another
pitaya
and handed it to me. The red seemed redder than ever. The shiny seeds blacker than ever. My life up to then had been like a forest reflected in water, I thought. A flat forest. Now I was beginning to understand the deep places, the high places, the hidden places. The caves and mountains and tree hollows. Oh, part of me was flying as I sat under the tree.
“I won’t have to wait long, will I?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “I’ve suspected that you would be a healer, Ita. As your father was. But the life of a healer is difficult. More so for a woman. I feel sad for you, little one.” Again, he paused. “Yet I feel happy for you too.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
“Sad for the suffering you will endure. But happy because you will help others live.” He took a bite of
pitaya
and chewed thoughtfully. “Through that, Ita, you will know what it means to be alive. Truly alive.”
My cousin’s shrill voice broke our peace. “
Helena!
Come help us make tortillas! Hurry! Before my father wakes up!”
It wasn’t fair! Ta’nu always rested after staying up all night on a soul journey. I wanted to curl up under the tree too. Curl up and sleep, right next to him. Happy and full of red
pitayas.
He looked at me with tenderness and brushed the hair out of my face. “I wish you could rest here too, Ita. But for women, life is work.”
“Helena!” Aunt Teresa appeared outside the kitchen door. “The tortillas!”
I sighed and took a last bite of
pitaya.
Slowly, I chewed it. So slowly, keeping it in my mouth as long as I could. I rolled the seeds around on my tongue while I dragged myself into the kitchen. My tongue rolled the shiny black seeds as I patted out the corn dough, trying to remember the deep places and the high places. Trying to hold on to that flying feeling.
Clara
A fter Abuelita’s story, I couldn’t stop thinking about souls. Was my soul what made me different from the plastic doll? My soul, my inside self. When I was younger, my outside self matched my inside self, like a shoe fitting perfectly over a foot. But the shoes I’d been trying on for the past year just didn’t fit right. They were too loose or too tight in places. Too stiff or too flat. All year in eighth grade I tried to get into things that Samantha and our other friends were doing. We went to the mall and walked back and forth past the plastic trees and the fountain with the fake waterfall. But it didn’t feel right.
For a while I’d wondered if I needed to know more about my Mexican roots. One day, my social studies teacher asked me to describe how Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead. I said I didn’t know. Then red-haired, blue-eyed Hannah O’Neil raised her hand and talked about sugar skulls and altars for dead relatives. I sank down in my seat, feeling stupid.
As far as I knew, there weren’t any other kids with a Mexican parent in my school. Some of them had Spanish last names but didn’t speak any Spanish. Some of them had a parent from another Latin American country, like Venezuela or Argentina. Once, a girl in my math class with an Argentinian father invited me to her house.
Maybe everything will fit together there,
I thought. But they spoke Spanish with strange sounds in a strange rhythm. And when her father, a surgeon, asked how my own father ended up here, I turned red and said I didn’t know. I left her house with a heavy feeling in my stomach.
Really, I didn’t even know what my inside self
was
anymore. It seemed all jumbled up, like puzzle pieces that got dropped and somehow didn’t fit back together.
I thought of the little girl’s spirit that Abuelita rescued. I hoped my spirit was still all in one piece inside me, not trapped by an evil spirit in a rack of jeans at a department store.
All this was going through my head as I walked along the edge of the cornfield, toward the mountains that towered over Yucuyoo. My belly felt full from a late breakfast of beans and tortillas
pitaya
and handed it to me. The red seemed redder than ever. The shiny seeds blacker than ever. My life up to then had been like a forest reflected in water, I thought. A flat forest. Now I was beginning to understand the deep places, the high places, the hidden places. The caves and mountains and tree hollows. Oh, part of me was flying as I sat under the tree.
“I won’t have to wait long, will I?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “I’ve suspected that you would be a healer, Ita. As your father was. But the life of a healer is difficult. More so for a woman. I feel sad for you, little one.” Again, he paused. “Yet I feel happy for you too.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
“Sad for the suffering you will endure. But happy because you will help others live.” He took a bite of
pitaya
and chewed thoughtfully. “Through that, Ita, you will know what it means to be alive. Truly alive.”
My cousin’s shrill voice broke our peace. “
Helena!
Come help us make tortillas! Hurry! Before my father wakes up!”
It wasn’t fair! Ta’nu always rested after staying up all night on a soul journey. I wanted to curl up under the tree too. Curl up and sleep, right next to him. Happy and full of red
pitayas.
He looked at me with tenderness and brushed the hair out of my face. “I wish you could rest here too, Ita. But for women, life is work.”
“Helena!” Aunt Teresa appeared outside the kitchen door. “The tortillas!”
I sighed and took a last bite of
pitaya.
Slowly, I chewed it. So slowly, keeping it in my mouth as long as I could. I rolled the seeds around on my tongue while I dragged myself into the kitchen. My tongue rolled the shiny black seeds as I patted out the corn dough, trying to remember the deep places and the high places. Trying to hold on to that flying feeling.
Clara
A fter Abuelita’s story, I couldn’t stop thinking about souls. Was my soul what made me different from the plastic doll? My soul, my inside self. When I was younger, my outside self matched my inside self, like a shoe fitting perfectly over a foot. But the shoes I’d been trying on for the past year just didn’t fit right. They were too loose or too tight in places. Too stiff or too flat. All year in eighth grade I tried to get into things that Samantha and our other friends were doing. We went to the mall and walked back and forth past the plastic trees and the fountain with the fake waterfall. But it didn’t feel right.
For a while I’d wondered if I needed to know more about my Mexican roots. One day, my social studies teacher asked me to describe how Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead. I said I didn’t know. Then red-haired, blue-eyed Hannah O’Neil raised her hand and talked about sugar skulls and altars for dead relatives. I sank down in my seat, feeling stupid.
As far as I knew, there weren’t any other kids with a Mexican parent in my school. Some of them had Spanish last names but didn’t speak any Spanish. Some of them had a parent from another Latin American country, like Venezuela or Argentina. Once, a girl in my math class with an Argentinian father invited me to her house.
Maybe everything will fit together there,
I thought. But they spoke Spanish with strange sounds in a strange rhythm. And when her father, a surgeon, asked how my own father ended up here, I turned red and said I didn’t know. I left her house with a heavy feeling in my stomach.
Really, I didn’t even know what my inside self
was
anymore. It seemed all jumbled up, like puzzle pieces that got dropped and somehow didn’t fit back together.
I thought of the little girl’s spirit that Abuelita rescued. I hoped my spirit was still all in one piece inside me, not trapped by an evil spirit in a rack of jeans at a department store.
All this was going through my head as I walked along the edge of the cornfield, toward the mountains that towered over Yucuyoo. My belly felt full from a late breakfast of beans and tortillas
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