Friday, August 24th, stoop sitting.
The summer is made for stoop sitting.
And since it's the last week before school starts,
Harlem is opening its eyes to September.
I scope out this block I've always called home.
Watch the old church ladies, chancletas flapping against the pavement, their
mouths letting loose a train of Island Spanish as they spread he said she said.
Peep Papote from down the block as he opens the fire hydrant so
the little kids have a sprinkler to run through.
Listen to honking gypsy cabs with bachata blaring from their open windows compete
with basketballs echoing from the Little Park.
Laugh at the viejos, my father not included,
finishing their dominoes tournament with hard slaps and yells of Capicu!
Shake my head as even the drug dealers posted up near the building
smile more in the summer.
Their hard scowls softening into glue-eyed stares in the direction of the girls in
summer dresses and short shorts.
Ayo, Xiomara, you need to start wearing dresses like that!
Shit, you’d be wifed up before going back to school,
especially knowing you church girls are all freaks.
But I ignore their taunts, enjoy this last bit of freedom.
And wait for the long shadows to tell me when Mami is almost home from work,
when it's time to sneak upstairs.
Unhideable, I am unhideable, taller than even my father, with what Mami
has always said was a little too much body for such a young girl.
I am the baby fat that settled into D-cups and swinging hips.
So that the boys who called me a whale in middle school now ask me to send them
pictures of myself in a thong.
The other girls call me conceited, ho, thot, fast.
When your body takes up more room than your voice, you are always the target of
well-aimed rumors, which is why I let my knuckles talk for me.
Which is why I learned to shrug when my name was replaced by insults.
I forced my skin just as thick as I am.
Mira muchacha is Mami's favorite way to start a sentence.
And I know I've already done something wrong when she hits me with, look, girl.
This time it’s Mira, muchacha, Marina from across the street told me you were
on the stoop again talking to los vendedores.
Like usual, I bite my tongue and don't correct her,
because I hadn't been talking to the drug dealers.
They'd been talking to me.
But she says she doesn't want any conversation between me and
those boys, or any boys at all.
And she better not hear about me hanging out like a wet shirt on a clothesline,
just waiting to be worn or she will go ahead and be the one to wring my neck.
Oíste, she asks, but walks away before I can answer.
Sometimes I wanna tell her the only person in this house who isn't heard is me.
Names, I'm the only one in the family without a biblical name.
Shit, Xiomara isn’t even Dominican.
I know because I Googled it.
It means one who is ready for war.
And truth be told, that description is about right.
Because I even try to come into the world in a fighting stance, feet first.
Had to be cut out of Mami after she'd given birth to my twin brother Xavier
just fine.
And my name labors out of some people's mouths in that same awkward and
painful way.
Until I have to slowly say, Xiomara.
I've learned not to flinch the first day of school as teachers
get stuck stupid trying to figure it out.
Mami says she thought it was a saint's name,
gave me this gift of battle and now curses how well I live up to it.
My parents probably wanted a girl who would sit in the pews wearing pretty
florals and a soft smile.
They got combat boots and a mouth silent, until it's sharp as an island machete.
The first words, Pero, tú no eres fácil is a phrase I’ve heard my whole life.
When I come home with my knuckles scraped up.
Pero, tú no eres fácil, when I don't wash the dishes quickly enough or
when I forget to scrub the tub.
Pero, tú no eres fácil, sometimes it's a good thing.
When I do well on the exam or the rare time I get an award, pero,
tú no eres fácil.
When my mother's pregnancy was difficult, and it was all because of me.
Because I was turned around, and they thought that I would die, or worse,
that I would kill her.
So they held a prayer circle at church, and
even Father Sean showed up at the emergency room.
Father Sean, who held my mother's hand as she labored me into the world.
And Papi paced behind the doctor who said this was the most difficult birth she'd
been a part of.
But instead of dying, I came out wailing, wailing, waving my tiny fists.
And the first thing Papi said, the first words I ever heard, pero,
tú no eres fácil.
You sure ain't an easy one.
Mami works cleaning an office building in Queens.
Rides two trains in the early morning so she can arrive at the office by eight.
She works at sweeping and mopping, emptying trash bins and being invisible.
Her hands never stop moving, she says, her fingers rubbing the material of plastic
gloves like the pages of her well-worn Bible.
Mami rides the train in the afternoon another hour and
some change to get to Harlem.
She said she spends her time reading verses, getting ready for
the evening mass.
And I know she ain't lying.
But if it were me, I'd prop my head against the metal train wall,
hold my purse tight in my lap, close my eyes against the rocking, and
try my best to dream.
Tuesday, August 28, confirmation class.
Mami has wanted me to take the sacrament of confirmation for three years now.
The first year, in eighth grade, the class got full before we could sign up.
And even with all her heavenly pull, Mami couldn't get a spot for Twin and me.
Father Sean told her it'd be fine if we waited.
Last year, Karita, my best friend,
extended her trip in DR when we were supposed to begin the classes.
So I asked if I could wait another year.
Mami didn’t like it, but since she’s friends with Karita's mother,
Twin went ahead and did the class without me.
This year, Mami has filled out the forms, signed me, up and marched me to church
before I can tell her that Jesus feels like friend I’ve had my whole childhood.
Who has suddenly has become brand new, who invites himself over too often,
who texts me too much, a friend I just don't think I need any more.
I know, I know, even writing that is blasphemous.
But I don't know how to tell Mami that this year, it's not about feeling unready.
It's about knowing that this doubt has already been confirmed.
God, it's not any one thing that makes me wonder about the capital G-O-D,
about a Holy Trinity that don't include the mother.
It's all the things.
It seems as I got older,
I began to really see the way that church treats a girl like me differently.
Sometimes it feels all I'm worth is under my skirt and not between my ears.
Sometimes I feel that turning the other cheek could get someone like my brother
killed.
Sometimes I feel my life would be easier if I didn't feel like
such a debt to a God that don't really seem to be out here checking for me.
Mami, I say to her on the walk home.
The words sit in my belly, and
I use my nerves like a pulley to lift them out of my mouth.
Mami, what if I don't do confirmation?
What if I waited a bit for?
But she cuts me off,
her index finger a hard exclamation point in front of my face.
Mira muchacha, she starts, I will feed and clothe no heathens.
She tells me I owe it to God and myself to devote.
She tells me this country is too soft and gives kids too many choices.
She tells me if I don't confirm here, she will send me to DR, where the priests and
nuns know how to elicit true piety.
I look at her scarred knuckles.
I know exactly how she was taught faith.
When you're born to old parents who'd given up hope for children and
then are suddenly gifted with twins, you will be hailed a miracle,
an answered prayer, a symbol of God's love.
The neighbors will make the sign of the cross when they see you, thankful you
were not a tumor in your mother's belly, like the whole barrio feared.
When you're born to old parents continued,
your father will never touch rum again.
He will stop hanging out at the bodega, where the old men go to flirt.
He will no longer play music that inspires swishing or thrusting.
You will not grow up listening to the slow pull of an accordion or
the rake of the guira.
Your father will become un hombre serio.
Merengue might be your people's music, but
Papi will reject anything that might sing him toward temptation.
When you are born to old parents continued, again.
Your mother will engrave your name on a bracelet,
the words mi hija on the other side.
This will be your favorite gift.
This will become a despised shackle.
Your mother will take to church like a dove thrust into the sky.
She was faithful before, but now she will go to mass every single day.
You will be forced to go with her, until your knees learn the splinters of pews,
the mustiness of incense, the way a priest's robe tries to
shush silent all the echoing doubts ringing in your heart.
The last word on being born to old parents.
You will learn to hate it.
No one, not even your twin brother,
will understand the burden you feel because of your birth.
Your mother has sight for nothing but you two and God.
Your father seems to be serving a penance, an oath of solitary silence.
Their gazes and words are heavy with all the things they want you to be.
It is ungrateful to feel like a burden.
It is ungrateful to resent my own birth, I know that.
Twin and I are miracles, aren't we reminded every single day?
Rumor has it Mami was a comparona.
Stuck up, they said, head high in the air, hair that flipped so
hard that shit was doing somersaults.
Mami was born in La Capital,
in a barrio of thirstbuckets who wrote odes to her legs.
But the only man Mommy wanted was nailed to a cross.
Since she was a little girl, Mami wanted to wear a habit, wanted prayer and
the closest thing to an automatic heaven admission she could get.
Rumor has it Mami was forced to marry Papi.
Nominated by her family so she could travel to the States,
it was supposed to be a business deal.
But 30 years later, here they still are.
And I don't think Mami's ever forgiven Papi for
making her cheat on Jesus, or all the other things he did.