Tonight

Part A:

I felt...normal. Curvy women in flowy dresses. Yes. Curves. Undulating waves, beginning at the top, closing in the middle and exploding at the bottom. Extra stands proudly. It is the subject. It is the initiator. It is the norm tonight.
Huge circular wooden earings. And colors. Yes-colors. Curly hair let loose. Africa. In my hips.

Shame. At the North Shore. Next to skinny frames. Where curves are on the fringes? Or my perception is skewed?

But I'm normal tonight. With certainty. Unquestioned. Looking like you, beautiful you. And basking in an air of wordless affirmation.

Part B:

Spanish. I'm overly excited. Hearing tongues utter erres, saying "vale" and "disque." A collage, really. A collage of Latin American accents, helping me travel to Venezuela and Spain in the course of a phrase. And these erres and eses and a e i o u pronounced ah eh ee...takes me to contemporary Latin America, providing me with updates. "What happened since I left?"
Answer: erres, eses y a e i o u. Spanish sounds.

Part C:

Excitement. They're loud. We're loud. And overly excited. Our faces transform. The volume in their voice increases, repeating the same thing: "Que increíble. Que bello." As if I didn't hear them the first time--As if everybody didn't hear them the first time. But you can tell words are insufficient and cannot adequately convey nostalgia and pride and feeling home, and heck....just feeling good and impressed about a good performance. And he was a Dominican performer--so of course it was extra special.

Tucki tac-túk-tac Tucki tac-túk-tac

Sitting next to my mom at a unique concert tonight was a special occurence. I don't think she knows how much I value where we come from--where she comes from; how much I value her heritage that she's passed down to me. But seeing her face tonight, I could tell she was being taken far beyond 136 Mass Ave. into dance halls of the 1960s in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
What a beautiful memory to have... Cheerfully walking in groups to the town dance; girls patiently waiting for young gentlemen--or not-so-gentle-men to ask them to dance. Tucki tac-túk-tac--Tucki-tac-túk-tac, the congas she knew sang to her. These congas are not your wanna-be Latin music-immitations on American radio stations. These congas were accompanied by guiros and accordians. This was classic merengue, played to the sound of seashores and not-so-distant memories of a struggle for freedom from "El Jefe." Mami lived in the Time of the Butterflies, next to the Boulevard.
She was probably taken back to the alto of her house, where her windows flew open and closed by the wind of the near-by sea---a place I've had the opportunity and privilege to witness.
When the young 20-year old Dominican led that orchestra in a classic merengue tune, and sang about salchicón and café con leche, we all joined him together in Santo Domingo, remembering Juán Luis Guerra's "Niagara En Bicicleta" and those Dominican commercials about Induveca salami.
Mami was the expert tonight in Nueva York. Cambridge Housing Authority and all of those who offer subsidized services to her lost their power between 8:15 and 10:00pm tonight. Mami knows best when it comes to home.

Mornings in Boston

I miss the early morning rush of men and women in suits, flooding the red line with their New York Times papers and briefcases. Determined. "And how is this different from the North Shore?" you might ask. Well, there's something cosmopolitan about mornings in Boston--something worldly about it...Like we're part of something larger than ourselves. Mornings in Boston make me a feel like a world citizen. Newspapers make me feel like the entire globe is united for those first couple of hours. I imagine that our thoughts are one at 9:00am as all three hundred and fifty of us on the red line think about our lattes, affairs in Iran, laundry, and then find our thoughts interrupted by the beautiful Boston skyline as the train approaches Charles MGH. Focused eyes all turn to the window and glare: The sun highlighting the river on a backdrop of skyscrapers, brownstones and that Citgo sign that has faithfully provided every Bostonian comfort for the past 22 + years. Familiar. The cityscape is dotted with runners from MIT, college students preoccuppied with jobs and exams in the fall. Movement. Workforce solidarity. Whatever feelings the night before elicited in us, subdued by the Harvard bridge at a distance. You feel purposeful at 9am, causing you to want to read, run and work. Causing you to feel connected to that person trying very hard not to smother your personal bubble before riding past Downtown Crossing. And the solidarity with he who gets off at the same stop as you--every day.