Playing For Change | Peace Through Music

Playing For Change | Peace Through Music

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Recordando, Mama, Papa y un poco de poesia

Too lazy to show my face on the 4th, I put my mom through hours of extra labor, deciding finally to make my appearance at 10:05 am 50 years ago today, July 5 - no doubt to the relief of my exhausted mother (to be able to put an end to the whole business of birthing and babies behind her. And her their prayers for a baby girl).

As it turns out, after 6 boys my mother didn't know what she would do with a girl. She didn't believe her prayers would be answered. She was actually shocked that I was in fact a girl. I was a source of worry and consternation for my mother from the day I was born. My dad was excited to finally have a daughter.

My mom knew what to do with boys - from caring to dressing, and from which toys to loving them. She wasn't so sure how to be with me. And, she would much later admit, she was afraid for me - what lot would be my lot, what cross (or crosses) would I carry. She worried about the minefields I'd have to navigate.

Since my mom knew boys, needless to say, I got treated much like the boys. This turned out to be a blessing in so many ways; in an era of Roe v. Wade and all the upheavals of the 60's, defining oneself, both inside and outside of the home, growing up in a household of mostly men, learning to speak up and fight to be heard was a good life lesson - this was just how it was.

My parents had no idea that their hopes for their first daughter would never materialize - all the subtle training to be a good daughter, wife and mother would serve only to make me an understanding human being and good (albeit, willful) daughter -- the wife and mother part never happened (well, not yet anyway). At some level, even from the very beginning, I think they knew it never would.

They knew life wasn't going to be easy or typical (at least not in the eldest-daughter-in-traditional-Mexican-family sort of way) - they knew I would be a fighter; she knew I had to be in order to survive: my mother took as a sign that I was born on the 7th month, the 7th child on a day when 6 other children (boys) were born , and I the 7th (the only girl), going home to a family of 6 older brothers - and a mother who wouldn't know what to do with a daughter (not until a long time later did my mom get used to the fact that she had a daughter); she was used to her sons. She knew boys. She wasn't sure what to do with a daughter. My mother knew I would forever be up against a current - having to cry the loudest and fight the hardest. My father was happy 'cause he finally got his girl. My dad was always quietly proud that I was his daughter - he quietly admired the fighter I was becoming.

That I was born in a hospital named for Santa Marta - patron saint of lost causes, a strong (in some beliefs, known as a dominator) saint who drove evil from the world, who stood for justice and what is right was also a sign - on the day of my birth, my mom was certain of only one thing: I would need strength -- so my mom named me after the saint.

And so it came to be - I came to be. I can never quite kick things into gear until 10 am or so - I longed learned that I cannot have government job, or any other 9 to 5, because I cannot get myself to work on time -- if being on time means being there by 8 am or 9. I just can't do it. I decided against law school because what good would I be to a client if I couldn't get to the court on time? And why all the pain and suffering of law school if I wasn't going to practice law? I'd rather stick needles in my eyes. If I'm being honest with myself, I cannot do anything that is truly structured -- it just goes against my grain. So much for law and justice. But it wasn't all for not. Church and organized religion -- forget about it.

So, it's my birthday and I'm spending it in quiet reflection at home - reading - enjoying the flowers I just put out to honor the memory of my mother - it was she who did the work after all, and a cup of coffee put out to honor my father as well - he did half the work (okay, maybe not half, but he was there).

I owe them the world for giving me mine - for choosing, afterall, to let me create my own world, to let me be.

So here's a poem, on this day, a poem so apropos of my current life arrangement of splitting my time between Long Beach, where I live, and San Francisco to earn a living - to pay for this lavish life I live in Long Beach.

I checked into the office and I was teased about how nice the weather has been in San Francisco these last few days; seems like my perfect sunny SoCal days have packed up and replaced the rolling fog of Noe Valley - it's been gorgeous tomato growing weather there while I've been left to face excessive June gloom weather in July. When the day is beautiful in San Francisco, there is nothing like it.

And so, of course, I've had San Francisco on my mind a lot recently - the morning breeze at the Ferry Building, chasing my morning coffee and croissant. The incessant call of the seagulls - and all the early morning people, who like me do their own non physical version of Sun Salutation or Sunday morning meditation -- accompanied by our ever present cups of coffee in hand -- as we lean over the rails to feel closer to the ocean breeze - or God.

I'm in Long Beach right now. But I thought this was a perfect poem to share on this day - a poem rich with imagery, ripe with sweetness and recollection -- on my birthday - a great birthday poem, in fact, the perfect birthday poem.

Gracias mama y papa - poesia para ustedes este dia y siempre. Todo salio bien -- deberas.

A Warm Summer in San Francisco

by Carolyn Miller

Light, Moving) --

Although I watched and waited for it every day,
somehow I missed it, the moment when everything reached
the peak of ripeness. It wasn't at the solstice; that was only
the time of the longest light. It was sometime after that, when
the plants had absorbed all that sun, had taken it into themselves
for food and swelled to the height of fullness. It was in July,
in a dizzy blaze of heat and fog, when on some nights
it was too hot to sleep, and the restaurants set half their tables
on the sidewalks; outside the city, down the coast,
the Milky Way floated overhead, and shooting stars
fell from the sky over the ocean. One day the garden
was almost overwhelmed with fruition:
My sweet peas struggled out of the raised bed onto the mulch
of laurel leaves and bark and pods, their brilliantly colored
sunbonnets of rose and stippled pink, magenta and deep purple
pouring out a perfume that was almost oriental. Black-eyed

Susans
stared from the flower borders, the orange cherry tomatoes
were sweet as candy, the fruit fattened in its swaths of silk,
hummingbirds spiraled by in pairs, the bees gave up
and decided to live in the lavender. At the market,
surrounded by black plums and rosy plums and sugar prunes
and white-fleshed peaches and nectarines, perfumey melons
and mangos, purple figs in green plastic baskets,
clusters of tiny Champagne grapes and piles of red-black cherries
and apricots freckled and streaked with rose, I felt tears
come into my eyes, absurdly, because I knew
that summer had peaked and was already passing
away. I felt very close then to understanding
the mystery; it seemed to me that I almost knew
what it meant to be alive, as if my life had swelled
to some high moment of response, as if I could
reach out and touch the season, as if I were inside
its body, surrounded by sweet pulp and juice,
shimmering veins and ripened skin.

"A Warm Summer in San Francisco" by Carolyn Miller, from Light, Moving. © Sixteen Rivers Press, 2009. Reprinted with permission. (borrowed from Garrision Keillor's Writer's Almanac)