Well, I finally did it. I finally did it. What took me so long to get started; I finally did it. And it happened exactly as we said last night.................
Last night I attended a flamenco show with a group of friends. And it was there at the performance that I met a woman....an older woman, a white woman, an American woman. And we began to talk. We talked about a mutual admiration, appreciation, and love for flamenco. We talked about my possible desire to move to another country. And during that part of our chat the theme of my family came up. The conversation soon snowballed and I ended up telling her of my most assured desire to write a novel about my family. She listened to me tell a few anecdotes and ended up sharing with me that she, herself is a writer. (If you are thinking LOA at this juncture, so was I.) And as a writer, she began to give me "writerly" advice-the most important of which was, "Sonya, if you want to write, then you have to WRITE. Every day you have to take some time. But you have to write. And you need to do it daily."
To this admonition, my knee-jerk reaction was quite the opposite of what I expected it to be (hah, telling me I had to do anything-not even getting to the "daily" party would have been enough to turn my ears OFF under any other circumstances). I looked at my new friend and told her, "You know. You are really talking about discipline. Life keeps throwing the theme of discipline up in my face everywhere I turn these days." Interestingly enough she commiserated with me that even at her age she is feeling "led" to revisit how much of her life is given over to the discipline the goals she has for it require. I shook my head up and down up and down and just told her with a sigh of resign that yes, once I started writing I would do it daily.
After the show my new friend introduced me to her friend, whom I had actually previously met-another older woman, however Latina. And the three of us got to talking about our projects and as if in unison the three of our voices joined in the same exact oration; "We should all get together and write in a collective sitting." (mas o menos, you get the gist) The very feminine energy we were talking about as the agent of heightened collective creativity was sneakily manifesting itself in the very conversation the more we talked. By the time we literally HAD to break away from our entrancement, we had all agreed that we would sit and write together.
That was last night.
However, this moooooooorniiiiiiiiing, I wake up, turn on the computer, and see that one of my Facebook friends in NYC was convening one of her Latina Writers Group meetings. TO-DAY. Chacho, I shot her an inquiry so quickly asking if I could participate via skype. And as rapidly as I asked, she answered in the affirmative. By 1:40 this afternoon I was looking at my new sisters on the screen of my computer. And, my God-I experience an emotion so strong and different......as if I had entered another happy, ethereal, joyful dimension-like a Fantasy Land of spiritual sorts.
We introduced ourselves. Then we got down to the business. I, for one, said that my intention was to just go ahead and start writing my family's story, but that my worries were that I had facts, but not details (how did person A feel when person B said X to her?). And very calmly my new sisters told me, "Just write it. It's all already there." What happens? I entered that space of creativity-a space of utter and complete other-worldliness from whence I absolutely could not wrench myself. And it was there that I lost myself.
It's been an hour since I left the online meeting and my characters are still with me. I still feel the galleta one of my characters got on my own cheek. I am the one who is scared for her as she goes down that mountain alone. In this moment I yet and still find myself captivated and under the spell of these people who once lived, who gave me life, and for whom I am breathing their own life back into all with the stroke of my pen. Last night I couldn't sleep in pura anticipacion of just how I would get it all off the ground. Now tonight I probably won't sleep wondering about my Juana. Where will she go? What will she eat? Will she be safe? I really want to call her and ask her, "BISABUELAAAA!!!! ORIENTAME a contar tu historia. DIME como tu quieres q yo relate los hechos de tu vida. Ayudame a ayudarte a renacer en MI."
Just as Anacaona lives, so does La Juana-y ella vive en MI.
