I am a brown paper bag

The luminarias, more commonly known as faralitos to other New Mexicans, begin to take shape, lining up next to the wheel barrow filled with dirt. Usually two scoops of dirt from an old soda cup will do the job. The bag creased and filled with dirt is ready to find its home along the sidewalk, maybe the drive way, there is also the chance it lands around a tree. It has been my grandpas job for as long as I remember to place the stick between each bag to make sure it fits.

I don't call my grandpa, abuelito or my grandma, abuelita. I call them grandpa and grandma. What a thought to have so close to Christmas. Regardless they are a lot like my parents. I don't call faralitos, faralitos. I call them luminarias, but they both mean the same thing to my Christmas tradition.

The Navidad, reminds chicanos of the luminaria. Not the ethnic Chicano but the cultural Chicano.  Not the brown skinned Chicano but the kind hearted.  The humble symbolic lantern of light in a dark night. Isn't our life a beacon of hope for one another. Isn't it true that we are lanterns and disorient-able at the same time. I have a small burning candle in my heart. Its sheltered in my core. I am the brown paper bag. It's nestled in a bed of dirt. It lights the idea of home.

I trust the dim little amber yellow glow will be enough to guide my thoughts home. Home has become a journey, the journey. Not so much a place. The destination is no longer the priority because home is a condition more than it is a location. Not a destination that can be marked on a map, but experiences that splash the memories of those who share this life. Experiences, dusting the cosmos like a thin white jet stream left by a plane. A jet that once had a destination but now understands that its duty is to simply keep flying.

No, not like a jet stream. A little less straight, maybe more like the wake from a catamaran on a turquiose sheet of water. A catamaran leaving a carefree and curving essence of existence, gradually extending diagonaly left and right until both vectors seems to disappear. They never disappear though, it dissipates. Unless it finds an object to cause a rebound.

No, not like the wake from catamaran. A little less luxurious, maybe more like the tracks from a lonely snowshoer. A pair of snowshoes breaking through a white sparkly brilliance. Two shoes belonging to one person, crunching along, leaving a rhythm of evidence and disruption for as long as the temperature will allow. An essence that is completely dependent on the weather. My flame leaves experiences like snowshoes from a snowshoer with a pulsing flicker.

But not really like a snowshoer's tracks. Not as cold and surely an existence not so lonely. Maybe, an existence like a poem, always holding at the core the genetic and karmic nature of its author. Sometimes expressing the hurts, joys, and indifferences that reacted with other poets ideas about existing. And maybe like the hustle, shuffle, and buzz of a coffee house that lures poets. A congregation of poets, some who call themselves poets, others who are by mere intrinsic creativity considered poets. A collection of experiences like poets writing in a coffee house, my flame dances with energy.

The flame that I see in my heart is as determined as a jet stream streaking furiously through an empty atmosphere. The flame is as nonchalant as a catamaran in Caribbean sea. The flame fighting to glow can be as unaccompanied as pair of snowshoer's tracks. But usually the flame in my heart is as caring and warm as a coffee house filled with poets churning out ideas. My flame throws light against the shelter walls, animating with every flicker.

My flame flickers on this journey, the attitudes of others rustle my flame, not necessarily trying to put it out, creating conditions that bend, taunt, and tire my teardrop shape of fire. The journey is home, staying my course is my hope, and letting my little light shine is my duty. This little flame needs a cover. A cover that will let just enough light out but protect it from the gusts of discouragement.

Like the brown lunch bag that protects the luminaria's' flame from winds and the dirt nestling the candle's base, my body shields my little flame from fears, sustaining my dreams. The years get more and more trying. It feels like the lonely, cold, dark nights grow incrementally longer, perfectly challenging this weak but untiring flame of mine. Still, tonight, and even today that flame flickers giving life to the rhythms in my soul.



Dance little flame, because there is plenty of wick left.

A Letter to Dr. Coates

Mr. Ta-Nehisi Coates,
I find polarity towards what you have to say.  I woke up discouraged by the criticism being sent your way.  I just started tweeting, and you were the first person I looked to follow.  And then found that you shut your's down.  I wanted to throw out into the inter-verse how important it is that you antagonize the strugglers.  I ask you to keep asking our veteranos , uncles, and elders to be more clear and productive with how they'd like us to be clearer.

Dr. West's reasoning makes little sense because it seems like what he is asking of your messages is a perfectly complete discernment for all racial injustice.  His idea that your passion for demystifying White Supremacy is fetishism, is rude.  Would he describe Dr. Kings focus on civil rights as a fetish.  Would he minimize Cesar Chavez's commitment to labor laws a fetish.  This response lacks love, encouragement, and a growth mindset.  Dr. West's response is more like toxic endearment.  It is abusive to care so deeply that you want for the other something so unreachable.  The moving target of social justice will grab the perfectionist by the hair and drag them into their imperfections.  It is toxic endearment to galvanize my understanding of shared pain by inflicting a painful denial of your understanding.

I am learning that your effort to heal your pain is an insightful and inspiring to the ways I can also address my cultural pain.  The abusive kind of endearment that leads to any effort rarely being enough is a tool of White Supremacy.  And sadly we are reminded by two Black leaders how it doesn't take skin color to invoke this oppressive and tarnishing tool.  Arguing over who knows a more accurate suffering, who has authority to define the truest implications, and what constitutes a bona fide advocate is exactly what we don't need.  This arguing is the tradition that sustains White Supremacy.  I need you!

I need to know that the complex social pain within my Chicano life is not an isolated incident.  I need to have tools and strategies for improving my sensor for how my New Mexican communities' cultures are being disenfranchised, overlooked, and exploited.  You give my thoughts this improvement, by the thoughts you share and the implications you creatively explore.  The work you put into following today's pain into history's illusions have given me the courage to do that same for my Albuquerque peoples.  I ask with the upmost respect for you to remove your defenses, delete the doubt, but please put back your voice.

Dr. West might have the expertise and aptitude to assess the competency of race matters, but what he doesn't have the authority to do is to complicate you from reaching me.  He cannot define how your experiences help me resonate with my similar wounding.  The racially disenfranchised can't afford a delay in unraveling this pain.  The healing, I believe, will create this wholesome, accurate, and bona fide definition of thorough "freedom struggle".  I don't know if you left the twitter platform for larger reasons than this fiasco, but If your reasons are due to this fiasco, please return.

As Tupac Shakur sings it best, "you are appreciated"!