About the Author
On the island of Cuba, right after birth, Doctor Vila shared with my mother my expiration date. “Two weeks at the most,” he said with a gloomy face.
My mother laughed. “What do you know, doctorsito?” She rolled her large brown eyes, holding me in her arms.
Despite being born lipid intolerant and facing immune system deficiencies leading to two kidney infections and near-death experiences in my early childhood, I persevered. These events, which some might perceive as tragedies, rose as miracles, nourishing my awareness and igniting my path as an explorer.
Raised in Venezuela, I attended two progressive women-only schools. Colegio Maria Auxiliadora (elementary and middle school) followed the Salesian Missions curriculum developed by Juan Bosco based on love and community service. Collegio Santo Angel de la Guarda combined high school and college. I earned a joint bachelor’s in sciences and humanities, concentrating on romance languages and literature, biology, physics, mathematics, and art. In both places, brilliant pedagogy taught me how to think.
Exposure to Candomblé, Maria Lionza, the Venezuelan Goddess, and the Yoruba traditions and the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti offered new horizons. During my teen years, Journeys to the Coastal Desert in Peru and Canaima, the Venezuelan wedge of the Amazon Rain Forest, allowed me to explore different cosmologies and healing modalities. At 25, I moved to the US and learned English as a second language, and Spanish, my native tongue, endured the laughs after I ordered “a beagle with cream cheese” at a bagel place.
Dance and music feed my soul. Art infuses me with beauty, passion, and hope. It forces me to question norms. Beading and Tai Chi, my chosen forms of meditation, remind me to be present. The culinary arts allow me to pay homage to four generations of excellent cooks and create edible food art; each empty plate evokes a blank canvas. Coursework in architecture opened the door to manifesting thoughts and concepts in three-dimensional form. A degree in anthropology inspires me to identify healthy habits cross-culturally.
As a graduate student in urban planning and design, I studied energy systems at the University of Florida Howard T. Odum Center for Wetlands. Professor Best insisted, “Nature knows best!” His disciple, Dr. Mark Brown, who once traveled with Jacques-Yves Cousteau, taught me about the laws of ecology.
In 1992, I started to synthesize my life experiences. With the assistance of Paynes Prairie Preserve, I spent countless hours communing with the environment and writing.
Inking manifested early, in epistolary form. I cherish the letters written to my father as a refugee child at age six. Later, during my high school years, I wrote my first novel, the sci-fi intergalactic journey of Captain Morock in search of the Big Bang. Bounded into book form, it made it to a shelve in my high school library, marking the beginning of my journey as an author.
During the daylight, I work as a community planner and design sustainable, equitable communities. At the time the owl hoots, I follow the inner Muse and let my fingers gallop over the keyboard.
Putting a pen on a page defines me. At The Planning Center in Tucson, Arizona, I write policy, standards, guidelines, codes, articles, and reports, analyze data for various projects, and coordinate complex community engagement programs. After work, I follow my passion, bringing to life fiction, poetry, songs, and creative nonfiction and finding inspiration in the blissful Sonoran Desert.
Welcome to my words!