Page 20 - 2019 EMERGING WRITERS FELLOWSHIP ANTHOLOGY1

5.

Why am I too chicken-shit to talk to Pam Houston?

6.

At each of the writing seminars we are asked to take off our shoes at the door of each
building. But I’m embarrassed to show my feet. My pudgy little empanada-looking pata

feet. Looking around at the other women, I see most of the mujeres have lovely-painted

toe nails, long and slender and graceful feet. I am wearing sox. Even at home I never
wear sandals.

I hide in socks, always my mother’s daughter, sound of the ocean, just outside, water
within view, and it’s sound, crashing waves, again and again, unfamiliar, ETERNAL,

reminding me again and again, in the most demanding way I’ve never heard, and I
swallow hard at the thought of my feet, my ugly patas, and yet the ocean SOUNDS, eternal

and endless, and through it’s voice it repeats – until last I listen - “It’s not about your
FEET muchacha, it’s about being here…”

7.

Alegrἰa – the Spanish verb for joy; the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good
fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.

Alegrἰa. Alegre.

How does one move from ansias to alegrἰa, from anxiety & fear to the state of joy? When

and how does this happen? Is this movement the color of green and blue, as of this place,

or has it always been settled in the vibrant red-earth and adobe-brown’s of my own
homeland?

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