School days across the border...

     Public school in Mexico has been an experience that both of my American children, and myself included, will appreciate in a comparative aspect to our beloved USA. Our first moments in Mexico were that of shock to the culture and separation issues to just about everything that we were familiar with including foods, sounds in the street outside, customs, attitudes, home comforts, driving, cooking, daily events, and the biggest and most noticeable one being language. The kids and I did not know Spanish at all. We arrived in Mexico as a newborn would, not knowing how to communicate, however having to assume the same responsibilities as we did while we lived in the USA. My husband was gone most of the first year working in a job that he, thank goodness, no longer has... so we were basically thrown into the pack of wolves on our own. The school system in Mexico was a large fraction of our adjustment to life in a strange world.
     We searched for a private school. Our decision was to made rather sudden as the beginning of the school year starts without warning to someone who does not understand the language, in the middle of August as opposed to the comparative USA. I took it for granted that we would just basically receive some type of paper in the mail stating the children's bus number and classroom with assigned teacher a few weeks before school was to start... that was not the case of course. School busses are unheard of in Mexico. Paid for public bus or taxi can remedy the child who lives too far from the school to walk. This factor is also a huge downfall to those children who are from the poverish and underprivilaged for that travel money is on a scale of importance in the balance with something more important - food. When someone from the USA ponders upon the lack of education in the country of Mexico, one point that they do not possibly factor is the basic transportation costs that somehow swallow many children's futures in a hungry gulp of statistics that were never meant to be counted due to lack of concern.
      The whole thing was never meant to be thought out. We were on a whim of sorts driving into Mexico to be with our beloved. We did not have a suggestion manual, not one friend to ask, as we knew absolutly no one who was as crazy as we were to go into the life of Mexico with wide eyes and concentrated concern on our face as we tried our best to read the faces and body language on a daily basis of what we were expected of, as we blasted our American English music from the safety of our own home. Many store owners that we purchased our necessary food to survive from spoke enough English to at least entertain the situation, or at least themselves, in times of exchange at the counter..."seven-teen" in a heavily accented total of how many pesos we would owe. Eventually we caught on to the actual names of the cheese that was under the glass and the proper process to purchase what we needed. Cheese, for example, otherwise in Spanish translation called queso, was easy to order from the store owner as in "vente pesos de queso de Oaxaca, por favor..." In other words, tell them how much you are willing to pay and you will get a weighed out handful in a bag to take back to the house. Once we discovered how to shop for food, we then had to figure out what to do with it. We ate a lot of home-made spaghetti that first year to say the least, as that was one of the only things that I could figure out that was edible... that and tortillas with cheese in the middle folded in half and melted in a pan, topped with a little crema. We stayed nourished and alive... and grew stronger in our new world.
      The birth of the days in Mexico's school system were filled with those first days in private school. Our choice would be with a woman who ran a school called Moderno Americano that was a block away from my sister in law's candy store on the main street of Acatlipa. I figured if anything came up, the kids could at least depend on the fact that the store was in close proximity of the school, even if I was far away. My days were scheduled with driving the kids to school, taking them in, going home, washing the clothes by hand in our washboard sink, napping, snacking on whatever I could find, changing my clothes into street clothes, venturing back to the school... all while my belly was growing with my son's pregnancy. The private school was run by a woman that knew perfect English who grew up in Tijuana with only a certificate on her wall that she had completion of an associates degree in Early Childhood education, nothing more. Her daughter came to visit and we really got along. The only problem was that I was fragile. I was a shakey little animal in the middle of a very loud environment, scared and alone... trying my best at the accomplishment of staying afloat, pregnant with my sixth sense in full awareness that my surroundings were not familiar. This woman took advantage of that fact, knew I was from American with a connection to my father who was sending small amounts of money, and tried her best to charge me more than the other students. My sister in law got involved and took her out. I mean that she destroyed her school by weapon of gossip within a month of my childrens' withdraw in November, her school folded and she left town by Christmas. Something to be said for the talk on the street here, with special emphasis on the power of my sister in law and into the family she was married to. The power of who you are, and the lack of patience for excuses with the constant awareness that every peso matters, especially if you plan to be a con artist in a small town and survive.
     The kids were left without a school so we travelled to the USA for a month to give birth to the baby. We came back to enter them into the public school that was up the road from our house, on top of the mountain, only after we visited a few others. This one however was within walking distance, and the start of a lifestyle in the daily hike up the hill, making friends with the neighborhood, being recongnized as the American family as we walked with our umbrella stroller with our new born that everyone was anxious to hold. I was anxious to please, and knew that the custom was to be as friendly (about  babies) as possible with the women in front of the school every morning, but every time someone wanted to hold my new baby I was ready... ready for the chase if they would happen to run off with him. What a lifestyle.
      The director was a older man who spoke English, quite comforting to me. He asked me while registering, if I was going to sew the uniforms myself or buy them. I laughed at first thinking he was trying to joke with me, but he was not, his face was not joking... a new concept for me and acknowledgement of one of the learned natures of the displacement of the feminism that I grew accustomed to being non-existant in this country. We finished up the paperwork without any of the proper documents that were needed, filling in the blanks with the excuse that low and behold - we were American, perhaps figuring it could have potentials to their school without our understanding, to have our mere presence in this tiny little block building with one classroom each grade. The director quit a couple months after and was replaced by a woman.
     Our elementary school has endured the complete turn over of every grade's teacher a few times and perhaps 4 or 5 different directors all within the past five years. Each classroom filled to the maximum amount of students, around 40-45, with no air conditioning. The teacher would stand impatiently in the front of the class, sweat beading on her forehead, and some of them would use a stick to bang on the desk to obtain the attention of the constant chattering of children. Their books were hauled around in their backpacks. If your child was unaware and left his fancy pencil or new erasers on his desk, they would be gone when he turned his head. Papers were tossed on the floor as were pop and water bottles and wrappers from whatever the kids ate in their lunches. The use of the garbage can was not an enforced rule obviously.
       My daughter took the neighbor's kitten in her backpack to school one day, making the children laugh and play... She stuffed it in there in the morning and let it meow throughout the day in class, unnoticed by the maestra, which tells you something if not only describing the constant noise volume during class, but the teacher's disregard for details. The kitten escaped the backpack midday and hid under the bookself. All of the students in the desks surrounding my daughter were having fun with the kitten, but to Leah's downfall, when the neighbor began to search for her lost kitten, many of the children pointed the finger to Leah as the culprit, labelled kitten thief. She tried to lie and say that she found it, as she gave it away to one of her friends from school. In the end she had to retrieve the kitten from its new home and give it back to the rightful owner. The theme of "Mary had a Little Lamb" rings true.
     The past July we paid visit to the school and watched the production of entertainment for the parents as the students of each grade learned and performed a dance complete with costume. The kids only attended the beginning of the last year's grade here, completing the rest of this past school year in America. These were now our familiar faces, the people that we have memories of our daily life of greetings and acknowledgement, watching each other grow and change throughout the years... despite the language differences... they were our people. We cheered from the audience as our "babies" were now graduating from the class that my son should have been attending, watching most of them in their actual graduation as to never attend school any further than elementary, wondering if we would stay in contact, but knowing otherwise.
           I have made three very close friends, mothers of other students, friends enough in that we have visited each other's homes, and accompanied each other to different events. One friend has two daughters that are in the same grades as my two. She was Christian, attended church on days other than Sunday and became my rock in times of fear. We had a hard time in communication, but we understood each other beyond the words, as women. Her place with the Lord that she was so close with served a bigger position in being my friend. We attended a parade in the neighboring town of Zapata that was some type of student day that all of the schools' students were to march. I stayed with my friend and another woman, holding my son, pregnant with another, in the heat, cheering as our children passed by. We went to her mother's house where my friend grew up, after the parade for some food and gossip along with all of the invited teachers and directora of the school. Her place was not only tight with the Lord but also that of a respected amiga of the school's faculty.
    There is a common ground of the saying it is not what you know it is who you know that seems to thrive in Mexico. We have never had the correct documentation to attend their school, nor have we followed the basic rules of attendance. One year my kids missed a full six weeks, only to return to continue as if the interruption never happened. Another year they missed four months of the school year, and again, still retained their B average despite it all. The fact that they were bilingual surpassed most of the teachers capabilities causing their opinion of my children to be that of truly gifted children, despite their lack of memorized multiplication tables. They all did us a favor by passing my children every year, or did they.
    At the end of each year the children are given an exam to check if they learned what was expected of them. My kids usually did well enough to get an eight or nine in most of the sections' scores. The grading is number system, ten being the highest. Ending the first year however, Leah was on her third day of finishing her exam. The rest of the class finished either the first day, or some of them the second... but her lack of Spanish skills caught her during the testing. Examples of skipping the correct procedure are throughout our experience as proven and this one was no exception to that. Because of the fact that the teachers were growing impatient with Leah's delay in completion of the yearly exam, they had her big brother, a grade higher, come into the mix and finish it up for her within a couple hours. This was sign, sealed, and delivered education at its best.
     Remarkably upon readmitance into the public education system in America, with the only accomplishment being kinder and first grades, the children performed their best and shocked me for sure. I asked for them to be place in the grades previous, however the school would not allow it, using the excuse that it would hinder their self confidence, yea, sure it would... Leah continually received perfect scores on her spelling tests and surpassed the book reading quota week after week. She amazed me. Julian had always been the smart one in the life in Mexico and suddenly he was receiving E grades in things like math that previously he surpassed the other students in his knowledge. His teacher complained of his confused stares when she spoke as we dealt with not only severe culture shock, but language issues for the kids. The entire switch not only boggled them, but I as well. They were not given any special treatment or assistance as you would presume in the USA school system, however I was labelled as a bad mother with constant notes from teachers saying that it was my responsibilty to find a solution to the children's faults. I wrote back with notes such as you are getting paid to teach so teach. I found it to be inexcusable to place blame on me and escape what they were hired to do. My feelings on the whole matter boiled down to what they felt as their privilage of the fact that they should be paid for their extra effort, and were not according to the news of cutbacks, or to the fact that they banded together in the faculty lounge to form an alliance to my labelling their school as being uncooperative in the no student left behind motto, turning the finger to be the fault of the parent for not teaching them at home, protecting their own butts. Remembering back to my own childhood, I found that to be absurd and lazy and voiced that to them. The fact that I am putting myself through school myself to obtain a degree to teach enhances that opinion. Never would I project some of the attitudes that I have witnessed from their holier than thou stance at their employment. If there is a child in need, as in missing every single answer on a science quiz, instead of writing in red ink that there should be help at home that it is ridiculous that she missed the whole point of starches including a classroom demonstration with pasta and rice... I would, as a teacher, not write in red ink pointing out how lazy a teacher could get away with being in their own self proclaimed privilage of being an educated individual, but I would take my teaching job seriously and say to the child, do you understand... because is seems as though you do not... how about during recess we will go over this subject so that I am sure that you do understand what I am teaching to you. Hello. That is teaching.
     With our Mexico public school we have experienced the power of another culture along with the appreciation not just of our own people, but that of a different, taking from the both of them our favored moments and opinions of. The kids would most certainly be A students if had never left the USA school system, as that is what they were averaging previously, and comparing to their two older siblings, in honors - gifted programs, and myself when I was their age, I am sure that the two of them would have maintained the same level of achievements. The exchange for the mixture of education, academically, for a wider range of open-mindedness in the world, to me is to far exceed that of the rest of their classmates and is unique and encompasses the realness of life. I am sure with their individually abundant unique capabilities in learning they will catch up with the rest, and in the end be better people from what they have experienced as children. They truly are aware of the fact that there is more to the typical labels of poor and/or privilaged. They comprehend the basic balance of nuturing the social standing to obtain necessities as well as how wonderful it can be to have bathrooms and lunchrooms and books provided in USA schools when most have no appreciation of. Personally I love the fact that I do not have to pay the daily cost of upkeep for the school grounds of two pesos each kid per day or that "my turn" to clean the classroom for a whole week will not cross my schedule in the USA ever ever ever.


    

Wife of a Mexican

      Down to the last week. I have tasted this in the past, and I know what is about to happen. Ricardo and I spent the majority of the first couple weeks finding the safe areas within each other to feel secure enough to open up. We have wonders of each others emotions, if during the time apart we talked to another once too often to fill in that need for someone to be attracted, to feel the sexual side to our souls that we were forced to bury for months at a time, in other words jealousy to everyone and anyone that was there when we could not be... we finally fought for the first time which relieved us of the tip-toe small talk that we encountered with each nightly call. Never could we argue on the phone about anything, for who could be separated for such long durations, with that one call before bed holding such meaning, only to be tossing and turning after an argument and to wake up the next day with extreme anxiety. The result would be facing the children with a smile and the anticipation of that next nightly call even more than usual, with apprehension as to what to expect. It is way too intense, and better to play it safe with "nice" calls every night, partial relationship calls, month after month. It is the life of a wife of a Mexican...
       Our visit started in anxiety but quickly moved on to everyday family life. Once we found that safe spot in where we relate comfortably, not just comfortably, but with appreciation for the other actually being present. To feel the right arm that was previously missing to suddenly reappear of course is a relief in itself, but to actually have him in front of me playing with the kids, and the kids responding as a natural, no time ever passed, bond... or to hear his noises, coughing, sneezing, laughing, anything, in the next room, again in itself a blessing. I washed his clothes, scrubbed his back, shaved his bald head, reorganized the house... we actually lived like a family - even if only briefly. This house is my safe spot. When in labor with our son, a million miles away from here, my house was my happy place to meditate myself into my calm during contractions. The spot of focus was the stairway... why, I do not have any idea. When I am here, it is like the air in my lungs exhales... ahhhhh... I can dream of a bunch of different remodeling directions that I could take this home, but instead, I wait to see our immigration issues unfold. We have no idea of our future, only in that we will be married in it and that we have children.
      This last part of our relationship renewal opportunity vacation is full of deep stares with tears with no words. We develop a sense of the other while standing close, as if in appreciation to this moment being gone soon, trying to hold on to that precious presence of someone that you love that you know will be gone the day after the next, when I will one day catch my breath and look around only to realize that its over, that it was all in memory, my husband and family are now only something that I can dream of, not hold or touch, just like an ironic joke. I am at the point now where I am planning my remaining weeks of school work around the last few days being computer free, because I know that I will be absorbed in our last few moments. I have figured it all out. I plan to complete some of that last week's work when I get back to Pennsylvania, to the big unorganized desk that I have been sitting at since last October, fighting immigration wars with words to myself and new friends, learning, growing, watching and listening.
       Today an interesting article with Obama once again silver tongue to us that are desperate for relief and reform, desperate for family unity,  and desperate for our children to be reissued their rights. They deserve to feel the security that is owed to them from their country. I read with hope and disbelief. I personally doubt the total turn over that is needed, or that the fact that many of us need so much more than the basic acknowledgement. By all standards this is certainly a first in this immigration game. Still,  we are waiting for an actual intelligent, meaningful statement that will give us back what was taken... even if that will not be possible, an attempt or better yet some type of recouping of our lives with rewards that can surely only ever be in a fantasy for sure. Still, how can your replace the time or years taken, it cannot be done.
       In this article those which are listed to benefit from his new idea are those categories that should in their new thought process be spared the deportation, as if the sudden enlightenment and official mention of, has somehow redeemed their efforts to destroy us. In the end, if ever to be an end, we would be bound to saying thank you for those who donated their lives for the fight in this war and if we ever won, as if they were the casualities that deserve more. We will surely never see anything of tribute or trophey but only that of a memory in the minds of those who struggled along side with them. The countless and endless petitions and articles of women, infants and children being imprisoned in Texas detention centers, to protests by angry Dream Act eligible youth that have lived in the USA since before they could walk, to the father that was killed or the father that killed himself with ICE wearing their blood, to the thousands of American children left in state custody, parent less, because they were American and their undocumented parents were taken from them and deported. Lets not forget the elderly man that died in custody after decades of living as a barber in the USA, or the gay couple of lawyer and professional salsa dancer that brought media to their plight, to the close friends in our own circle that cry, and laugh with each other late night while wondering what will happen to their lives in the end - all of us causalities, some of us loosing more than we could ever be repaid. And what dedication will be made in the honor to those who have already lost? I guess that we can simply be chalked up to one description made clear as Obama states in what the new guidelines hold as, "the policy change is meant as a framework to help prevent non-priority undocumented immigrants from 'clogging the system'" as if we are all nothing more than a bunch of damn hair balls. I resent that. We are some of the most patriotic intelligent people that this country has to offer.
       Perhaps this is a start. Maybe we will be witness to more talk and more articles in the future, as has always been expected. There of course are too many of us to ignore. I am in hopes for our pain to be remembered as that of valiant heros, fighting a war of immoral injustice with our computers, with our words, with our calls to the politicians and letters that get lame responses. I wonder if ALEC members will ever feel the guilt that their personal collection of pennies are laced with our dried blood in the engravings of the Lincoln Memorial on their tails. I am going to have to say no, that they will not.
     The next generation will be our children, those who have been through this from the position of their young tiny height looking up at the adults with curious eyes. At that moment we will be redeemed in some way. The plight of our days, our months apart. As we wrap up our family visit, my son has now fully recovered from the anger that he faced. At three and a half years, a boy does not understand his father's voice on the phone that says I love you, it is not my decision to not be there with you. No instead the waiting turns into unhealthy emotional issues. We are arriving to that place once more with a fresh batch of love to tied us all over for awhile, how long, no one knows. But the life of a wife of a Mexican now a days is only to be appreciated from her own kind... those who walk in the same shoes, as fellow Americans.

In Mexico w/o my health, my English, or my mommy...

      I am the type that likes to experience more pain, like hair pulling pain or pounding on my leg pain or some type of distraction from the illness, when the time comes, that I may be plagued with. I wish for my mom to run her fingers though my hair, scratching the skin of my scalp along the way, as I lay there pueking. To be sprawled across a hard tile bathroom floor next to an air vent blowing on my nose that smells like damp concrete coming from a basement, gives me more comfort than a bed would; that is as long as the sound of running water was soothing my ears. When I have a headache I need to be cold, with a clean bleached line dried sheet to give me the correct placement in my mind to work on my feelings of health, mind over matter. If acupuncture were to be offered, I confess, I would make a good candidate. The intensity of the needle pricks would send well invited chills throughout my body. Or perhaps an out of body experience in which I could float above my own self and go out of the window in search of a breezy hillside with long grassed fields of flowers and crickets and lady bugs and big stones with fresh moss that grew on the shady sides clinging to the stone with its sturdy hard cold surface, that is where I would find my peace. A big oak tree with branches that encompassed that same field would give me a place to nap, right in the nook of one of the largest branches, with its rough bark pushing in on my facial skin as I rest in its arms. Then I would feel better. Escaping through imagination is an important part of making the hike up the dreaded path of being sick.... escaping... going to my childhood porcelain bathtub and the dark blue checked tile with the angel wallpaper, or were they Greek goddesses, either way, they were my protection.
       I walked past the bucket that was sitting in the mid-morning sun and looked down to see the fish, maybe a dozen, about as long as a size-seven shoe. They were whole, as if just been caught, but I had not noticed anyone mentioning a fishing trip recently, and found out later to be purchased from a street vendor, with a rate of God only knows how long they have been dead. I briefly wondered why they were there, out in the courtyard, unprotected from the sun. Of course I did not take the time to ask, because it is the little things like that that I avoid due to the language barrier. It is hard to convey the exact word, combined with the perfect attitude, as to not provoke a defensive comeback as to why I may seem to be correcting their actions as to leaving fish sit in a bucket in the sun. I let it go and continued on my way through the courtyard to the hallway that led to the backyard where the shower room was located and did what I had to do within my own focus, like a good woman.
        The decision to take a long drive to a neighboring town was mentioned and it excited me for the opportunity to add to the photo collection of the Jalisco countryside that the roads wrapped through. Ricardo enjoys wearing shoes that are made of leather and weaved rope, resembling the look of a tightly pulled hammock. I do not bring insult to the continuation of the annual purchase, each white roped shoe replacing the worn leather and grey rope of the last, the exact pattern year after year, same buckle, same cut out sole with the tiny nails around the perimeter. I cannot say that I am embarrassed in any way to walk with him with these shoes, as quite honestly they make him look attractive in a thrifty comfortable exotic sort of fashion. Right next to the pile of shoes were the neatly stacked cowboy hats that had one sort of teetering on the top, obviously misplaced in the style from the others. My daughter snagged it up as she noticed my eyes on it while I attempted to swing the umbrella stroller with the baby into a side area and place the brake lock on. She put the hat on my head and said "that is so you mom." It fit perfect. Around the middle are beads of blue and tan with a light colored weaved straw material, something that struck my self indulging side and I needed it instantly. My son translated to the store owner of the price which is more than I would ever spend on myself while in Mexico, $150 pesos can feed our family for two days if not longer, but I just had that feeling, that voice, telling me, "do something for yourself for once foolish girl, you are no spring chicken, enjoy!" Ricardo did not seem to mind throwing the hat in with the shoe purchase, so that made it all the more ridiculously enjoyable to walk out of the store with it, down the long hacienda style walk of side by side stores, looking over at the town's central park through the arch-ways between pillars as I walked, pushing a stroller, with my shades and new hat. Now I was truly "in Mexico".
        When we got back to the house of my in-laws I was hungry of course and was told to go eat. Yes there is never a polite invitation as "would you like to?" It always comes in more of a "for what you are not eating right now?! Co-mmmaaaaaeee (Come) ...so that instruction is really never a difficult request to respond immediately to for me, because I love food. The meals are based on the time schedule of morning, pile it in as much as will fit, it has to last till mid-day, upon which is the big meal of the day, again that you binge like it is that last food for miles. Sometimes if you are lucky there is a snack towards eight or nine in the evening. If it is taquitos, you have just lucked out, especially if you get tons of guero chiles cooked on the grill, my favorite. The variety of snacks from the camote sweet potato topped with lechera or the sugar rolled churro, or the pica salsa verde Oaxaquenos can find a friend to your tongue's mood. Usually it is some type of pan, or danish of the Mexican style, sugar spared, top with swirls of cajeta or meil, then wash that down with some milk, or leche, or some tea of one of the various plants' leaves from the backyard boiled in water on the stove, and there you go, ready for bed.
      His sister tells me to pick up a bowl on the way over to the stove that she was mandating, serving spoon in hand. She was sitting in the kitchen early that morning cutting up vegetables at the table, around 7 a.m., with her hair up and sleeping clothes still on by herself. I walked in half asleep to try much luck at tipping the giant drinking water bottle that nestled in the metal bracket sling that permitted the water to be poured out without having to pick the heavy container up off of the ground. Sometimes it was difficult to tip it just enough to only fill a cup full, for it required control of the heaviness of the weight plus the correct momentum on the tilt. I choked down two Advil that I was desperate for. I woke up with a broken neck apparently some wild dream I must of had knocked me into my 40's and my muscles and spine did not agree, because I could not move my head. I spilled a bunch of water in the process of tipping the jug to get my small amount needed accomplished, with a smile, a simple "hi" (I gave up on trying to be the American gone espanol switch over and have recently accepted that things come out of my mouth for a reason, justified with the fact that I am busting my butt to get my online teacher degree, works for me.)
     It is hot. The kitchen has sweat shop written all over it, but I am hungry. I proceed to the stove and looking down on the huge metal serving spoon that his sister was heading toward my bowl in hand is a fish head, eyes and all, among some type of red colored broth and I seemed to be making out, what is that, a whole shrimp with his stabby looking head and black wet nub eyes.... I made a face and said oh no, no, no gracias no...los ojos, oh no no... los ojos meaning the eyes on that spoon are a little too much for me to consume, even politely. So she retreats back to her own place at the table and hands me the spoon to fend for myself. I try to dig through the broth to find at least a side of a dismembered body of one of the fish, thinking that I could try scraping the skin off and getting a bit of meat from, at least so that I can act as though I am enjoying myself at the table with everyone. I even threw in a few shrimp. The stew was actually made with chiles and had my luck at some floating around so I snatched a few of those. The pot next to it had the cooked cubed vegetables from the morning, and in the pan was rice with slices of chile. I put a heaping spoonful of each onto my broth and mixed it around with my spoon once I was at the table seated with everyone. It would have been real swell to have one of those cool mist dispensing machines it was so hot, but no.
      I was hungry and the dish was a little too much work. It felt as though I were trying to eat with chopsticks, the same "come-on" and want feelings that I want to throw them down and grab for a fork moment that hits. I could not really find a way to escape the frustration though, so I continued to pick all of the little fish ribs from the mix of vegetables and rice that seemed to find their way out of the fishes' bodies and into the broth. I peeled the shrimp legs and skin and snapped the heads off and ate one one of those, and even picked some of the meat from one of the body halves of fish that I had spooned out onto a plate beside my bowl, to my disappointment the meat was so tightly infused with the skin of the fish that it would not peel off, so I just ate it. I glanced around the table and everyone else was chomping down the whole shrimp, including my husband who reminded me of a raccoon funny enough, eating that shrimp in that way, head and all... I justified the whole thing as that it must have many good health qualities for our bodies.
       Then the burning started. I did not pick on anyone that day enough to deserve that beating. We were packing the car with our luggage and plastic bags of shoes and wet towels and dirty clothes and pillows and whatever else comforts four children on a two week trip to grandma's house. It was our planned night of driving back all night, while the kids were sleeping in the back of the van, for the 6-9 hour trip from Jalisco to Cuernavaca. I informed Ricardo that I was not feeling too well.
       We continued to pack the van, at a pace that said that we were in no hurry, just half of our determination was being dealt out in the organizing and cramming of the bags, for we figured we could just throw it into the house when we were back at our condo throughout the following day without any type of pressure. I felt bad and told Ricardo that something is really wrong with me, my stomach is on fire. He asked me to point where the pain was located on my stomach and I showed him in between the nook of the ribs, the actual stomach cavity. His mom decided to make an oatmeal shake for me. Ricardo blamed it on my coffee habit and my daily over-indulgent consumption of hot chiles, which is a personal weakness. Everyone was sitting around talking and laughing, knowing that this was our last few hours. I went to the kitchen to drink down the potion of cure. I immediately felt something and ran to the bathroom and pueked. I told Ricardo "vomito" and asked him to keep watch on the babies while I would try to get over it for thirty minutes and rest on the bed.
          There was a mood of the final count down to the fact that the van was packed and the anticipation of our trip that touched all that were there to visit us, which was roughly fifteen or sixteen more people adding to our already fourteen in the house. There was Spanish conversation and shouts flying through the air giving me uncomfortable hot feelings and irritations, and kids chasing each other around, screaming and giggling too close to the other side of the closed door in the room in which I was really trying to mentally go to my childhood happy place so as to talk myself into being full of health. Their loud voices were in my respected air space and no one seemed to understand that I was trying to do something important, something that required intense concentration, rest for the trip and talk myself out of being sick. I ran to the bathroom again, this time it was worse.
        I grabbed a bucket on my way back to the bedroom this time, probably the same damn bucket those fish were in that mid-morning, You know, you would think that I would have learned my lesson by now. The week before, my father in law's 8o year old brother, brought in enough meat for a small army and it was stewed as chunks in some type of Mexican red sauce. It pleased me greatly to have an endless amount of meat on my plate after eating different variations of beans and vegetable meals for days, so I devoured a bunch as did everyone else. But when I noticed that the same pot was on the stove the next morning, at a rapid boil, and then still sitting in the same spot that afternoon for dinner, and then the next day, without being refrigerated once, I felt like I may have been singled out in my own quiet determination of talking myself into whatever reality that everyone else was in that said that this was ok. I have been on my death bed more than once on these visits. My stomach cannot handle the same things as what everyone is used to. You would think I would learn.
I do not want to sound arrogant towards different lifestyles. I am explaining from my point of view as I went through my day. A point of view that is from a woman that grew up in the outskirts of Pittsburgh with enough Aqua-net to coax my hair into a huge mane in the 80's, in a house that plopping down on the shag rug in from the the HBO that was on TV to enjoy a movie while eating a heaping bowl of Captain Crunch in the middle of the afternoon, without having to ask for permission from anyone, just because that is what I felt like doing... is how I formed my views on living. A bottle of Pepsi in the fridge, or a huge bag of Doritos on the counter was not considered a treat that needed to be monitored, it was just an available part of the array of common kitchen items.
         Food poison has had its way with me in Mexico. There is a restaurant, plastic chairs and tables in a concrete block garage on the corner, that serves al pastor, a block from our place within walking distance. We had the best basic pig out a few years ago, equipped with three different salsas, endless supply of warm tortillas, 'Boing' in a glass bottle (my favorite flavor guayaba, of course), and a plate of fresh crisp radish. I was the only one... The only one to have instant issues from the food out of the whole family that ate from the same heaping dish of meat that sat in the middle of the table. The question that bothered us, was why not all of us? The Dr. Simi hired physician at the local pharmacy explained to us that some people are more susceptible than others, especially since I have spent my entire life accustomed to a certain vacuum-packed sterile food, my stomach was now lazy to the necessary strength that it needed to handle most foods here in Mexico. My husband on the other hand is blessed with this type of stomach and so are my children, even though American, started out eating here young enough to only be affected before the age of two years. Great, an explanation.
It makes sense when I see how my mom treats meat, as though it were equally naughty to her private underclothes, out on the counter. She swipes it underhanded to a place of concealment without a sound. Into the fridge, a bit annoying, for I am usually, as in 99% of the time, the chef, when we are at the house of my father. My mother will helicopter over me in the kitchen while I cook, to be sure if meat is involved in the mix, it is in the refrigerator, piece by piece, as I cook it. Her peeve is thawing meat in the sink. My daily morning routine of taking the meat out for dinner to thaw in the double sink is forever being interrupted, for at the needed time, the frozen meat that was not given time to thaw, foils the attempt of an organized, prompt mealtime. The food is finished and immediately she plastic wraps and refrigerates anything not finished from the pan even before she will sit down to eat. She is fanatical about meat. So then makes sense to me when I discover the possibility of my stomach having the personality of a pampered princess child.
       I sit on the edge of the bed, at this time Ricardo has cancelled the trip home, obvious to the fact that I was not going to be the ideal companion with a man who was on a mission to make it to the destination that much quicker than the last attempt, in less time than it should take, with few stops as possible, as most men do. I am pressing my face to the blue painted concrete block wall of the bedroom in between throwing the bucket up to my face to rid more of those damn vegetables that I could still picture her cutting at the table that morning with my broken neck, half asleep. It was now dark out, maybe 9 p.m. The guests were carrying on, talking and laughing in the next room, right on the other side of the wall that I was making out with. It was something about the smell of that cold concrete and paint that was aiding me, dramatic as it may have appeared for me to be so passionate to a wall, instead of being normal and holding onto a pillow or blanket. His sister and mom and even his brother made their twenty-one trips in to advise Ricardo on what to do with his sickly wife. I would anticipate them walking out after each conclusion that there would be no conversation from either of us, me with the wall, holding the bucket, and him with his usual, eyes glued to the TV that I insisted he put on mute. I could not handle that novela and the unfamiliarity of being in my condition with the Spanish language encircling my mind, it was just too much of an opposite of my childhood home and mom that I longed for at that moment. The very second that they would turn for the door, giving up, and walking out concluding each time that they made their point of caring about my illness, I would let it go into the bucket again, delirious with the sharp burning explosive pains that were happening in my stomach, but aware enough to be embarrassed at people watching me hurl.
         I had a stab in my lower stomach and then I gave in to the idea that his mom was insisting of going to the doctor. My son was sick (with food poisoning) years before with diarrhea and a high fever when he was just a baby. We were visiting, so we went to several doctors, all giving us different conclusions, but nothing working. At two in the morning one night, I said "Ricardo, if I was in the USA right now, I would be taking him to the emergency room. It is not normal for a baby to have diarrhea and a fever for so many days, or rather weeks." We had even seen a woman who gave him a belly massage with some magic oil potion for three days in a row, nothing was working. We bundled him up and went to the doctor's office at 2a.m., after I assured him I would not drop the subject, and his mom came with us. I was told to not talk (American money dollar signs would be sniffed out) so they did all of the talking while I sat with a stupid worried mom look on my face. The office of the doctor was built with his home behind the door in the hallway, as many private practices (and family owned stores) are in Mexico, so the doctor looked half asleep, which I am sure he was literally. He gave the baby a couple injections, which is custom to treatment, and charged us 800 pesos. The comparison is that the doctor that we usually go to around the corner from my house is a 25 peso fee for consultation. When I was pregnant, and had a sonogram at the doctor's office in the city, it was 200 pesos. I remembered this, therefore for me to decide on the doctor at this point, knowing that we only had $300 dollars to get us through another month, is what you might say desperate for relief. I was not nauseated and did not have diarrhea, but was with severe burning eruptions of hot lava. It scared me because of the past experience of being hospitalized some time ago in Mexico. It scared me more than the actual pain. The memory of the past that changed my opinion of the free spirit life of living in Mexico, the exotic experience, the reality of medical customs and the near death, good-bye world moment.
       The reminding feeling of my stomach hurting took me to a previous moment, that similar burning feeling that went on for days, and me brushing it off as too much chile or indigestion of some type. The pain woke me up one night around four in the morning. When my eyes first opened, I had to focus on where I was. The few weeks during our transitions, it is hard for me tell immediately where I am at when I wake. As I conversed with myself I realized in a calm acceptance that something was majorly wrong with my body, perhaps my appendix? I rolled off of the mattress onto the floor where Ricardo was sleeping and whispered to him that I was not ok. We held each other for awhile. The baby was asleep and moments like this were rare, a treasure. I had only been back in Mexico a few days. We arrived in Guadalajara that Wednesday and spent the rest of the week with his family. It was now Monday. After a 7 hour drive over the weekend, we were in now in our condo in Cuernavaca. The previous Monday we flew from Pennsylvania to San Diego, spent the day with my sister, and then taxi-vanned our way over to Tijuana to take a flight into Guadalajara where we met Ricardo who had been visiting his parents for the week. This gave us the opportunity to show off our new baby daughter who was now 7 weeks, his mother's name of Socorro as the baby's middle name, a special introduction. The kids and I were in the United States since Christmas day and it was now the beginning of April, the baby's birth occurring in February, two weeks past the given due date. We were so happy to be in each others' arms finally. When we are apart, our nightly phone calls lack in showing expression for our emotions and after spending the last month of our pregnancy and birth of our daughter apart, we needed to be close. The baby was asleep. We had sex and then he made some tea for me. It was some ancient Indian potion, is what I call it, for bad nerves that he bought to calm himself while we were gone as he was depressed and alone, waiting for our return. It was made of tree bark and it tasted bitter and sour and gross. He felt that my stomach issues were only wrecked nerves due to all of the travel, but the special tea did not stop my stomach burning. We decided to try to find an early morning doctor somewhere.
       It was 6a.m. on a Monday. Doctors offices opened at eight or nine, so we loaded all the 4 kids into the van and drove over to his sisters house about ten minutes away. The pain was increasing, but not to the point of being unbearable, just an annoying painful burning in my stomach and lower right side, but I was still able to smile. I knew it was an appendix and I do not know why I knew, it was just a voice in my head. My sister in law called her doctor friend of the family, while everyone ate breakfast, and then we all piled back in the van to go to see the doctor. His office was about 20 minutes of a drive away, and although I knew him from holidays and get togethers, I never visited his office, so I was not real sure where we were going. All that I knew is that my pain was increasing. I had tears in my eyes when we arrived at his office thirty minutes later. Ricardo had a panic look in his eye. The doctor said it was my appendix and typed up a prescription diagnosis for us to take onward to the hospital. It was serious.
       My husband drove as though he was in a dune-buggy over the speed bumps and curves and narrow spaces that the van barely fit through during morning traffic. Everyone was in a hurry, and Mexico traffic is more like an audience in a boxing arena. I let out little squeaks and squeals at every jar of the car hitting the curves and bumps. We slammed into the front row of the hospital and raced in to the ER. They calmly told us to take a number and have a seat. The number that we had to wait for was #11.
        Ricardo stood by me on the seat with my face buried into his stomach, his shirt, quietly crying. My kids hovered around his sister across from us. Almost every seat in the huge room was occupied, watching us. I nursed our baby in the van on the way there, as to be sure that she got her last fill of milk and she would be ok for at least an hour or two. My husband has a bit of a temper, and a definite issue with protection over his family. It was all just too much for him to be told to wait until he burst opened the examination room door and rambled quick face slaps of Spanish jibber to the surprised doctors that were tending to a couple different patients. The nurse quickly pushed him out, but they took me in to the other room, gave me a nightgown, and told me to undress into it. They pushed around on my stomach and told me to rest on a cot in among a dozen of already occupied cots in a relatively small room. All of the other people seemed to be old, older than me, by at least 15 years. The doctors and nurses all young, at least 15 years younger than I. Ricardo sat and held my hand while I stared at the ceiling trying to concentrate on not totally freaking out. I was not offered any type of pain medication and the pain was intense. Tears streamed down from the corners of my eyes into my hair. Ricardo told me I love you, and I figured I must look like bad, was that his last words, because he never used to tell me that. I felt it pop inside of my lower abdomen; the pop of my appendix bursting it infection through my body. I felt it and I let out a scream, followed by my hands gripping my face as to keep in the rest of the pain that I felt like letting out in this very public room. The doctor did not even look up from his desk. Ricardo yelled over, and he sluggishly came over with the xray results. He rambled a bunch of things to Ricardo and left. What was wrong, did you tell him, help me Ricardo.... he said you have gas.
There was not anyone who spoke English or even attempted to. Ricardo was not allowed to stay with me, but was told that they would know in a couple hours when the tests came back from the lab from the blood and urine (that I had to give in the cot in a bed pan with the blankets pulled over, no privacy curtain) He left me there to tend to the kids and to take them to his sister's house to eat, stopping to purchase a bottle and formula for the baby. As time went by I got worse. The sharp intense pain spread over my entire body from my entire abdomen into my chest and settling into my collarbone area for some reason. I tried to catch the eye of every nurse and doctor that walked by me as they tended to the other patients. I would say I'm not ok, please help me. No one did. Some of the nurses would come over, and then listen to my whispers of broken Spanish trying to explain that I was not a mamilia, that yo tengo seis bebes y dolor es no problemo but this was muy mal... maybe they did not understand that. Staring at the bag hung above me of IV water, I asked the nurse what it was, her answer being agua. I deviously planned to hijack the tube from by arm and suck down the water for the thirst that I was experiencing was that fierce. I asked for a cloth with water, ice chips, something... I just got guilty polite smiles with a head shaking no for an answer. I was dying and I knew it.
       The last time Ricardo was there was at noon, which was following the pop of the infected appendix. It was now 7 pm. Ricardo came in. By this time my appearance had gone from a woman in pain earlier when he was there, to a very delirious person on her death bed. I said get me out of here I am going to die Ricardo, they do not care. Even the other patients, the old guy in the corner, brought it to the doctors attention that I was not ok. They were busy or something.
      We planned the escape. Ok we can go back to the doctor friend, get some pain pills and then go to another hospital. Or we can go to the other hospital... either way I wanted some pain pills. This pain was worse than childbirth with 5 all natural childbirths and one c-section notched in my belt I felt like a professional in the opinion of pain scale rate. A person knows when they are at the edge between life and death. Sounds funny to say now that it is in the past, true as it was. It is sort of an acceptance that it is over. When there is extreme pain, it is an anticipated relief... death.
       Ricardo called his sister to tell her to get a hold of the doctor friend, that we were on our way to get a prescription for pain meds. We told her of the plan that was relayed to us of my treatment and that was to spend the night on that cot, and they were talking of a transfer at noon to another hospital to receive some tests. I would be dead by then in a Spanish speaking world. His sister called the doctor friend. He was angry. The doctor made a call to the hospital personally telling them that I was the wife of the very dear family friend. Three older senior doctors were at my side within moments that spoke English. The said we are going to give you surgery. I said what time, and they said right now. I was so happy, I said thank you. Imagine that. It took someone to call so that I would be here right now to write about it with my children sleeping on the floor in front of me. Almost blows my mind.
       I was wheeled through the maze of halls to the elevator to the operating area. The boof that was pushing me bumped into a corner, Ricardo yelled at him, baboso. He is this fatherly figure to people on the street, reprimanding them as if they were a small child, even if they are a foot taller than he is. He amazed me with his stance that he took. He was to stay behind at the swinging private doors. The hallway was cluttered with miscellaneous surgical items, with doors open to dark room in which operations on people that I did not know were being taken place. I could see the naked legs and the bright light shining on the body with the surgical tools and white sheets and doctors all standing around with masks. I wondered if it was morally right for me to be catching sight of that personal moment. Then I wondered if my own naked body would be a vision for whoever walked by. At that point the wonder and the care to do anything about it was only surface entertainment for my mind that focused on the possibility of the end of the pain or of my own breathing, one or the other, either of which would have been better than the moment.
       A boy doctor with blonde hair and glasses came over to me ans spoke perfect English. He wore a white doctor coat and pants and carried a chart in his arm. He said to me "We are going to perform surgery now. We will open your stomach and see what is making the pain happen for you. You will be sleeping after for some time. Can you sign these papers for our permission?" I was delirious enough to say to him "You look like my son," a comforting moment for me, truly. A nurse preparing the operating table was talking to the doctor and she was asking about me, in Spanish. I have learned that reading facial expressions goes a long way after years of living surrounded by people that you do not understand. I heard her ask why I was so relaxed. That made me feel brave. They pulled the wheelchair over to the table. I stepped up on the step stool in my bare feet, sat down on the operating table and bumped my head on the light overhead, bend my neck around so that I could lay down and place my arms in the brackets that made me into a Jesus. They put a mask on my mouth and the English boy doctor said you will fall asleep now. The medication went into my body like dye in a jug of water, so smooth and delightful, I had to share. Pulling the mask from my face, I told those Spanish medicals surrounding my operating table in my best English, "it doesn't hurt anymore..." and I fell asleep.
       My nose was itchy. Where was I? My hand ran across my stomach, there were two huge bulges of wound bandages. What would the reason be for two? I could swear the guy across from me was laughing at me, to the point where i was offended and annoyed. Was the fact that I was out of it so funny that you would laugh at me helpless caught in this bed? I realized I was seeing things due to the drugs of the operation. The nurse wheeled me out to Ricardo waiting. I was still alive, yeah!
       The doctor told us of the two hour very complicated surgery that they had to wash out my whole insides; such a nice thought. I was stuck in that hospital for 5 days. Nurses are not to help you. They are there only to change your bandages, IVs, and all of those types of things. If I needed to go to the bathroom, that was Ricardo's responsibility. If he was not there, I waited until he was. The bathroom was a good 10 minute walk, of course at a slow post operation pace, hunched over grabbing on for dear life. My bed was a plastic mat about 2-3 inches thick. There was no air condition, and the plastic made it worse. The bed did not raise up. So I lay flat on my back, looking up. There was no TV. There was no food or water for me for 4 days. My head hurt so bad. I could hear screams in other rooms echoing down the halls. The lady next to me endured surgery 3 times that month. They just kept taking organs out until they figured out what was wrong with her. I wished the best for her. She had a 10 month old baby waiting for her at home. Her mom fed me jello on the sly one day... spoon fed me... a stranger.
        I finally showered with Ricardo's help in the shower room. It was ironic for me. I made jokes before I left Pennsylvania that Ricardo was not going to see my body in the light because of my 10 pound baby stretching out my skin and the fat just hung there like a deflated parachute... and here he was showering me, washing me hair, helping me move in every way shape and form for an entire 5 day stay. My boobs were leaking everywhere, my gowns were wet, but I never really noticed for the pain was still there, but this time it was from the surgery. I had a scar from my bikini line to my belly-button, and a hole in the side with a tube sticking out of me, leaking out any remaining pus from the infection, how gross. The tube was pulled out the last hour of my stay, by a boy that was an aide of some type. He was so busy flirting with the nurse in the room that he just yanked it out... about threw me through the ceiling. The whole thing cost a total of $149 dollars. What a bargain.
       So much for comfort zones when you are not ok in another country. Everything that you are accustomed to, the things that lull you into the state of mind to overcome the pain... all gone. You are dealing with raw. And there is no turning back.
Yes, this memory plays on me now when anything feels bad. Four months after that experience my two year old had sharp pains in his stomach and when the doctor said appendix I almost lost it. My husband pulled up to that same hospital and I screamed no no not here. We went across the street to a children's hospital that was supposedly more expensive, but I insisted because of my memory. It turned out to be just clogged bowels, but it was the threat of the abuse and not the actual abuse so to speak that freaked me out. That is my baby. Changed a lot about my need for residency in Mexico and the reality of fighting for Ricardo's paper in the USA became that much more of a determined goal at that very moment.
Memories play tricks on a mind, especially when sick. So back to Jalisco and the whole fish in the bucket food poison, which that is all it turned out to be. We went to the doctor and she performed a sonogram and said that everything was horribly "inflamado" and of course it was my fault, (as a woman in a country that has not found women's lib- how dare I cause such a dramatic episode) for eating way too much chile, for now I seem to have colitis....
       This doctor was wrong and even though the injection of pain medication that I received on the spot really did wonders, we made the long trip home the next day, living on pain meds, and worth the 300 pesos. I started to get the chills and sweats and hyper sensitive skin and achy muscle thing and I slept almost non stop... I knew that I did not have colitis, especially when I googled it. I had food poison. We went to the doctor here, that knows us, as we are there every other week, and he confirmed it to my unbelieving husband that it was indeed from the food. HA is all I had to say. It wasn't my chile or my terrible coffee habit, or the pepsi that I crave sometimes... it was in fact the fish.
He is still in denial.

Cut the Cord Already!

My mind. What a work of art. One huge canvas of chicken scratch.
The first year we spent in Mexico we had some hardships. To keep it basic, we were living in poverty, pregnant, did not know any Spanish, and I had two kids to keep afloat.
Ricardo had the hardship of the acceptance of his family. He goes to America and brings back an instant family foreign people who call him their own. Who was this woman with so much experience at life that would dare to take advantage of such a young guapo with endless opportunity for what the culture and family would expect of him. He was not following the rules. There are rules about who makes the rules and who breaks them. Obviously we broke a big one. Our first year was nothing more than getting kicked around and waiting it out to receive the verdict.
Our poverty. Let's see... how do I show you. I now was the proud owner of a brick condo with nothing in it except for a sink in the corner of the kitchen that was attached to the wall with it's own plumbing of visible pipes running out into the outdoor wash room through a hole drilled in the brick. My clothes washing fixture was nothing more than a washboard built into one side of the sink, about a foot wide, 4 inches deep and on the other side, more of a tub that was roughly 8 inches deep, 8 inches across and over a foot in length. This is where I spent my pregnancy, with a bleached out, stretched out tank top, soaking wet from pregnant belly down to my knees, in bare feet, scrubbing my family's clothes with a floor scrubber for hours a day in cold water. This consumed my time in my first year. Only to ring them and carry them to the roof to hang. My timing had to be right. If they did not dry, I had to start over or they would smell like mildew.
After the birth of Eliott, I could not sit properly for a year because damage to my lower back. It felt like my tail bone was broken. I do not know why because I did not have the opportunity to find out.
My 7 year old son had his own room in Florida with a whole library of books, his own playstation with games, a bike, and all of those normal American boy things; even though we were not wealthy for I was just a single mom. The first year in Mexico, he had to use his imagination for entertainment. The woman who lived in the condo before us left a bunch of empty shoeboxes. My son made one of these shoe boxes his personal space. In it there was a piece of colored paper, a marble, a couple pretty rocks, a key that went to nothing, a feather, and some other little pieces of little boy treasures... all of them he found on the ground outside over time. That was all that he had for toys. He gave up everything to be here as did I.
My daughter learned how to copy her friends' papers in class. She did not pick up on the entire language of Spanish as quickly as her brother as he was a year older. Her social skills took the lead in her attempt to find her place in society. She never did find it in her to give up her American side, for her wish has always been to return. She is fond of her friends, but she likes things and things are not available to her in a place where things are only for the wealthy and the citizen. The truth of being a foreigner is that when you do bring the things with you, there is someone without the things that will take them as soon as you are not there to guard them. Sleeping at her cousins upon return of a trip to the US, she found her stuffed animals on the girls' beds. We have found that the English books are the only things that are safe. English is sought after by most, but in our family it is related to me-the rule breaker- so it does not bring such an attraction to them.
My nephew recently stated that he will choose his aunt and uncle that are Jehovas Witness to stand for him in his holy confirmation. For one, I doubt that is possible. My husband has always been his padrino. But what he said to him was you were not married in a church so I am asking them instead. What he is really saying is that you are married to that foreign rule breaker. I hope that he does not need anything when he is older from his American citizen uncle and his rule breaking wife in the future. Especially since it has been my van that has driven him to church every Sunday and many soccer practices and games. Yea, appreciation, labelling, and following the chismas of parents all seem to carry into that conversation.
I am not here for proof of how I can do it. I am over that and have been a long time now. Since then I have not only mastered my little world of tortillas and bean meals, but have found my own place in my world here. I am not so needy and matter of fact I could make it here on my own at this point. Who was once the rule breaker is fighting to be the rule maker. Who needs who here. If it is true that I am out of my place, then prove it by walking away, OR shut up and get over it.
My husband has developed a self concept that he can see how I see him now, instead of the position of slave through their eyes. The only thing that needs to happen now is the cut. The healthy stand of claiming his own place in the world away from the rules. He has started within himself, but it is time to let them feel the rip.
Respect works both ways.
We were making some headway until we left for the past 8 months. In that amount of time, he is back to making decisions only, I repeat only with their rules as to what they need before his own family's needs. He is brainwashed one more time into a self-concept of slavery to their needs.
One more family that cannot lead a normal life. I am at the end of my patience for it all. I am thinking of  moving our living location and just let life carry us to the next stage and see if he will join us or stay with his keepers. I cannot breathe in this current set up.
Maybe TJ is the answer for the kids and I. At least there is a beach. Sell the condo, and go. If he wants to live with his sister than so be it.

Happy Anniversary

We were always together. Yes we had those separation issues in between long drawn out regular life together that would throw us off a little… but for the most part we were always together. Living in Mexico with a tourist visa that expires every 6 months with so many children can become quite an expensive lifestyle over the years. Now it is time to slow down and stop the fight for our marriage. It is funny that today is our anniversary and we are 2,000 miles apart. When we were married in the courthouse it fell roughly a week before one of our visa expirations, so our honeymoon era consisted of calls from a Pennsylvania phone to Mexico. We were separated 5 months then because of the strike in the schools in our state in Mexico. The kids attended the first part of the school year in a school in PA from my sister’s house. They stayed with her during the week and came home to me on the weekends. We were avoiding the school district close to my father’s house, where I was at, because of their real father was randomly knocking on the door, so I was constantly having to duck away from the windows despite the permanent restraint order and loss of parental rights to my children. The police were finally notified, and even though they didn’t do anything, he is known by most of them either by acquaintance, or pouring their concrete, or because his whole family is in and out of jail due to public indecencies and confrontations. His cousin works in the school administration building, and at the time I just wasn’t strong enough to deal with him. So we arranged for them to stay with my sister in the city and me on the weekends to save ourselves from being sucked into any drama. I lived in a pack of cigarettes, burdened with extreme anxiety. The next year we only left Ricardo’s side for a 2 week interval, which ended up as a nice visit to see my family, including my 2 children who live permanently in Pennsylvania near my parents. I was pregnant at the time, and it was a secret because our life was really frowned on by certain people, especially for me to be popping out another child. So next time I returned was to give birth. My kids were set up in the dining room with their cyber school and we finally made it back to Mexico after 3 months. My husband has missed both of our babies’ births, first steps, and many other things that most couples take for granted. I have missed watching him come home from work with a smile and a slap on my butt or a squeeze with some romantic passionate Spanish that he whispers while he bites my neck as we both laugh and enjoy each others’ state of being alive and in each others’ company. I used to look at other couples, you know the ones that live separately, and say to myself, they don’t even have a real marriage… they are just emotionally crutched on this ideal marriage that doesn’t even exist. I figured that they were sad individuals to be so lacking in the vibrancies of their own lives that they would just accept the situation and not just move on to find passion. Why keep stirring the smoking ember. Is this what it has come to, for Ricardo and me, one of those couples? We are holding on to our past so that we might possibly have a future? I am living with my emotions so pushed down that I am not even noticing really what is going on around me anymore. It is like I want everything to freeze in time until I see him again. My children are growing and changing, but I am reluctant to give it too much of my focus for I fear I will be admitting that we have different lives now. How he is maintaining his aloneness is something I question – not every day, but often. When I ask him, you are fiel no? I have to take his answer of “I love you baby, me never no ladies” as it is because the only other option would be to what, not believe it? And what? I stand in line in this rollercoaster holding my breath waiting for what comes at the end of the line. Anticipation keeps the days flowing from when I crawl out of bed, until I crawl back in. My 4-5 hour nights are more than likely aging me more quickly than if I would sleep regular hours, but I have not had a decent schedule since we have been apart. We left for the USA in October. That was the last time we were a family… this is June. The babies and I went for a 6 week visit in February. It seemed like a longer period of time while we were living it; totally business as usual, minus the other kids. He is getting antsy about us not being there yet. The kids’ school year ended last week and we are still here. I had a problem with the bank. Yesterday he said “for what you are not in the Mexico right now mother fucker”… I don’t take that word to heart because his English is tainted by a construction site in America as his teacher… he uses it more of an endearing annoyed state of mind…. Torn… My daughter is having a graduation party in the middle of July. She deserves the world, and I am totally willing to give her just that. Then there is the fact that this is our time to be a family with my husband. School will start in fall, I will need to get a better high paying job. This is the time to go, not later. I do not like to be one of these types of couples. I don’t like to be a mother that comes and goes. I most certainly do not dragging my kids all over the creation like a bunch of gypsies. I am tired and I just want to be a family, I don’t even care where. Sometimes I just want to move up to his abuelita’s farm and not worry about the world. But he says “baby I am to lazy to live on this land, hay mucho trabajo, too much working…” and I realize he is right. He is not lazy, but he loves his TV time while we snuggle up together. It is all a vague memory and is not even my life right now, just like memories do, they are behind me, part of me, but not in the equation of my day as I sludge forward through the stress. Ugh. I am numb from it all. Happy Anniversary husband, we will play catch up with you later.

Birth of my half Mexican son

         My tourist visa was due to expire. I had a 180 day limit to be in the country. I wanted to do what I was used to doing, which was living by my emotions, and just live and be happy. According to the one woman who spoke somewhat English at the Mexican Immigration building, I had to “make it back to the border before my time was up, or face the fines and problems in our future visits” (which is how we refer, in our family, to what most call simple family life-‘visits’). As I am standing in front of this woman with blonde hair growing impatient behind a counter that was high enough that I had my arm propped up on it holding my head in disbelief,  I see that the other employees are glancing our way with an expression that was just enough to make me realize that it was just her and I because no one was going to give any input to this English conversation. “Ok, so you are telling me that I have to get to the border before this date and there is nothing that you can give me to extend that?” …Her expression did not change. “I am sorry but unless you can supply….,” her voice faded in my head as she started to flip a slew of papers in front of me explaining what needed to be done on each which was way out of my capabilities, all of it, so I withdrew into my own thoughts, smiled a little… “What about the baby?” She suggested I go before the birth.

          Maybe I live with too much ease in my thought process that there is always a way to make things work, which is why I usually wait until the last minute to do anything. I assumed that we could just stay and have the baby, fill out a couple forms, and everything would be just fine. That wasn’t the case. It never is anymore…Not only was it not going as planned, but I only had a few weeks to figure it out due to the fact that I went to them at the last minute to ask. My baby’s due date was in 3 weeks, and the expiration of our visas followed 2 days after that; “our visas” referring to myself and 2 of my 4 kids, the other 2 in the States.

          In the beginning of our life together in Mexico, my sister in-law, who made it a clear point to reject my presence with her little brother, wanted the baby and she could do without me. A week or so before the reality of the situation in which I had to leave, she had a friend of hers take me to the hospital to “register” me so that when I went into labor, there would not be a hold up. During this “register” they did an internal examination, and then they told me to come back later that day. I asked why. Apparently they had removed the maternal seal plug and expected the labor to start. So I look at that as an attempt to ensure the Mexican citizenship of my child, our son. I have two things that back up my thoughts that make it quite obvious. A friend asked me “What will you do if your baby is not allowed back to the USA with you,” in Spanish of course, and she was standing there listening, and blurted out, “el bebe es mia,” with a big smile. The friend looked at me as if to say “look what I just showed you,” because apparently she was aware of the intentions. Later when I came back from the States with the baby, her and her husband approached me and Ricardo during our first moments of reunion with the request that I go to the courthouse immediately to claim that the baby had been born in their house and that way the baby would be Mexican and escape the American draft and any future wars… yep. That’s about all the proof I need to show me that they wanted my son. He was already given a social security number when he was born though, so that little plan of theirs stopped right there, except for me smiling and agreeing that Mexico was so much better, in my fragile post-delivery state of mind trying to show that I was really in this forever with their brother because I loved him and had no intentions of separating the baby with him. Ugh.

      I had to get to the border. Something happens to a woman when she is pregnant called nesting. We start to prepare for the baby, both mentally and emotionally, but also physically preparing a place for the baby to sleep, cleaning, organizing the little blankets and sleepers. At nine months, I was now faced with a quick trip to the border so that I can get this visa situation straightened out and then return. We chose to fly. We would go visit my sister in San Diego, spend a couple days with a Thanksgiving dinner, and come back. This was my 5^th child. My babies were always 2 weeks late. That gave me some extra time, even though the due date was 2 days before Thanksgiving. It would all work out perfectly.

             I had very minimal prenatal care. My initial visit was in the States before I went to Mexico. I was just into my 13^th week when I had the sonogram that told us that the baby was not only very healthy, but the baby was a boy. My mom was with me that day. Ricardo had already gone to Mexico, and was waiting for us. My mom flew into Florida to help me to get things ready to go. She called the baby little Ricky. I was so content to have a part of him with me because of his absence being so unbearable. Throughout the pregnancy within Mexico I had a total of 2 doctor visits, both of which they performed a sonogram with no internal, that seemed to be how the doctors approached pregnancy there. One thing that made me feel at ease, other than the initial visit of the baby looking very healthy, was the fact that this was my 5^th baby. The only real issue that I was having was that my 4^th baby was a cesarean. I had always heard that once you have had a surgical scar on your uterus that it could bust open during the labor contractions causing internal bleeding and certain death within moments. That was not such a good feeling. Especially because his sister was pushing so hard for the natural delivery, acting as if I were a prissy American for even suggesting that I needed a cesarean and not wanting to do it the less expensive more practical way. I took it as a dare more or less, and decided to go with the natural birth despite what I was told by the American doctors. The hospital delivery room that I “registered” into that month was not exactly what I was accustomed to. The walls were very dirty and there was so many people waiting. A woman came and took me back to this narrow hallway where the nurses were trying to slide by each other to get what they needed to do their work. They did the usual blood pressure, temperature, etc. then they put me into another area that looked more like a storage closet with a gurney in the middle of it and handed me a smock to put on after removing my clothes. She gave me a cup and needed me to pee in it. There was a bathroom if I could squeeze past the stack of medical supplies put in front of the door, mind you, I was pregnant and huge. There was no light in the bathroom or toilet paper. The entire process was awkward. I began my examination on the gurney with nothing more than a curtain that they pulled shut from the mass of people walking in the hallway on the other side. I tried to relax and just keep in mind that not only do I not know anyone but that it would be over soon… don’t be modest, don’t be modest, don’t be modest… I’m a big girl. They broke the seal, the plug, without any communication as to what they were doing. I was the American piece of meat.

           The day came for the flight. We took an inner country Mexican flight from Cuerna to Tijuana, with the intentions of my sister from San Diego to pick us up and we would spend Thanksgiving together, her and I, my 2 kids, and her husband in their apartment. The airport in Cuernavaca is one room with a bathroom to the side, a drink bar that was closed on one wall, a ticket counter on the other, and a place to put your bags on the other. There were no seats or accommodations. My brother in law worked there. He was a firefighter, but their office is a part of the airport. To tell you the truth that may not be exactly correct, but that is what I know. We say goodbye to Ricardo. “We will be back in 2 days baby, not too much time, I love you.” We went beyond the security, waved goodbye and went on to board the plane. The airplane may have already been somewhat full because in Mexico they will stop and “pick up” more passengers as they go towards a destination. I did not seem as if there were many passengers waiting to board at the airport. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention because I was emotional. We had to walk across the runway to climb up steps to get into the plane. We reached the top of the steps and the stewardess stopped me from going into the plane. I was obviously at the 9^th month point of pregnancy. I tried to wear a “concealing” shirt, but it is hard to minimize a beach-ball size stomach with a waddle. My doctor’s excuse should work; I took that out of my purse and handed it to her. While she looked over it, I glanced to the right of our situation and realized the entire plane full of people, all staring at me… this big fat pregnant American chick holding up the show. The pilot came back and got involved as did his co-pilot and another stewardess. By this time, our delayed flight had been noted inside the airport, so running across the runway towards the stairway to the airplane is my husband and brother-in-law. Our situation grew into a small convention in front of our audience with me, in all my pregnant glory, not knowing Spanish, just reading faces, wondering what is going on. I blurt to Ricardo and my brother in-law “I cannot miss this plane”… everyone gave in to the wishes of my negotiators and Ricardo and I said goodbye once more from across the small crowd of airline personnel. We buckled up. The stewardess gave me a little “you are ok?” She checked back with me throughout the flight. The doctor’s note was a lie. We had our friend, who is a doctor, type it up for me in case there was a problem, which there was, so it did serve its purpose, but the dates that we applied were way off from the fact that my due date was the day before. I soon realized why they do not want pregnant women on an airplane though, especially that late in the pregnancy. As the plane broke from the ground and the pressure changed within the airplane, reality hit me. My stomach felt like there was a full balloon going to pop, mixed with feelings of rapid stirring. I concentrated on being calm and talking my body out of labor. I could remember all the faces that were staring at us arguing with the pilot to let me stay on moments before… I was not about to deliver the baby within that narrow tube of packed humans. We landed in Guadalajara for passengers to get off and passengers to get on. Then we were off to Tijuana. The whole trip took 4 and ½ hours. It only hurt when we took off and landed. Once we were in the air I was able to deal with the uneasiness of my stomach butterflies, but it was a different, less scary feeling. The airport in Tijuana might as well have been a thousand miles to walk. I was grabbing on the walls and handrails the whole walk to the baggage claim and get out of there. I looked like a 90 year old woman, walking real slowly, as if every step was my last. Something happened to the pregnancy on the trip.

           We had a wonderful Turkey dinner the next day. We discussed the different aspects of our life in Mexico and their life in San Diego. I think it was at that time that we discussed the return flight plans. The return flight was scheduled for in the evening the next day. They were not comfortable to drive into Tijuana at night. I decided that I would change the flight to a different time. Then it came out that they were not comfortable for me to return period. Their thought was that I should give birth there and then return. Of course this took me into a whirlwind of emotions for my nest was already built that I needed to return to and Ricardo was there waiting, “2 days” were our last words. It was a really difficult moment to accept. My sister called the airline the next day and somehow it was said to the person on the other end of the ticket reservation that I was 9 months pregnant, so that is when the airline employee cancelled the whole thing and said that I could fly after the baby. Now there was no turning back if I were to fly. The airline would not permit it. I thought about riding the bus back. I called around and priced it. The phone call with Ricardo went something like him assuring me that it was ok that I have the baby there, and return with a healthy baby, he would be ok to miss it. He gave me the extra incentive because he said that he thought it was something that he would not really want to see, painting the picture of the fainting father during delivery… so I was more at ease. He told me to “relax, baby.” My sister thought that it was a good thing that one of us was rational, and gave him that much.

        Our presence in their apartment became an apparent struggle. They were not accustomed to the noise that kids produce, along with their kid desires for walking to the park, 900 questions, snacks, goofy TV shows, rolled up socks on the middle of the floor, and many other patience building kid additives. Their apartment soon became a little tense with all of the added pressures of having a pregnant woman that could hardly walk and 2 anxious displaced children. They were missing school, so we tried to fill in that space best we could with book reading. We made several trips to Barnes and Nobles. We took long, very painful, walks in the mall, and 2 weeks went by, until one Saturday afternoon we went to Chuck E Cheese. I told my sister, I am having the baby tonight. I felt that last minute sickness. We went home, I could hardly walk at all, took a bath, and we all relaxed. My sister and I looked in her computer photo memory albums at her wedding photos. At 1 a.m. I said I better get some rest because I am going to have the baby soon, so I lied down on her couch and immediately fell asleep. No sooner had I dozed off then my water broke. I knew enough, even as dazed as I was, to roll off the couch. I looked over at the clock; it was 1:20am. I knocked on the bedroom door, “it’s time,” luckily the kids just slept and her husband was there to hold down the fort. My sister drove real fast to the hospital. She dropped me off at the front door, my pants were soaked and every time I moved more of the fluid came out. Even though it was a birthing hospital, I had this embarrassment feeling walking in with wet pants. She motioned me to go straight on back to the room behind her. There my sister met up with me after she had parked her car.

       The hospital staff was in a different mode than we were. The room was bright, and the staff was wide awake as if it were in the middle of the afternoon. We were not feeling that way though. We were more in the apprehensive mode. This was really not planned out or let alone thought out. She said, “Do you want me to stay?” I said, “Don’t leave me here. Yes, of course.” It was at that very moment that she became my birthing coach. This was not a planned out decision. I had already become cold to the fact that this birth I would be on my own due to the previous plans of the Mexican hospital delivery, especially without knowing Spanish. I knew it would be me in the end that had to push him out no matter where I was, or who was beside me. The staff started to ask me the usual medical questions. I told them of Mexico, of the previous cesarean, of my previous children; my age of 37 a month away from 38… they hooked the heartbeat machine to my stomach. The contractions started at that point, not too extreme. I explained to my sister, “Do you see this line here? When that one starts getting up to the top here and stays up there, I will not be the same, I just want to warn you. I will be having the out of body experience then ok? So don’t be alarmed at my screaming…” She looked worried…real worried.
      She stayed calm and collected for me though. She sat beside me the whole time. During the contractions I began to have extreme back labor. I could not get comfortable and I was in a lot of pain. I was not able to have pain medication because they said it was too late. There was one nurse in the room that was in her 20’s very young. I said to her, “If my previous cesarean stitches break open, what feeling should I be looking for?” I was a little concerned about it. I didn’t want to be on the blind while in this situation of extreme pain. I wanted to know what to look for –I was told that “I would know it if it happened.” The back labor made this labor the worst thing that I have ever felt in my life. My sister punched my lower back for me at my request. I remember staring into the eyes of the nurse girl saying “help me,” which later my sister said that she had a tear when the baby was born. I probably was blowing her mind I was like the exorcist writhing around on that bed. The time came for the last stage of labor. They knew to come because I was screaming in a deep diaphragm scream that was echoing down the hall. There were roughly 20 people who came in at that point. All of the sudden I was important? My sister later told me, they were expecting a drug baby. I was told to push, I said are you sure? I gave it my all and there was Eliott. He was beautiful and exactly like Ricardo. I could not see any of my features. He was his father 100%.  My sister took photos and let me talk on her cell with a calling card to Ricardo. It was 4:19 a.m. but in Cuernavaca it was 6:19am. Ricardo went to mass that morning as a father for the first time; I am sure with a smile.

        As the doctor was doing her final touches to me, I was filled with this excited energy and started to talk as if I had 19 cups of coffee. The doctor was the same age as me, she had long blonde hair, and she reminded me of an old friend of mine. She let me touch the afterbirth that was in a bowl and I remember feeling so surprised at the sight of it, not what I expected. Then I held my little love. I missed Ricardo. I was angry that he could not have been there for those first moments. When you go through the pregnancy you dream of the romance of those first family moments and I just got ripped off.

      I spent the day with the baby, in our room, my sister went home, got the kids and came back to show the older two their little brother. Two nurses came in and gave the baby a bath. “What is that plastic bag on his thingy for?” They told me it was procedure for testing for drugs. I brushed it off knowing that I don’t do any drugs. I stayed in the bed the whole day holding the baby, letting him nurse and sleep. My assigned nurse came in to do all of those random check ups on my blood pressure and check on the baby. I was so happy and deliriously tired, that I kept rambling about the baby’s father and my Mexico experience. I had not been able to brag about it before that, so all of my happy moments were coming out to this woman who acted as if she cared about my entire happy romantic version of my pregnancy. My sister let me know what this same woman said to her in the hall, but I was not aware of anything but my overwhelming motherhood….

       Then it happened. It was around 6:30pm and they came with a little baby cot on wheels and said there was a problem. I said he isn’t sick. Oh but his numbers aren’t ok… that was about the most extensive explanation that I got. They let me walk with them in my robes to the private elevator that led to a room below with maybe 50 infants, all hooked up to machines. There were neon lights, and breathing machines, and beeping machines, heart rate and number machines, all hooked up to these tiny little babies that could fit in my hands… and there was my fat 8 ½ lb Eliott. What could they possibly have in common? He was placed on a bed of his own, lit up with a heat lamp above and plastic sides, with machines that they didn’t need to use. The nurses held him down and stuck the IV in his arm complete with a sturdy placement slat with bandage tape to secure it all while he screamed--- for me. I was tired, post partum, missing Ricardo, missing anything normal or familiar. They let me hold him and I was able to nurse him to calm him down. My head kept nodding off. I was told that I would not be allowed to sleep there in a chair while holding him. I tried so hard to stay awake. Eventually I had to go back up the empty room without him. I called my sister sobbing “they took him” she tried to calm me down. During the night the nurses called me on the phone in my room to come down to the ICU twice because he was crying so hard and wouldn’t calm down or take one of their bottles. He wanted to only be with me. The next day I was released. I had to go and I wasn’t allowed to take him. I was still only told that his numbers were off. I demanded to know more because he didn’t even have a fever, and was obviously in the wrong room because he was huge and healthy. The young nurse, who was pregnant herself, looked at me like I was evil. “Don’t you want the best care for your baby?” I could not believe that was my answer. “A doctor will be happy to answer your questions,” she said. The doctor on call came over and explained that my baby would have to stay for a week to receive an injection once a day. I tried to convince them that a simple outpatient service or a pediatrician appointment would suffice, but they would not have it. I said, “Do you realize that I do not have insurance, money, or a medical card?” That did not seem to bother them either. They were keeping my baby and I could not seem to convince them otherwise.

       My sister and her husband were burdened with the kids and the rides to the hospital and nursing me through my depression. No sooner would I get home to get some sleep would the phone would ring. The ICU nurses would call me, “can you please come back soon,” he screamed when I was gone and wouldn’t eat for them.  I would stay as much as I could during the hospital visits and just hold him in the rocker in the corner. I was constantly fighting my head nodding off. The nurses grew to be accustomed to me and one of them actually said to me, “My family used to vacation in Mexico every year. People here in San Diego look at Tijuana as all drugs and violence because that is what we see on the news,” and we both agreed that it was not the entire picture and an unfair version of the truth of a country. There was more to my baby being held there than some numbers.                 
       Several case workers came in at random moments to talk to me about breast feeding, remember this is my 5^th baby, small talk about my life, about Mexico, about my other kids, my business. I told it with pride, like those who know me, how I do. Anyone who ever wants to know, I tell it like it is, because it is my life and I have nothing to hide. I think that throughout the week they came to the conclusion that I was bonding with the baby, that I was ok, my intentions were pure. They scheduled him for a release date.

       During this time I explained to Ricardo over the phone what was going on. He was not allowed to be in the USA due to the current lack of intelligent immigration reform. It was really difficult to try to explain to him, especially in our Spanglish, when common daily life words were not part of this story. He was told by the “calle chismas” that meant something was horribly wrong with the baby, if in America, they kept him for a week after birth. I think he was expecting the worst.

      Then the truth came out. My sister told me that the original nurse that talked with me in my room the day that the baby was born cornered her in the hallway outside my room and said, “What is the story with your sister? We need to know.” My sister defended me. As a family therapist, you would think that my sister's point of view would make a difference, “she has one thing on her mind, and that is that she loves the baby’s father, and that is why she is in Mexico.” Apparently, it was concluded that I move around too much. The child services were called.

       The day my baby was released from the hospital, my cell phone rang as we were walking into the hospital from the car garage. It was child welfare. They acknowledged that the baby was released and I said that I was aware and on my way to pick him up. They asked me if I was returning to Mexico and approximately when I would do so. I said when the baby is well enough of course, which was the smart answer, the baby was not sick, obviously. She said that she noticed that I have other children and asked if they too would be returning to Mexico with me. I said “What does this have to do with the medical release of my baby from the hospital? It does not relate. It has nothing to do with it. Our conversation is over.” That was the last I heard from them.
      I returned to Mexico a week later with our new son on Christmas Eve. I was then approximately $30 thousand in debt to San Diego Sharp Medical Birthing Hospital. I believe that the extensive hospital stay was only because of the mention of Mexico in our lives. I have not ever officially asked another doctor to compare notes to know for sure, but maybe one day I will. I feel angry that Eliott had some type of separation issue as a baby after this and developed colic. I blame this for it. I felt very controlled, looked down on, and violated. I also believe that the entire procedure/ diagnosis was either a false one, or at the very least blown out of proportion for other reasons. I feel that if I would have delivered in a regular hospital, we would have been released together the day after the birth. Maybe I am wrong medically, but they seriously made a big case out of it. I have a hard time believing anything anymore when the word Mexico is mentioned. My son is healthy, and still coping with separation issues at 3 ½ years; but now it is with his Mexican father, far, far away, living separate lives due to immigration reform lack of.

     This was my end of pregnancy/birth experience within the first year in Mexico with my husband and my first real experience with many things...including my first experience with racism directed towards my family.

When we met...

Florida -- sea breeze, salsa music, sunset on sandy white sugar sand and no track of time because every day comes with the same amount of pleasure.
I was living in this second floor apartment. The rent was as low it goes. I was a single mom. I had an inherited station wagon, all jacked up with the wood grain down the side. The kids and I had a good set up. Saturday and Sunday were our days. We hit the beaches, the docks, the parks, and all of those mangrove pathways. Our hair was bleached from the sun with that damp sandy feel to the clumped together humidity curls; our skin was golden from the sun, which we spent any time we could possibly steal playing, relaxing, and loving it. We had a perfect life with our sandy covered deflated beach toys packed into the back of the ghetto wagon along with the lawnchairs that we snagged from people leaving them behind, leaning against the garbage cans, we were a team, the kids and I. We had the world in our hands, our "Free to Be Me" charm hung off of the rear view mirror right above the radio that was always on, and kept in full swing as the windows were always always down. We had a funny style, clog heels with shorts and tube tops. My kids were the same, definitely stood out in a crowd. We were the team that loved our new life. We were free, finally... and we loved it...
Our apartment had these cockroaches. They were of different breeds, some rusty colored and some black colored. I got the run down on their origin, and how to rid the apartment of them not long after my first discovery of them, the first day... I strategically placed everything in plastic. My whole stocked-full kitchen was protected. I bleached as if I were guilty... guilty of cockroach killing is what I wanting it to be. Eventually I got rid of them all. Where they went I will never know... I assume the neighbors, or perhaps one of those prayers actually worked out and my apartment was "healed." I would almost believe it the way my mom prays for me. She is always causing miracles for me with her mom prayers, (happy birthday mom, I love you). There was one place though that I couldnt get rid of them. It was the ghetto wagon. Somehow, someway, they thought that it seemed like a good place to set up shop and for what I dont know; maybe the icecream drips all over the back seat. I place the blame on my husband Ricardo.
Yes, I was a single mom though at this point in time... no confusion. This is when we met, and this is how we met. He lived downstairs with a bunch of guys, all in the same apartment. I would see them coming and going, I couldnt figure out who actually lived there or what the deal was, but they seemed like just a bunch of guys who enjoyed each other's company, always smiling and laughing and planning something as they piled into their cars every once in awhile going I dont know where. He caught my eye. Not once, but a few times, before we really noticed each other, before it was something, just in an agreeance with myself that "man that guy is hot" without any persuance motivation. The parking was assigned to apartment numbers, we all got one spot. My spot just happened to be right smack in front of their door, which is where they all sat smoking their cigarettes, looking up with only their eyes as their heads were down, conversation stopped. My 7 yr old son would turn around, I found out later,  and flip them off with a dirty look, as a message to stop watching his mom, my little protector. Julian.... with his hair down his back, freckles, blue eyes, camo gear and camping boot look... my little survivor.... I would come home and there was that car in my spot "one more time, damn it!" So Julian would hop out of the car and run over and  knock on their door. Whoever answered would look over at me, usually flipping them off, and give a little wave. I was so unnerved. How many times did I have to park over by the dumpster. That is where it all began you know, with the roach invasion in my ghetto wagon, that dumpster parking spot. That was the only little area along the fence with the tall pine trees surrounding the apartment complex. My tire got the worst of the glass that was broken around the spot when it was completely flat one morning. I called work, I will be late, flat tire... so in my heels and Heart and Soul dress, I walked to the store for a can of fix-a-flat. I came back to Ricardo and his friends fixing 'their' tire too... what luck. Of course I didnt know him then. But his boss,nicknamed Cubano, spoke perfect English, so they helped me out. Ricardo and his buddy Lalo were talking Spanish squatting in front of the tire trying to figure out how to get the hubcap off and it was almost a comedy scene until we figured out that the funny little piece that was in the glovebox matched up somehow, so production moved on. After a long conversation with the English speaking boss about my extensive knowledge of concrete, I thanked them. It was then that I first noticed how sexy he was. I understood how the two friends bounced off him even though I didnt understand what they were saying, his smile was so real.
So time went on, I drove up to PA for a week and back, almost falling asleep at the wheel a few times, I was in a middle-ground stage in my life. In between here and there. Waiting for more experience in my job, the next stage of the game, so that I could take my experience with me in the claims business, when it was time to go back. But the time was not that time. I came back from the 22hour drive and the guys were all outside. They liked to watch me unpack the car, is what I gathered. Then came the night when I was pulled up with groceries. One of the guys came out and spoke perfect English to me said, "nice car," I am thinking ..are..you.. serious?-- but ok, smile..... "hey do you wanna come in for a beer?" First thought--- cute guy has to be in there, or at least there was a possiblity... "ok, I 'll be down." This was our first encounter... so I remember every moment of the anxiety, anticipation... he was sleeping on the floor when I walked in. (OMG!) The friend opened the beers and we sat at the table. We were talking about things just things like past stuff, things you ask when you are being nosey... I figured sleeping beauty was listening so I made sure I didnt say anything stupid. Then he stood up, my heart was skipping a little, you know when you get that dry mouth nervous thing? He sat down, didnt say a word, opened a beer, guzzled it down in like 10 seconds, and then another one..... Meanwhile the conversation was taking a turn because my eyes were looking at Mr sexy man here that hasnt said a word. That is when the discovery - no hablar ingles nada... well, I thought, I dont care, that can be fixed somehow... I thought he was the bomb. More friends came in from their work or wherever and I found out that all of his friends were awesome. We got such a laugh at how they thought I was a super bitch who hated Mexicans... that was something new to me because I never entertained those words in my mind ever, now I know why it was said, but no me, no. I am more prejudice of men than of race. I said no I was just pissed cause you always take my parking, what a roar of laughter that got... I got a promise though and I got my spot back, every day. People came and went, my kids were their watching cable, which we didnt have, so they were happy. We werent having a drinking party, it was just a real up beat wow we are all cool with each other after all kind of thing... till one of the guys noticed "our" connection... "our," meaning Ricardo and I... Oso, his roommate said, "you making him nervous..." I knew it, just as he was me. We could not stop looking at each other and smiling. We were infected with each other right away... The conversation went on, I met the guys, Jorge, Lalo and Hortensia, Gulo, Oso, and a few others that ended up going back to Mexico right in the beginning, on their own, they were homesick. This was not a bad boy crowd. They were not into drugs or excessive drinking, no hard liquor, no pot, they just enjoyed each other's company waiting till they got to go home, keeping each other happy. Ricardo and I had our hands locked, we were in arm wrestling stance... for what? oh I was bragging about how strong I was, (which back then, I was). We were touching our hands together and looking into each other's eyes smiling, knowing, something was starting... an obvious beginning...