Beauty Project Post 2

Today it’s me watching grandma dance meringue on hard wood floors
Bodies like sweat pools on cement street corners when the music’s so loud we cant make out the words
But there in Spanish anyway and the only words we ever needed to know in Spanish were gracias and arroz con pollo.
Today I am on summer vacation nine years back and when they see grandma walk down the streets of Fordham Road they know her by her big red hair
Shes a firebird but mostly, she smokes cigarettes under the porch in a downpour outside Puerto Rico.
I Don’t know this world.
What I know is the city lights in Denver.
My own mothers mother’s sadness reminds me of this place. Bright blinking stoplights telling people to get back from the speed of the sky. From here we scrapbook storytelling and cul-de-sac homemakers nobody can compare this Colorado sunrise to the History left in New York City.
I hear my grandmas voice calling through a cell phone to my mother
There words transverse through the night sky she sits on the kitchen floor with a Marlboro light between her red nails saying te estraño mami, because missing someone is the most you can give some days.
Today I am collecting stamps because I’m going to send an envelope to every person who wasn’t as lucky as me. I’m filling it with rosary and salsa music because that’s how you grow up in a house like this. Your grandma never talks about god but mom says she use to burn incense and scare off the ghosts. I wonder if there are ghosts in the Bronx.
If you’ve never looked at an old portrait of your mothers mother I advise you to do so because it’ll hit you like a train heading West through Manhattan. It’s like a rush of existence.
I don’t know this world but I am part of it. Everyday I fall into it and Today I am home.
Miles from New York City.
Today my grandmother sends mom giant avocados and a recipe for rice pudding. Because in this home food is more of a message than a letter could ever be. Love is edible here.
Today I am watching mom make plantains in our kitchen
And no I don’t know this world…but every day I become part of it. Enveloped in this culture like her fingers in my hair as she braids it down my scalp. Don’t tell me I have never been here I BREATHE HERE!
Life like a hidden treasure this is beautiful.