Category Archives: Non-fiction

Creative Non-fiction, Non-fiction, The Story Weaver Project

Yellow Leaves


Okaloosa County, Florida, February 14, 1995

On four limbs over a carpet of fallen leaves, I no longer linger in scattered confusion. I watch the oncoming traffic through thick protective glasses, insert the thick nail inside the washer, and place its tip on the target. The hammer in my right hand is ready to strike, force its body through thick asphalt on that white band that marks the edge between the world and the Earth. I look up again. The sun makes my eyes squint. The honk of a double-wide truck brings me to my feet. I ebb to the shoulder of the road for refuge. After the eighteen-wheeler passes, I return to perform my task. Forget red roses and imported chocolate; this is what I do–get on my knees and jump. I know the hard hat and the thin orange jacket that waves like a flag are not going to save me. If I think that I have no health insurance, that I have to work under the rain on Saint Valentine’s Day, through cold days, under the inclement weather of Florida’s hurricanes, listen to my runaway thoughts…that I stand in this foreign margin, speaking a fragmented tongue, stripped from my culture, my family, my people, my values, my music, my art, I would quiver when the rumbling voice of the poet, Pablo Neruda, thunder my core, asking me one more time “Why do leaves suicide when they feel yellow?”

I recall a single yellow leaf during the fall. In that vision, the cold wind blows over her weak body. The leaf clinches fiercely to a tree branch, as if having little manitas that hang on, refusing to let go. I used to see my face on every yellow leaf. Back then, that image shattered my soul. It does not matter anymore.

Like the yellow leaf, I ultimately surrender and fall with dignity aware of natural cycles. There is no end and no beginning. There is no separate reality, only a place where all parts, like pieces of a giant puzzle, coexist. The head of the nail reaches the paved surface. I stand on the Earth, observe the wound that curves into the horizon. I pick up the measuring wheel, set it to zero, spray a cross with red fluorescent paint on the white band every one hundred feet. Red splotches remind me of military tanks, machine guns, and pools of blood. I keep on walking, keep on moving. The moment is all I have.

Aloof, I measure the depth of the site, from the red cross to the litter catch point, the mowing line, the hedge, the swamp, a see-through chicken wire fence, or a solid stone wall. Wondering who will pay my student loans, I force a galvanized metal rod on the grass, string the area, and survey the green rectangle.

“One empty beer can, one smashed plastic soda bottle, one baby diaper with contents, one empty snack bag, one empty cigarette pack, one piece of tire, one plastic film canister, one cardboard fast-food box, one polystyrene cup.” The cassette recorder listens. With Zen steps, I continue the inventory, measure how much trash has trespass the planet of life by counting litter, categorizing items into 82 pre-established categories I memorized to get the job. 

Litter is a terrible human habit. To throw things out the window shows how little we care about our home. The solid waste research center hired me as a temporary worker to study litter and to measure how much it infringes prairies, farm fields, rolling hills, rivers, creeks, and swamps along rural roads.

As I carry on, men dressed in orange overalls widen the road. The Sheriff drives by, slows down, and stops. I watch him approach, knowing that I have an accent and that I missplaced my green card. 

“Ma’am are you with the crew?” He points at the prisoners paving the road and lifts his hat.

“No Sir,” I say and hand him my employer’s card. Humming Willy Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” I hope to distract his search.

“I’ll be darn. It’s about time someone picks up all this damn trash.”

“I’m not picking it up, Sir.”

“What in sweet heavens are you doing with it?”

“Counting it, Sir.”

“Say what? Are you telling me young lady that you’re counting the trash and not picking it up?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“So that’s where our tax money goes!”

“I suppose.”

“Stay out of the sun and keep an eye on those prisoners. A fine young woman ought to stay away from those birds of prey.”

“I will, Sir.”

After a long day, back aching and brain swelling from the humid heat, I step into a raggedy room in a roach motel, unroll a sleeping bag on top of a bed with sheets so thin they look like orphan home bedwear. I refuse to sleep with fleas and bed bugs. After a long shower, I lay in bed, stare at the ceiling crack and hear the voices of my island of sun; the place my soul chose to return; the sanctuary where my roots await. What is a tree without a strong root system? I think.

In this English-only land obsessed with border and walls, hopes, dreams and aspirations clipped, I grow under planned controls, like a bonsai. I urge to set root, grow tall like cypress threes do, wear my mantilla made of Spanish Moss and never surrender to the gooey drama of the melting pot.  Arbitrary laws should never colonize my thoughts!

But I am also content to live in this country and no longer yearn for a piece of land, a slice of pie, or a broken Dream. The fabricated world means much less than old bread crumbs.

As in dreams, I, la chica del charco, wake every day to the mural of injustices awaiting outside my door. Chin up, I grab the doorknob, walk through the portal, and navigate the tempest thoughts hollering like jackals. This cold, still life, this canvas that is a refugee’s life, overfed with boundaries and limits, sucks my strength like a vampire.  Barefoot, I step on the embers of going nowhere.

The Earth embraces me and provides the nourishment and sustenance needed to endure the journey. It does not ask stupid questions. Where ever my feet stand, I reclaim as the sacred land, knowing that the Earth does not belong to anyone, much less to those egoístas fixated with borderlands, always feeding disputes and drawing lines on the sand.

Next morning, my rubber boots step again over the brittle carpet of dry leaves. I discard Neruda’s vision at the sight of falling, yellow leaves, and keep on walking through winter storms towards the spring.

Note:

An earlier version of this creative non-fiction piece written after a long workday on San Valentine’s Day back in 1995 and titled “Yellow Leaves” was published under my former pen name, Maria de los Rios, in New to North America: Writing by U.S. Immigrants, their Children and Grandchildren, edited by Abby Bogomolny, Burning Bush Publications, Santa Cruz, California, Second Edition, 1997, pp. 154-156.

Credits:

The poem, “Por qué se suicidan las hojas cuando se sienten amarillas?” (Why do leaves kill themselves as soon as they feel yellow?) appears in Pablo Neruda’s Late and Posthumous Poems: 1968-1974, edited and translated by Ben Belitt. Bilingual Edition. Fundación Pablo Neruda. New York: Grove Press, 1988.

Non-fiction

Día De Los Muertos

The memory of a loved one never fades; we carry that memory in our minds, hearts, spirit, and even in our DNA, the blueprint of our individuality. Such memory reminds us that we are connected to each other physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually as a community; it also prompts us to celebrate the footsteps of those ancestors who walked the Earth before us. Just as the memory of our loved ones survives in our souls, tears, blood, and bone marrow, Día De Los Muertos has endured more than 3,000 years, yet its origins and purpose are often mistaken.

As evident in the archeological record, cross-culturally and throughout the space-time continuum, before the appearance of villages, hamlets, boroughs and more complex forms of settlement pattern and social organization, all cultures across the world paid homage to their dead in myriad ways. Rituals surrounding death constitute the origins of art and music and include oral and written traditions as well as elaborate processions and dances.

Performed to mark the death of distinct members of their society, The Egungun festival, a part of the Yoruba traditional religion, consists of an elaborate dance.  In Malaysia, The Mah Meri tribe celebrates their dead with a day of dancing. Shamans bless the event before the ceremonies begin. Obon, one of Japan’s most well-known holidays and known as The Lantern Festival or The Festival of the Dead is a day to honor and celebrate those who have passed away.

Through the ages, death has been associated with a distinct rite of passage, equivalent only to birth. All world cosmologies and religions see death as a passage into another form of life; some call it heaven, others refer to it as a way of reaching nirvana. Still, others see it as a return to the Tree of Life. Traditions mourning those who depart may change, evolve, express in more complex forms, but they never die.

Elaborate rituals evolved in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and in the Americas. One of the oldest celebrations in the world honoring those who left this plane emerged in Mexico.

Cortez and his crew learned about Día De Los Muertos when they arrived in central Mexico in the 16th century. Spanish Conquerors viewed the ritual initiated by the Aztecs some 3,000 years ago as sacrilegious. The festival survived despite the Spaniards’ attempts to quash it.

Not only Día De Los Muertos survived, but it also thrived, traveling from southern Mexico to North, Central, and South America as well as to islands in the Caribbean and West Indies; as part of its survival, the elaborate festival syncretized, merging with elements of Christianity. Initially celebrated in the summer, it moved to November 1st and 2nd to coincide with All Saints Days and All Souls Day.

Day of the Dead or All Souls Day is still celebrated throughout Mexico, Latin America, Spain, and many cities in the United States. The festival even reached Hollywood in a scene in 2015’s “Spectre,” where Daniel Craig’s James Bond pursues a villain through Mexico City during a massive Day of the Dead Carnival. The 2014 film “The Book of Life” features a Day of the Dead theme that includes animation filled with calacas (skeletons) and calaveras (skulls).

Day of the Dead has also conquered the heart of some areas of the United States. In Arizona alone, dozens of events honor the dead. The All Souls Procession in Tucson is one of the most important, inclusive and authentic public ceremonies in North America today. The Procession originated in Tucson, Arizona, in 1990, and it is now running for its 27th year.

When I look back to my childhood, I recall vividly all the rituals involving Día De Los Muertos. Everyone in Venezuela, my second homeland, would go to the cemetery to spend time with their dead. People baked elaborate skulls made of sugar to honor our departed loved ones, including our pets. Meeting family and seeing friends at the cemetery and during the procession turned into a celebration of life.

As Cuban refugees who had arrived alone to a new homeland, my parents and I did not have the opportunity to bring flowers to our loved ones left behind in Cuba, our island of sun. Therefore, Mama would prepare an elaborate altar to honor all our loved ones who had passed. Other immigrant families and friends in similar situations, would join our Día De Los Muertos celebration, bringing flowers, candles, photos, and objects belonging to their loved ones to our community altar and food to share.

When I look back, I recall a particular Día De Los Muertos when my mother was hospitalized for several months while receiving cancer treatment. Immortalized in a piece of autobiographical fiction titled: Día De Los Muertos, this childhood memory still brings tears to my eyes.

Día De Los Muertos has never been associated with fear. On the contrary, it is a holiday about telling stories of loved ones who have departed and about instilling their memory on younger generations. Part of the tradition is to smile at death and to see it as a significant natural rite of passage that equates only to birth. In doing so, we meaningfully celebrate our ancestors as they were when they were alive on this earth among us. It has never been a sad day or a scary day. Día De Los Muertos stands on its own as a fiesta to acknowledge that Death is the great equalizer, and to celebrate those who have left their footprints before us.