reddish rock and colors the landscape a place of retreat, warmth, and open vistas.  Two good friends and I took to the desert with a special request from a colleague at work, a commission of sorts, as this colleague is a collector of all things intriguing, mystifying, and mundane.  I leave you simply with his words, and my ensuing fulfillment of the request (or lack thereof) and some photos of the beauty that was Palm Springs.  I must say there is a treasure-trove of pleasures behind many a moment working in the cultural arts!

The Message

Enjoy the desert, one of the great pleasures of living in California. I am very much hoping that you will see some tumbleweed and capture it and bring it to my office. I am very much needing a roundish tumbleweed (so often seen beside the roads in the desert) to have in my collection and to have rolling down the halls of the 4th floor offices when I must make my way to meetings with the LAPL staff. My dream is that a tumbleweed will blow through the door just before I make my appearance.

If you see a tumbling tumble weed, please put it in your trunk and I will trade you something quite wonderful in exchange……tempting? I hope so.

Ode to the Weed

tumbleweed oh tumbleweed when might you stumble upon my path?
i’ve contemplated your trajectory whilst relaxing in the desert’s mineral bath

i’ve wondered what unearths you from your rooted existence
and blows you onward against the winds of resistance

a clear night sky, waving palm tree and arid earth saluted my visit
but you, dear tumbleweed, have yet to reveal yourself to me,
a mighty foundation is sustaining all mystery.

and so i’ve concluded that your roots have not yet ripened, you and your brother weeds belong where you are-
from the desert you shall not be siphoned.

one day perhaps along this path you shall blow
and that day surely i shall know
that you, tumbleweed are mind to keep.

heading to the oasis

Stop SOPA

Striking against censorship today.  SOPA threatens to take away one of the very few remaining rights we have-the freedom to publish, express, and share without censorship.  Speak out and let your congress person know what you think-click on the above link and also visit wikipedia to find out more about today’s black out.

Rough Breaks

I walked into a convenience store today on Bunker Hill during my lunch break to buy a stamp.  I finished the  .44 cent transaction and while removing the sticky backing from the stamp,  a man walked in and gently implored the help of the two people behind the counter.

I’m hoping you can help me, I’ve just had the worst holiday of my life.  I don’t want to be a burden.  I’d like to offer my help, I want to work for you and get paid. I’ll do whatever you need.  Let me just share with you what happened…he begins.

I live in Temecula and came up to L.A. a few days ago to spend the holiday with friends.  I had a seizure while driving and crashed my car.  I’ve got a 3 pm bus back to Temecula that’s going to cost me $29 and all I’ve got is $23.  I’ve got the doctor’s paperwork right here.  I’ll do anything…clean, sort, load.  I just need a few extra bucks to get my ticket.  You’re welcome to look at this paperwork.  I’ve been to a few businesses already around here and haven’t been able to work anything out. I  don’t need much…just the remaining bus fare.  

I purposely took a long time to put the stamp on the envelope while I listened to his story.  It was like watching a film unravel before my eyes.  Was he for real?  I was so intrigued…the man was hardly asking for any money- $6- and yet he was willing to work for it.  Documentation was in hand.  I didn’t get it.  Why didn’t he just beg on the corner?  Did he really think people would put him to work?  And where were his local friends?

I was perplexed and found myself in a moral dilemma.  To believe or not believe?  I was relieved not to be the woman behind the counter, the person in the position to respond. And so I left right as his story ended, right when it was her turn to reply to his request for help.   I didn’t want to be disappointed in what I’d hear.  I didn’t want to keep thinking about him.  The others just like him.  The people who get one bad break that spirals them downward into a dark abyss, slippery walls with no easy way to climb out.

So many people are living on the edge right now.  The breeze blows in an adverse direction and tips the table upside down.  Legit or not, it’s stories like these that put things in perspective.  Seizure or no seizure, the man was just trying to get home.  Just hanging on, one day at a time.

Idle Awhile

My year-end was painted with the colors of a glorious mountain sunset, hiking trails dotted with crisp white snow, and the warmth of companionship from a true friend.  Hoping the new year brings more of the same.  I am thankful for so many blessings.

Happy new beginnings, new wishes, new initiatives.  Happy year!

Idyllwild, CA, 2011

continue for more photos 

Güera X-ing

View from the ‘other side’ of the river Tejo, Gingal/Lisboa

This week I traveled to the borderlands of Tijuana/San Diego, Poland/Lithuania, Arizona/Sonora, Israel/Palestine, and within the more transparent yet present borderlands of the city of Los Angeles through the voices participating in the Library Foundation’s ALOUD panel. The program brought together writers, poets, linguists, cultural activists and artistic mediators to cross borderlines through conversation and collaboration. In sharing personal stories, the lessons of war, trials of politics, and visions for new definitions, I was humbled by their journeys while prompted to look at my own, and reminded of my position of privilege on this side of the border.

A few years ago I packed up my SoCal life for a voluntary emigration to the Old World of the Iberian Peninsula. (Just using the word ‘emigrate’ alone proves how foreign it is for us Americans to think about people leaving this home to make one elsewhere. Emigrate is the same as immigrate, but from the perspective of the country of origin.) I landed in Portugal with my pockets full of resources: finances, a bit of local language, good health, courage and no immediate need to pursue economic endeavors. And yet with a suitcase full of these comforts-rarities to most emigrants, I still struggled along the journey. Complicated banking policies, residency status, Portuguese legal jargon, tax laws, and leasing agreements often left me exhausted and defeated. I stuttered my needs and questions in a thick American accent to the furrowed brows of unforgiving Portuguese merchants, stood in long lines at government agencies, and arrived late to meetings because I’d taken the wrong bus. At the end of the day, all that was left was the girl in my head; I turned to her for idle conversation, to calm the day’s anxiety, to memorize the day’s vocabulary so that I could implement it the following day. And yet, as grim as I might have made this sound, it was these challenges that grew me, that presented new perspectives, that questioned my assumptions, and broadened by view of borders. I was seeing things from the other side. I was the emigrant- by choice- and it was the first time I’d truly worn the shoes of a border crosser. I had gained a whole new respect for the 14 million people who have immigrated to the U.S. in the last decade alone.

And yet when the focus is turned towards our neighboring border with Mexico, I am stunned with the constant news of violence bleeding death and injustice on our doorstep. It wasn’t always like this; a lifetime of idyllic moments in Baja California are still fresh in mind. Those were the moments of border crossings that were done with such ease- free of passport, free of spirt. There were plenty an afternoon of lobster lunches in Puerto Nuevo, wine tasting in Ensenada, a desert expedition to visit the whales in Guerrero Negro, and horse rides on the shores of Rosarito. We’ve all had our moments in Baja, but the current one is far from those memories of the past. I no longer feel the same comfort I once did in crossing; fear now occupies its own space within the suitcase.

This weekend at a local Human Rights Watch gathering, I listened to the impassioned words of the compassionate Sister Consuelo Morales who works at a small human rights agency in Nuevo León. She spoke of her work with local families and authorities in trying to bring justice and accountability to the pervasive abuse that is ravaging the country. She reminded us that we have no choice to not do something- that no one else will do the work if we don’t do it. Our brothers and sisters are counting on us, and their days are numbered.

So in this week full of diverse borderland discussion, reflection, and question, I look within and ask myself -what borders am I upholding? Does my border allow for free-flowing dialogue; is it a fear-free zone, a portal to unity and community? Once again, through the voices and stories of border crossers, I am gifted a humbling reminder of how much work there is to be done right here at home, within the borders we build around ourselves.

Mighty Be Her Powers

I’d been waiting to post this little write-up until I’d gotten it just right.  An experience like the one I’m about to describe is so special that I’ve wanted to script it so that the words do the moment justice.  And with that, an entire month has passed and I haven’t posted a thing.  But I keep thinking about it.  And then today I realized…revolutions wait for nothing.  Nor does the call for peace.  Change has no patience.  These are the very things I love about the amazing woman I’m going to share with you, so I too mustn’t wait any longer, even if I still haven’t gotten it ‘just right.’

Earlier this fall I was drawn into a story that charged my body with a physical energy that wouldn’t let up after my journey with it had ended on the last paragraph of that final page.  It’s a rarity to read something so true and compelling that it becomes part of you, when the words take on life and from that moment that life inhabits you as the reader.  “You have not heard it before, because it is an African woman’s story, and our stories are rarely told.”  These are the words of the courageous Leymah Gbowee (and her co-author Carol Mithers) in “Mighty Be Her Powers,” the memoir which follows the young Liberian Gbowee who led her fellow countrywomen in nonviolent protest against a savage, dictatorial regime in her home country just a decade ago.  Leymah, a modern day hero, took a chance on a dream that beckoned her one night to lead a revolution of women by standing up against the terrors of civil war.  With courage, will power and undying faith she carried it through at almost all costs:  an absent mother and struggling alcoholic at times, her journey is marked with the fears, weaknesses, and transgressions of all of humanity.  Leading a peaceful war against oppression while balancing the demands of domestic life is no small task, nor does she lend it to be.  Leymah’s story speaks volumes because of the humility with which she lives her life, a life of small but courageous steps that amounted to an immeasurable shift in history.

October 3, 2011

That history became my own just a few weeks ago as I watched a beautifully robust woman, outfitted in a long blue African dress and a brilliant pink scarf, walk onto the ALOUD stage at the Los Angeles Public Library.  There she stood, just five days before she was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Leymah colored the evening with her grace and wisdom.  Her words: articulate and intentional, kind and humorous.  She believes in the power of prayer and nonviolence, of uniting as women who find strength in each other as fellow sisters, where class, race, and religion play no part.  She recounted the sex strike they led against their husbands- a movement of solidarity to make a statement against the growing violence in their community. She shared the lessons of peace-building- “healing those victimized by war, making them strong again, and bringing them back to the people they once were.”  Leymah emphasized community, and how the one she built -a community of women of different faiths and ethnic backgrounds, who, when united together, stopped a country from self-destructing.

To state that we were all moved by her message is to be reminded of the literal meaning of the word move.  Her strength and determination literally moved a country from a path of violence to a path of peace, changing the direction of history.  And sharing her story with others moves it beyond the borders of her native Liberia; her lessons defy geographical boundaries.  She calls us to activate right here within our own communities and reminds us that  peace is a process that has to start in your own home.

A few days after this empowering evening, we learned of the Nobel committee’s decision to award Leymah and two other women this year’s peace prize.  The electricity was back-the same spark that ran through my body when I first read her story was alive within me upon hearing the news.  In some ways, I felt that I too had won, that we had all won.  For her message to be recognized by an international body spoke mountains; it was a statement to the world: there will be no peace as long as there is inequality among the sexes.

Leymah received a standing ovation that night among the privileged few who filled the library auditorium.  It was a victory for peace, and a night I will never forget.  Here is the video of the evening.

“We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women-whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.” -Barbara Deming  

My Mexican Independence

Dreaming of fireworks over the colorful landscape of Guanajuato, MX.

Ten years ago to the day my post-collegiate dreamy-eyed güerita self confidently traverssed the hills and alleyways of a picturesque mountain mining town in central Mexico known as Guanajuato.  The tongue-twisting vowels are quickly condensed to Guana by the students who study its colonial history during the academic year, while the name takes another form altogether when caravans of djembe-playing hippies descend upon the town to beat their drums to the sound of el Cervantino, the  world-renowned cultural festival named after 16th century Spanish author Miguel Cervantes. Amidst the estudiantes, the cultura and colonial charm, Guanajuato also stands proudly for being recognized as the location of the very first battle in the Mexican war of independence.

On the evening of September 16th  2001, together with my Spanish-speaking travel sister, I willingly shoved myself  into the mass of bodies packed into that famous square- el Alhóndiga-, where along with hundreds of others, I watched makeshift fireworks explode above our heads.   The iconic ‘grito mexicano’ echoed from the lungs of everyone that surrounded me.  I was a foreigner in a neighboring land, coloring myself into their song of independence.  We were least a month into our epic backpacking tour through Central America and Mexico and Guanajuato became our temporary settlement: jobs were procured at the local bars and we started our international letter writing exchange project -Carta Connection-with the local high schools.  Just five days prior, the deafening news of 9/11 had hit via shocking images on the TV window displays of electronic shops.  Condolences were offered by passersby. Being outside of my home environment when tragedy struck weakened my ability to comprehend.  I wasn’t living and breathing the devastation, nor felt capable of feeling the magnitude of what this moment would mean for my country.  For me, my geographical distance from the attack on the twin towers somehow withheld a part of my nationality from me- a nationality that would be redefined by that moment and which brought this nation together in ways I will probably never experience.   I would come home four months later to a place that had already dried its tears and had begun to retaliate.

And yet at this strange moment in history, while my naïve, 22 year-old eyes peered up at the firecrackers raining sparks down upon us, I felt part of that Mexican independence day celebration in my own personal way.  It was the freedom that is gifted to a traveler, free from national or geographic boundaries, where the soul is invited to dance: completely open, accepting, present.  It’s a limitless territory, where dreams and reality mirror each other.   I don’t think I could have put it in these words back then. I was too busy living it, feeling it, embodying all that it brought to me.  Looking back I realize how complex the moment was.  A few short months after that memorable night of sparks, I would arrive home and for the first time in my entire life, would have to figure out the next steps along a path that I was solely responsible for shaping.  My nation would be at war, a war that I would never fully comprehend in ways different from those of my fellow compatriots who also didn’t and don’t understand.  Yet here I sit writing this piece, ten years after that moment, knowing that we are still at war.  And not just the one in Afghanistan, but in Mexico too.

Part of me feels helpless, still very removed from these entangling battles where oppressed and oppressor begin to seem one in the same.  And yet I journey back to that moment in the Alhondiga, with the shouts and cheers, the smell of burnt elote wafting in the air, and the murmurs of street slang that I had finally begun to decipher.  It was the magical spark where travel unlocks the spirit and allows it to roam freely. That was my moment of freedom.

laissez faire

My friend Céline was in town last week for a few-day stay in L.A. at the end of her West Coast tour.  Amidst metro rides and an evening at the Hollywood Bowl, we packed a bit of Californian cuisine and sultry summer nights into her overstuffed backpack before she boarded her flight back home.  Céline and I met through our mutual friend Hector, my buddy of over a decade: fellow traveler and artiste bohème extraordinaires.  From France to Portugal and now Los Angeles, Céline and I have shared cross-cultural stories with each other in three countries.  This time around though, I was drawn to hearing about her life as a professor at a small university in Northern France.  One of the first things she revealed to me was that there is no “publish or perish” mentality within academic circles in France.  Professors are allowed to be just that, and there is time for research and writing on the side but the two don’t especially compete, nor do colleagues, as no one is vying to take your spot.  There is life outside of work.  Céline’s persona is not defined by her profession.  She enjoys her work but seeks inspiration and stimulation from life itself, and doesn’t hold work responsible for being the sole provider of such.  She seems to have a very peaceful balance and I loved seeing her actually live it out in practice.  It’s the balance that includes being content with things the way they are; not living in the headspace that constantly pushes us to bigger and greater achievements just for the sake of achieving.  It’s knowing when to drown out the insatiable, ego-driven voice, the western-winged Americana of always moving, seeking, changing.

It was so refreshing to witness her peace of mind within this balance, and the mere fact that it struck me as unique is a testament to how novel this philosophy is here in this competitive, overly ambitious, let’s brag- about- our- stress-level society.  It was inspiring to see her not just talk about a balance but live it.  It was her own personalized version of a 21st century laissez-faire… “deliberate abstention from interference with individual freedom.”  In practice, it’s usually always our own mind causing the interference.  Yet in this case, I think Céline has mastered it, at least for the time being.   There really is no secret to it, as we are all the keepers of our own golden key. It’s just a matter of unlocking the ‘let live and be.’ How sweet a philosophy.

Blurring the lines: culture, career, creativity.  Photo thanks to the shaky hand of  a local plumber.

Mind travel

With summer quickly advancing forward, the memory of my most recent European vacation becomes tucked farther and farther away into the pockets of my jacket, the one that hangs in the same closet as the empty suitcase that accompanied me across the Atlantic this past spring.  I lament that the next journey is too far away to see, still formless and out of reach.  (Such a privilege to speak like this, yes, I know.  Yet these are simply the words of a true traveler, one that lives life always dreaming and ready for the next adventure.)   And yet most recently, I had an unexpected return visit to a place I’d visited years ago. I  traveled to Morocco again, by means of the below essay.  The images became vivid once again, the smells, the feeling of placing my feet on foreign land.   I realized (perhaps so tritely obvious) that through these words I afforded myself a second trip, and can place myself on those dusty roads of Al-Maghrib without even boarding a plane.  What a gift to be able to return to such richness through the exercise of recalling and writing a story.  Whether written or spoken, they allow us to venture back out to the unknown, to rediscover old places while introducing our friends to something new.

Aimless wanderings through the souk, Fes, Morocco
Photo by W.D. Zavala

 My Steamy Moroccan Bath

Eleven days here already and my muscles were still frozen and sore from continuous contraction in an attempt to resist zero degree Celsius temperatures.  My trusty Lonely Planet guide book certainly didn’t advise me about this.  It was winter, yes, but nature had thrown southwestern Europe a cold front curve ball and dropped snow at sea level.  Word on the street was that it hadn’t been this cold in 20 years. Add to that the otherwise beautiful architecture of this country and you have a deadly combo: Arctic-cold Arabic tile, no insulation or interior heating, and single-paned (often cracked) windows. It was one frigid country that February of 2005.   But I could see life flowing from my body.  With each exhale, my breath hovered in front of me everywhere I stepped, as if it were an evanescent guide.  I knew I was alive.

Continue reading…

I like the way you move

Cruise control, An eléctrico in Lisbon, 2011

You don’t have to be from Los Angeles to know that the biggest blockbuster of the year is about to premiere in this city in under 24 hours. I shall abstain from using its screen name, the one that this man-made natural disaster-sized event is being dubbed by the media and everyone in the Southland. To be overwhelmed by the attention this freeway closure has garnered is an understatement. Without skirting the importance of the public awareness announcements and the PR that are undoubtably necessary to inform the public of this major transit closure, the amount of attention this 53-hour ‘inconvenience’ has thus received rivals the coverage of the Haiti earthquake, or even Japan. Am I wrong? Has any of this attention begged you to question our values? Or rather, be sickened by them in realizing the power of the car and the freeway? Without wanting to give the events surrounding this weekend’s closure any more time in the spotlight, I am using this theme to think about the way we move in the world.

With the sunny shadow of Portugal still somewhat fresh on my summer shoulders, over the past two post-trip months back in L.A., I’ve found myself longing to hang on to a bit of the languid rhythm endemic to the Iberian Peninsula. It’s a movement that is deliberate without being contrived. People cruise with the top down and are open to detours (“it’s about the journey, not the destination”: cliché yes, but so apropos here- and I’m not talking about driving), they don’t always signal when changing lanes, and don’t need an agenda book because the mind can manage the reasonable number of appointments and dates scheduled for the week. Yet on our side of the street, it seems that no one here can keep up with their 7-day laundry list of events and commitments without getting stressed and overwhelmed in the process. To be busy strangely garners some sort of pride or bragging rights among us. Over there I find there is a time and place for the meal, a ritual around the coffee break, a permission to step away from the computer and feel the natural world outside. There is a connection with feet, the ones that drive the body to and from its destination without the ominous shadow of the car at every step. It is all of these things which actually can be here and not just there. This melodious kind of movement is in no way fashioned for our old world friends. It’s here too, if we also are deliberate and choose to shape our world how we want it.

Take a moment to think about how you move through the world… What do we miss when we are in “5th gear” and are moving at “full speed ahead.” How has our language been shaped by the metaphor of movement? We all move at our own pace which is the beauty of being an individual in our diverse and eclectic world, so, if nothing more than for the exercise of reflection, I hope you enjoy the ride.