I'm a 40 year old Chicano and I love this book. What really surprised me about the story of Julia is how I've known so many Mexican women with similar stories. It really hit me hard because I just feel like iv'e been so blind to the struggle of women who have been so instrumental in my development as a human being.
Hol soy una Mamá de 50 años y quiero felicitar a Erika por su fantástico libro. Mi hija de 19 año ahora fue la que me lo recomendó aunque ella lo leyó en su ultimo año de secundaria. También debo de mencionar que no todos los padres somos como los de Julia, ya que depende mucho de donde emigrados para ayudar a los hijos a crecer y alcanza sus sueños.
I loved this book so much, because it gave me a similar-yet-different perspective of what mother-daughter relationships can look like, which made me feel less alone. Although I am not Mexican American, I appreciated being educated on what life is like for millions of Latinx children in my country. It really humbled me to read about how difficult it was for Julia’s family to immigrate, aswell as the ways in which it hurt Julia through generational trauma. Although me and Julia come from different backgrounds, I felt for her because of how similar our relationships with our mothers are. For example; Amá is a strict Catholic woman who parents Julia through the only way she knows how: with shame and disappointment, instead of encouragement and guidance. (Though later she learns this) We see an example of this when Julia struggles to help Amá make tortillas in chapter 3, and Amá responds by kicking her out of the kitchen, aswell as telling her she can’t be a real woman if she can’t make a tortilla. Just like Amá, my mother was raised Catholic, so she tends to follow the same patterns of generational shaming. I felt exactly like Julia in these instances, where she was belittled for not knowing things she hadn’t already been taught. It felt so good to know I wasn’t alone in this, and it was really helpful to get some guidance on how to understand and cope with me and my mothers relationship.❤
I read this book for my English class, as we're beginning to write a junior paper, and I chose it just cause I felt like I could relate to it as a Mexican-American. What I didn't know is it was going to be so similar to my life. I love that she touched on mental health/illness, the desire for change, and small challenges teens face with undocumented parents. I was finishing the book in class and started crying (quietly haha) because Julia lives within me and so many people I know. Thank you Erika.
Being a first generation Mexican daughter is definitely tough because as u grown up ur realizing u are reliving for u and it’s only up to u to make ur life decisions but parents think they somehow always will have a say in what’s going on in UR life. Growing up is a difficult Idea for them and being independent can sometimes be a threat to them.
I am a Black American but I grew up in Los Angeles California and I always felt close to the Mexican people…. I still do. I’m still reading the book but I understand some of the comments here. Julia didn’t understand her family because they didn’t talk about the past or how her parents grew up or what they endured. This is a lovely book 🤎♥️🇲🇽
I have read this book for my English class and I loved this book! I bought my own copy and kept it. I related to this a lot about the mother and daughter area and life. I am happy you wrote this book! Thank you!
I just wish that Julia had grown more by the end and learned to see strength and value in her culture and family. I worry young people will just reject their culture and not realize the value of some of those 'annoying' quirks.
I am a Mexican daughter and I felt all the feelings of Julia. It showed me that there is strength in challenging the cultural values that make you feel horrible about yourself. But then you realize that it’s the experience that make you closer to your culture identity. Also it shows the pride we have for our culture.
Im a Chicano in my 20s, ive read her book, i can tell shes a huge fan of Catcher in the Rye she mentions it a couple of times in Perfect Mexican Daughter ❤
this book is my favorite when i went to see what other books i could find it was only that one i got so mad like erika plz make more books and just saying im a sanchez
Enjoyed your poems and your unique word choices that enhanced the poems emotional impact and kept me engaged throughout. I’m a poet specializing in Japanese forms: haiku, tanka, haibun, kyoka, senryu. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a tanka and my haiku, a tribute poem to Bashō’s frog with commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my Basho haiku among her top 10 haiku of all time. What an honor. Here’s the Bashō poem and commentary: Bashō’s frog four hundred years of ripples At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA forum. The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us all that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain. ~~ And my tanka: returning home from a Jackson Pollock exhibition I smear my face with paint and morph into art ~~ -All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida, Al
I hope you don’t mind me sharing the following poem, one of my all time favorite meta poetic poems by a poet named “Howard Dull” titled “Suibhne Gheilt” that I recently chanced upon. When I read it, I became speechless. And most of my poetry friends consider this as one of their all time favorites. It was published in a 1970s anthology titled “ Open Poetry” and proves that once Poetry hits you in your heart, , you could be the worst nefarious scoundrel with kings and Empires at your command but you will be transformed and never again return to your previous Self. ~~ Suibhne Gheilt 1 He has haunted me now for over a year that madman Suibhne Gheilt who in the middle of a battle looked up and saw something that made him leap up and fly over swords and trees - a poet gifted above all others - 11 How could a proud loud mouth who yelled KILL KILL KILL as he plowed done the enemy - heads rolling off of his sword - be so lifted up ( or fly up as those below saw it - wings beating) be so suddenly gifted with poetry and nest so high in Ireland’s tall trees? Is there a point where all paths cross? And why am I so drawn to him that all my questions seem shot in his direction? “And they ran into the woods and threw their lances and shot their arrows up through the branches” What parallels could I ever hope to find - my refusal to fight ( weaseling out on psychiatric grounds)? my leaving my country behind? my poetry? “and my wife wept on the path below. . . Oh memory is sweet but sweeter is the sorrel in the pool in the path below” I fly down every night to eat 111 Sweeney like the rest of us would have been better off if he had never anything to do with women. But the point of it lies hidden in a pool of milk in a pile of shit for you to see when a milkmaid smiles Sweeney like the rest of us flies down and when she pours the milk into the hole her heel made in the cowdung Sweeney like the rest of us kneels down and drinks and dies on the horn the cowherd hid in it. So before you have anything to do with women remember Sweeney the bird of Ireland lying on his back in the middle of that path in the moonlight. 1V And on my way home this morning ( my wife waiting) my shadow racing up the path ahead of me I saw something ( a black stone?) thrown at the back of its head ducked and spun around so fast I almost fell down - it was a bird flying up into a tree V No good could come out of this war out of what burns in the heart of our highly disciplined John Q. Killer as a whole village bursts into one flame - the villagers streaming like tears towards the forest cover his helicopter’s blades blow the leaves off and and the flame towards. . . as we sit in front of our bubbles watching our president ( whose bubbletalk no one can escape and he is a little bit mad -calling the reporters in for an interview while he’s sitting on the bubble having a bubble movement) and first lady climb into their big bubble bed an Lucy, born of their own bubbles, crawls in between - “ Mah daddy has so many troubles turning the world into a bubble and sick of crossfire - the cries of the women and children flying over his head - he stumbled down to the riverbank and found, the wreckage twisted around the tree behind, his skull. . . Noises, there are noises, noises that can of themselves drive a man mad -NOISES! But last night the Stockhausen penetrated from the four sides of the auditorium, stripping each layer of feeling and thought until all that was left was something the size of a nut - so tiny, so hard, so impenetrable it was alone in the middle of an infinite space. . . And -Howard Dull ~~ ps: Howard Dull was such an obscure poet that he never published a book and ( to my knowledge) never published another poem. But OMG, this was so brilliant that in my opinion it should be read and studied at the college level. All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida, Al
Me encanto el libro nunca habia tomado un libro y leerlo en casi dos dias, lo unico que tengo que decir es me gustaria que Erika odiara menos a Mexico, bendiciones y adelante con el trabajo
Brief Bio: I’m Al Fogel born in 1945 and at an early age began writing poems. In 1962 I was introduced to a neighbor who just returned from Avatar Meher Baba’s “ East west” gathering and handed me a book titled “The Everything and the Nothing” that included brief but powerful passages by Meher Baba that touched me deeply and i became a “ Baba Lover” In 2010 while on Jane Reichhold’s AHA website workshopping poems I befriended a Chinese man who helped me perfect my Senryu and Haibun. I am now considered one of the nations leading authorities on Tanka , Senryu, and Haibun. Here are some examples of each of my specialties Senryu dentist chair the hygienist removes my Bluetooth ~ Internet argument all his words in CAPS hers in EMOTICONS ~ after the divorce he spends more time at the dollar store ~ damsel in distress Clarke Kent still searching for a phone booth ~ cauliflower ears once a contender now boxing vegetables ~ under the influence - moonshine ~ Audubon sale all variety of seeds. . . early birds welcome ~ Buddhist fortune cookie the unfolded paper reads “ better luck next birth!” ~ sudden downpour. . . adults run for shelter ~ sidewalk cafe birds and people tweeting ~ Crowded crosswalk the “seeing eye” dog leads the way ~ **senryu is usually humorous, but it can also be serious. For example, the following two of mine are horrific and heartbreaking ( dealing with the Holocaust): ~ cattle cars between the slats human eyes ~ stutthof - the stench of burnt hair from the chimneys ~ thrift store purchase inside the leather jacket a tarnished half-heart ~ deserted train depot a long line of tracks leading nowhere ~~ return to my youth lit by the tracks of Lionel trains. ~ Tanka: returning home from a Jackson pollock exhibition I smear my face with paint and morph into art ~ crowded bus a young lady offers me her seat it seems like only yesterday I was offering mine ~ deserted train depot a conductor shouting “ All Aboard!” now a long line of tracks leading nowhere ~ Haibun: The Mathematics of Retribution “Karma is un fathomable,” I inform her It’s late and our conversation turns heavy “ Seems simple to me, “my girlfriend responds. “If I murder you, then it’s reasonable that I will be murdered in this or another life to balance the ledger.” “ Not necessarily so” I’m quick to rejoin. “What if you murdered me in this life because I murdered you in a prior life karmic debts and dues are now equalized.” “But what if I get caught and I go to jail for life. Where’s the equal payback in that?” “As I said, karma is unfathomable.” We continue discussing reincarnation and then add the possibilities of “group karma” to the mix Finally, at about midnight, we fall asleep Stutthof - the stench of burnt hair from the chimneys ~~ Mama There were days when I pretended to be too sick to go to school - - just for mamas loving embrace -her arms the heat of home Even with the onset of dementia, her cheerfulness was so contagious it was a joy being around her despite the illness. She made everyone laugh with her spontaneous unpredictable behavior. nursing home bumper wheelchair her favorite pastime Once a week I would whisk her away from the assisted-living facility and we would spend several hours together -grabbing a meal or frequenting some of her favorite second-hand stores where she loved to shop and donate clothes. When we drove to her favorite thrift in November, her dementia worsened. thrift store the dress mama donated she wants to buy On a cold December morn mama passed. The funeral was simple. There was a light drizzle as the family gathered at the gravesite. One by one, with eyes full of rain, we said our last goodbyes. autumn twilight - oh mama tuck me under hug me one more time ~ ‘Round Midnight It was a huge ballroom on the top floor of a building on Broadway --an important midtown crossroads in the heart of the Great White Way. My uncle still talks with reverence about how -in his heyday -he would travel by rail to the corner of Lenox and walk inside to the beat of jungle music. Who knew what to expect? One night you might be listening with rapt attention to Theloneous Monk and Dizzy Gillespie the godfathers of bebop in their signature beret caps, or the Nicholas Brothers flashing their wild acrobatic spins and splits, or enchanted by the sweet taste of Brown Sugar -with Bojangles out front. And when the Bird was in flight, even the moon was not high enough. But in 1940 the ballroom closed its doors to make way for a commercial housing development and another kind of night. Harlem The A-train replaced by the Bullet ~ Atlantic City New Jersey I had just graduated from high school I remember stopping for saltwater taffy -as evening journeyed slowly into night. Nearing curfew, we sat on a protruded sandy enclave--holding hands, looking out at the ocean, not saying much. In the distance the lights from an ocean liner flickered as the night kept coming on in... first “french kiss” under the boardwalk “over the moon!” ~~ All love, Al
If you believe in the charade/in conforming, to get where you need to, then you do Not believe in hope. There will never not be a need to conform, if we Still have to now- after countless books have been written to make that game null.
![Angie Thomas: The Hate U Give [CC]](/img/n.gif)
I'm a 40 year old Chicano and I love this book. What really surprised me about the story of Julia is how I've known so many Mexican women with similar stories. It really hit me hard because I just feel like iv'e been so blind to the struggle of women who have been so instrumental in my development as a human being.
that's such a beautiful comment!
I really enjoyed this book. I related a lot to it. Definitely it is going on my top 5 favorite books 🤓
WOW! Finally....a book I related to! THANK YOU ERIKA! High 5...from Chicago, IL
Hol soy una Mamá de 50 años y quiero felicitar a Erika por su fantástico libro. Mi hija de 19 año ahora fue la que me lo recomendó aunque ella lo leyó en su ultimo año de secundaria. También debo de mencionar que no todos los padres somos como los de Julia, ya que depende mucho de donde emigrados para ayudar a los hijos a crecer y alcanza sus sueños.
I loved this book so much, because it gave me a similar-yet-different perspective of what mother-daughter relationships can look like, which made me feel less alone. Although I am not Mexican American, I appreciated being educated on what life is like for millions of Latinx children in my country. It really humbled me to read about how difficult it was for Julia’s family to immigrate, aswell as the ways in which it hurt Julia through generational trauma. Although me and Julia come from different backgrounds, I felt for her because of how similar our relationships with our mothers are. For example; Amá is a strict Catholic woman who parents Julia through the only way she knows how: with shame and disappointment, instead of encouragement and guidance. (Though later she learns this) We see an example of this when Julia struggles to help Amá make tortillas in chapter 3, and Amá responds by kicking her out of the kitchen, aswell as telling her she can’t be a real woman if she can’t make a tortilla. Just like Amá, my mother was raised Catholic, so she tends to follow the same patterns of generational shaming. I felt exactly like Julia in these instances, where she was belittled for not knowing things she hadn’t already been taught. It felt so good to know I wasn’t alone in this, and it was really helpful to get some guidance on how to understand and cope with me and my mothers relationship.❤
I read this book for my English class, as we're beginning to write a junior paper, and I chose it just cause I felt like I could relate to it as a Mexican-American. What I didn't know is it was going to be so similar to my life. I love that she touched on mental health/illness, the desire for change, and small challenges teens face with undocumented parents. I was finishing the book in class and started crying (quietly haha) because Julia lives within me and so many people I know. Thank you Erika.
Being a first generation Mexican daughter is definitely tough because as u grown up ur realizing u are reliving for u and it’s only up to u to make ur life decisions but parents think they somehow always will have a say in what’s going on in UR life. Growing up is a difficult Idea for them and being independent can sometimes be a threat to them.
I am a Black American but I grew up in Los Angeles California and I always felt close to the Mexican people…. I still do. I’m still reading the book but I understand some of the comments here. Julia didn’t understand her family because they didn’t talk about the past or how her parents grew up or what they endured.
This is a lovely book 🤎♥️🇲🇽
Loved this book!!!
Love this book💕 please write a part 2. Thank you
an absolute icon. this book is my all time favorite!
I loved this book so much! Thank you Erika
Thanks for uploading this wonderful interview!
I have read this book for my English class and I loved this book! I bought my own copy and kept it. I related to this a lot about the mother and daughter area and life. I am happy you wrote this book! Thank you!
I just wish that Julia had grown more by the end and learned to see strength and value in her culture and family. I worry young people will just reject their culture and not realize the value of some of those 'annoying' quirks.
I am a Mexican daughter and I felt all the feelings of Julia. It showed me that there is strength in challenging the cultural values that make you feel horrible about yourself. But then you realize that it’s the experience that make you closer to your culture identity. Also it shows the pride we have for our culture.
Im a Chicano in my 20s, ive read her book, i can tell shes a huge fan of Catcher in the Rye she mentions it a couple of times in Perfect Mexican Daughter ❤
Very informative! Thank you 🙏🏼
Me encantó el libro, lo disfruté muchísimo!
this book is my favorite when i went to see what other books i could find it was only that one i got so mad like erika plz make more books and just saying im a sanchez
hahha "could you just let Matt Hoffer know ... that I'm teaching at Princeton!" Such a great chat throughout!
Enjoyed your poems and your unique word choices that enhanced the poems emotional impact and kept me engaged throughout.
I’m a poet specializing in Japanese forms: haiku, tanka, haibun, kyoka, senryu. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a tanka and my haiku, a tribute poem to Bashō’s frog with commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my Basho haiku among her top 10 haiku of all time. What an honor.
Here’s the Bashō poem and commentary:
Bashō’s frog
four hundred years
of ripples
At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA
forum.
The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so
numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this
method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing
about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the
sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water
As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us all that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain.
~~
And my tanka:
returning home
from a Jackson Pollock
exhibition
I smear my face with paint
and morph into art
~~
-All love in isolation
from Miami Beach,
Florida,
Al
I am loving this book! Ive read tons of books through all my life, and have never laught like this ❤️
The book was amazing
I am not the type of person to read, like WHAT a 15 year old reading?? ..I read this and and I absolutely love this book !!!!!
I hope you don’t mind me sharing the following poem, one of my all time favorite meta poetic poems by a poet named “Howard Dull” titled “Suibhne Gheilt” that I recently chanced upon. When I read it, I became speechless. And most of my poetry friends consider this as one of their all time favorites.
It was published in a 1970s anthology titled “ Open Poetry” and proves that once Poetry hits you in your heart, , you could be the worst nefarious scoundrel with kings and Empires at your command but you will be transformed and never again return to your previous Self.
~~
Suibhne Gheilt
1
He has haunted me now for over a year
that madman Suibhne Gheilt
who in the middle of a battle
looked up and saw something
that made him leap up and fly
over swords and trees
- a poet gifted above all others -
11
How could a proud loud mouth
who yelled KILL KILL KILL
as he plowed done the enemy
- heads rolling off of his sword -
be so lifted up
( or fly up
as those below saw it
- wings beating)
be so suddenly gifted
with poetry
and nest so high
in Ireland’s tall trees?
Is there a point
where all paths cross?
And why am I so drawn to him
that all my questions
seem shot in his direction?
“And they ran into the woods
and threw their lances
and shot their arrows
up through the branches”
What parallels could I ever hope to find -
my refusal to fight
( weaseling out on psychiatric grounds)?
my leaving my country behind?
my poetry?
“and my wife wept
on the path below. . .
Oh memory is sweet
but sweeter is the sorrel
in the pool in the path below”
I fly down every night
to eat
111
Sweeney like the rest of us would have been better off if he had never anything to do with women.
But the point of it lies hidden
in a pool of milk
in a pile of shit
for you to see
when a milkmaid smiles
Sweeney like the rest of us flies down
and when she pours the milk
into the hole her heel made in the cowdung
Sweeney like the rest of us kneels down and drinks
and dies on the horn the cowherd hid in it.
So before you have anything to do with women
remember Sweeney the bird of Ireland
lying on his back
in the middle of that path
in the moonlight.
1V
And on my way home
this morning
( my wife
waiting)
my shadow
racing up the path ahead of me
I saw something
( a black stone?)
thrown
at the back of its head
ducked
and spun around
so fast
I almost fell down
- it was a bird
flying up into a tree
V
No good could come out of this war
out of what burns in the heart of our highly disciplined
John Q. Killer as a whole village bursts into one flame -
the villagers streaming like tears
towards the forest
cover his helicopter’s blades
blow the leaves off and
and the flame towards. . .
as we sit in front of our bubbles watching our president
( whose bubbletalk no one can escape and he is a little bit
mad -calling the reporters in for an interview while he’s
sitting on the bubble having
a bubble movement) and first
lady climb into their big bubble bed an Lucy, born of
their own bubbles, crawls in between -
“ Mah daddy has so many
troubles
turning the world into a bubble
and sick of crossfire -
the cries of the women and
children flying over his head -
he stumbled down to the
riverbank and found,
the wreckage twisted around the tree
behind, his skull. . .
Noises, there are noises,
noises that can of themselves drive
a man mad -NOISES!
But last night the Stockhausen penetrated from the four
sides of the auditorium, stripping each layer of feeling
and thought until all that was left was something the size
of a nut - so tiny, so hard, so impenetrable it was alone
in the middle of an infinite space. . .
And
-Howard Dull
~~
ps: Howard Dull was such an obscure poet that he never published a book and ( to my knowledge) never published another poem. But OMG, this was so brilliant that in my opinion it should be read and studied at the college level.
All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida,
Al
I get to meet her on October 💕✌🏼
Me encanto el libro nunca habia tomado un libro y leerlo en casi dos dias, lo unico que tengo que decir es me gustaria que Erika odiara menos a Mexico, bendiciones y adelante con el trabajo
This interviewer is incredible 💯
The best book I found on my 7 th grade teachers boon shelf
*book
not me watching this 18 hours before i have to do a presentation on this book
Brief Bio:
I’m Al Fogel born in 1945 and at an early age began writing poems. In 1962 I was introduced to a neighbor who just returned from Avatar Meher Baba’s “ East west” gathering and handed me a book titled “The Everything and the Nothing” that included brief but powerful passages by Meher Baba that touched me deeply and i became a “ Baba Lover” In 2010 while on Jane Reichhold’s AHA website workshopping poems I befriended a Chinese man who helped me perfect my Senryu and Haibun. I am now considered one of the nations leading authorities on Tanka , Senryu, and Haibun.
Here are some examples of each of my specialties
Senryu
dentist chair
the hygienist removes
my Bluetooth
~
Internet argument
all his words in CAPS
hers in EMOTICONS
~
after the divorce
he spends more time
at the dollar store
~
damsel in distress
Clarke Kent still searching
for a phone booth
~
cauliflower ears
once a contender
now boxing vegetables
~
under
the influence -
moonshine
~
Audubon sale
all variety of seeds. . .
early birds welcome
~
Buddhist fortune cookie
the unfolded paper reads
“ better luck next birth!”
~
sudden downpour. . .
adults run
for shelter
~
sidewalk cafe
birds and people
tweeting
~
Crowded crosswalk
the “seeing eye” dog
leads the way
~
**senryu is usually humorous, but it can also be serious. For example, the following two of mine are horrific and heartbreaking ( dealing with the Holocaust):
~
cattle cars
between the slats
human eyes
~
stutthof -
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~
thrift store purchase
inside the leather jacket
a tarnished half-heart
~
deserted train depot
a long line of tracks
leading nowhere
~~
return to my youth
lit by the tracks
of Lionel trains.
~
Tanka:
returning home
from a Jackson pollock
exhibition
I smear my face with paint
and morph into art
~
crowded bus
a young lady offers me
her seat
it seems like only yesterday
I was offering mine
~
deserted train depot
a conductor shouting
“ All Aboard!”
now a long line of tracks
leading nowhere
~
Haibun:
The Mathematics of Retribution
“Karma is un fathomable,”
I inform her
It’s late and our conversation turns heavy
“ Seems simple to me, “my girlfriend responds.
“If I murder you, then it’s reasonable that I will be murdered in this or another life to balance the ledger.”
“ Not necessarily so” I’m quick to rejoin.
“What if you murdered me in this life
because I murdered you in a prior life
karmic debts and dues are now equalized.”
“But what if I get caught and I go to jail for life. Where’s the equal payback in that?”
“As I said, karma is unfathomable.”
We continue discussing reincarnation and then add the possibilities of “group karma” to the mix
Finally, at about midnight, we fall asleep
Stutthof -
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~~
Mama
There were days when I pretended to be too sick to go to school - - just for mamas loving embrace -her arms the heat of home
Even with the onset of dementia, her cheerfulness was so contagious it was a joy being around her despite the illness.
She made everyone laugh with her spontaneous unpredictable behavior.
nursing home
bumper wheelchair
her favorite pastime
Once a week I would whisk her away from the assisted-living facility and we would spend several hours together -grabbing a meal or frequenting some of her favorite second-hand stores where she loved to shop and donate clothes.
When we drove to her favorite thrift in November, her dementia worsened.
thrift store
the dress mama donated
she wants to buy
On a cold December morn mama passed.
The funeral was simple. There was a light drizzle as the family gathered at the gravesite. One by one, with eyes full of rain, we said our last goodbyes.
autumn twilight -
oh mama tuck me under
hug me one more time
~
‘Round Midnight
It was a huge ballroom on the top floor of a building on Broadway --an important midtown crossroads in the heart of the Great White Way.
My uncle still talks with reverence about how -in his heyday -he would travel by rail to the corner of Lenox and walk inside to the beat of jungle music. Who knew what to expect? One night you might be listening with rapt attention to Theloneous Monk and Dizzy Gillespie the godfathers of bebop in their signature beret caps, or the Nicholas Brothers flashing their wild acrobatic spins and splits, or enchanted by the sweet taste of Brown Sugar -with Bojangles out front. And when the Bird was in flight, even the moon was not high enough.
But in 1940 the ballroom closed its doors to make way for a commercial housing development and another kind of night.
Harlem
The A-train replaced
by the Bullet
~
Atlantic City New Jersey
I had just graduated from high school
I remember stopping for saltwater taffy -as evening journeyed slowly into night. Nearing curfew, we sat on a protruded sandy enclave--holding hands, looking out at the ocean, not saying much. In the distance the lights from an ocean liner flickered as the night kept coming on in...
first “french kiss”
under the boardwalk
“over the moon!”
~~
All love,
Al
yo she went to my school & she was very kind.
If you believe in the charade/in conforming, to get where you need to, then you do Not believe in hope. There will never not be a need to conform, if we Still have to now- after countless books have been written to make that game null.
ham burger