The sizzle of the hot oil in the pan makes you turn and your chubby cheeks ride high on your face as you smile at me when you catch my eye. I throw another taquito de papa into the pan and you giggle at the hiss that follows. You stand and smooth over your pink, orange, and white polka dot sun dress and steady yourself against the doorway as you lift your small leg over the entrance.

“Mami? Esta bien?” I look down at you and see your concerned face. How can an infant know that something is wrong? You have only been on this earth for a few months and you have been able to pick up on the sadness that hangs from my face.

“Claro que estoy bien mi amor.”

“Comer mami?” I motion for you to stay away from the stove but quickly lift you up in my arms when I see your eyes sadden. You point at the taquitos inside the pan, and inhale the delicious smell of the tortilla, quezo fresco and papas being fried.

I hold you tight in my arms and kiss you; trying to erase any of my sadness that has touched you.

“Lets rub noses! Like the Eskimoses!” You smile and kiss my cheek as I sit you down to eat on your highchair.

I stretch my aching back and look around at the small room: the sofa and kitchen table three feet from each other, the refrigerator, stove, and your high chair competing for the remaining scarce space, and down to my swelling belly that grows with impatience.

As I walked out of class and converged with my girlfriends, Liz came up to us and told us – Chris is dead. Sometimes words can’t describe the finality of such a statement for someone you know. Sometimes when you’re that young and you’ve already lost a handful of friends to gangs, beatings, and drugs you don’t know how to grieve; it seems part of life, another day in East L.A.

I couldn’t cry, part of me didn’t believe it – I half expected him to walk around the corner, his stocky frame in his daily uniform: baggy gray courdoroys and a gray sweater that was three sizes too large, his near empty backpack skipping off his shoulder. But I never saw his gentle boy face again.

Human Nature should not make us wince but when it is described in such potent details that make you descend to the dark cages of human weakness; one cannot help but shudder. Dante led us down a path of increasing monstrous characteristics that were made all the more unbearable as we recognized them to be human. Dostoyevsky makes your stomach churn as Raskolnikov wavers between the reality of his cold blooded crime and his conscience that gnaws at him until it shatters his remaining sanity.

As children we fear tales of dragons, of one-eyed monsters luring in the dark; or that red creature who has a serpent as a tail, a hoof for a leg and a cock’s claws for the other. But as we get older we learn that those are simply tales made up by parents long ago to keep our mischief at bay. The fear remains but it is replaced by another that we suppress for it proves too uncomfortable for us to express. One cannot run from the discomfort that we all carry the same human nature in varying degrees of evil measure. I do not claim that we are all murderers or capable of it but we certainly all share the ability to knowingly cause harm unto others: the conscious decision to do harm although it feels wrong and makes us guilt-ridden.

Whether it is a small lie or a simple insult to someone as we strive to prove our superiority – be it in intellect, appearance, or material possessions; we can relate to the act of knowingly causing harm. This is why when one reads about a character in a book who is about to commit something disgraceful, usually a moral flaw, that will cause a tragedy to befall him; we cringe and try to inch away from the words that the author has so deftly knitted around us. The sensation of your skin crawling seems to be the perfect analogy for your own feelings of self-reproach trying to bury deeper within your flesh lest it is exposed just as the hero’s flawed human nature is betrayed.

I lived a parallel life; breathing the same air as you, stepping into the space where your foot had just graced the pavement. I synced my walk to yours; hurried my legs to keep up to your pace – to melt into your rhythm.

You once were the window to a tower where I could safely hide from Mami’s blows and other dangers. As you heard the scuttling of my running feet on the linoleum floor, you scooted over on the bed and pulled the covers up so I could dive underneath and hide. You would pat my head when it was safe to peek out and would offer me a matching lollipop as we lay there; you reading a western, and I trying to decipher the words on paper that captivated you so much.

As I got older, I did not run from the blows but stood there silently as my skin swelled, tears running down my cheeks; all I could hear was the dry sound as you turned a page.

“No llores”, “No digas nada”, “No preguntes”, “Callate”! These phrases were repeated to me so many times that I became withdrawn; learned to stay quiet, to shut my eyes and let my mind wander.

Years passed and our only communication was a nod of the head; an emotionless acknowledgement of common existence. By then I grew curious of this man who could be so frightening when swept up with alcoholic rage and yet who could show aspects of the father I missed when I would come home and see you sitting calmly reading a book. The tugging inside my chest would only subside when I would run inside and find the book that opened up the fantasy world in which we both escaped to – 100 Años
de Soledad.

The residents of the fictional city of Macondo became our extended families; aunts who feared a child with an animal’s tail, men who joined their own revolution only to fail at everything including ending their own pitiful life, and a house who always grew – an endless expansion of rooms and hallways whose eccentricities was only rivaled by its own inhabitants.

Every time you said, “No seas de Macondo!”, my eyes would light up at the mention of the place we both knew.

I read and re-read these pages and looked for you. As I walked through the town, you were there next to me, holding my hand like you used to – being my hero like you used to.

But as I grew into a young woman and the heaviness of all my heartache threatened to collapse my frail mental state, even that book was not enough. I could no longer hear the echo of you as I shut my eyes and pressed my ear against that wall – the translucent wall that refused to come down. “One hundred years of solitude”, what an ironic title to bring us closer – one that made the shattering of our, of my, imagined connection to you feel jarringly clear.

Why can’t you take me now? Why? Answer me! Diosito – tu eres el unico papi que tengo, take me with you, I can’t take this anymore.

Not a sound graced my ears as I looked out the window and up at the blue sky.

I got up and walked into the kitchen. My body was tired from the crying, from the punches I had thrown against myself, my eyes felt droopy and kept closing. I just need to take a little more to dull the pain. I pushed a kitchen chair against the sink and stepped on top of it to reach the cupboard where my mother kept all of her medicine.

I just need a couple more.

I grabbed Tylenol, Vicodin, OxyContin, anything that said pain reliever.

I walked to my parents’ room and looked in the mirror; I felt so ugly and destroyed – what was the use? So worthless, I was just taking up space; I just needed to sleep to forget the pain. I would feel better afterward.

It felt as if I was in a dream, my hands kept opening bottles and grabbing fistful of pills and pushing them down my throat followed by gulps of water. The gagging would stay with me forever.

A sense of calm came over me as I looked down at the empty bottles; I dusted the powdery residue off my parents’ comforter so it wouldn’t bother them when they went to bed. I ambled over to the sofa, my arms guiding and balancing my body as my vision kept blurring.

My stomach felt hot to the touch and I couldn’t sleep. I kept swatting at him. Let me sleep; I want to go with you. Just let me sleep.

I woke up an hour later, vomit erupting from my mouth – sticking to my shirt that clung to my chest. I looked at the clock and saw that my dad would be home soon. I couldn’t let them see me like this. I tried to get up to walk away but my body kept falling back – the heaviness getting harder to manage. I tried again and this time my hand landed on top of the phone. My fingers were dialing 911 without my command, my body was in survival mode – trying to get me out of this mess even if I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep.

“I, I feel sick…” “Ma’am, what is wrong, you need to tell me what is wrong.” “I swallowed, I, I feel sick.” The phone fell out of my hand as I lost consciousness.

I woke up as two ambulance attendants pulled me off the floor; gently holding me up as they asked what I had swallowed. Gurgles and nonsensical sounds escaped my lips as I pointed at the bottles.

The bright lights were glaring in my face as the doctors and nurses undressed me, spread my legs and probed me everywhere. “Did someone hurt you?” I shook my head and tried to curl up to the side. Hands held my face straight ahead as tubes were inserted down my throat full of foul tasting liquids. My head rolled to the side as black vomit spewed out of my mouth raining on all of the equipment and white lab coats. “You’re lucky, you’re extremely lucky; if you had not called and waited another hour your organs would have shut down and you would have died.” Lucky? Ha!

My sister and mother came to see me but I refused to talk; the psychologist tried to ask me questions but I stonily looked away. “I have no choice than to send you to a psychiatric ward.”

This time the ambulance brought me to a one story structure in a city whose name they would not tell me. They would not disclose the name of the center either; citing me as a runaway risk.

I walked in, wearing the vomit stained shirt, braless, in shorts, and my tennis shoes – which they were quick to remove the shoelaces lest I get any suicidal thoughts. They pushed a cup full of pills, vitamins they said, at me but the sight of them made my stomach turn. I rolled them around with my tongue as they made me open my mouth to show that I had swallowed. As soon as they turned I stuffed them inside my pocket.

I could shower but I had to be supervised. Two apathetic women looked on as I scrubbed my body with soap – as always trying to vanish the feeling of filth and shame.

A blonde Caucasian girl lent me a pair of jeans and a shirt until my parents could show up with my own things. She didn’t give a name, just said she went by Fairy, as she gave me the breakdown of the place. She pointed and said: suicide by razor (her wrists deformed by the pink tissue growing like a mountainous range), crack, uppers, cutter, and then she pointed at a little girl – no older than 7 – who burned her house down while her parents were sleeping; I didn’t want to press for survivor details.

The following morning I woke up to the feeling of pinching on my arm and pulled away as I saw a figure in a lab coat hovering over me, injecting me with more vitamins. More threatening followed until they figured I had had enough violations in the first 24 hours.

The days melted onto each other as I saw the mindless teenagers and kids around me gazing at me first with curiosity and then abandoning me to my inner turmoil. It was not as bad as I initially thought, at least these crazies left me to my own devices. Then Fairy left without explanation and Lalla took an uninvited interest in me. When I realized I would be unable to fend off her crazed and violent passes at me I asked to speak to the doctor.

I nodded as he asked if I was having a difficult time because I was a middle child, nodded that my parents were great and that I was causing them pain by being bad, nodded as he continued to spew his egotistical drivel and I asked for forgiveness. Just as a priest thinks he can erase the pain that went along with the sin with a few Hail Mary’s, this labcoat assured me that I would be cured if I chose to, if I was a good girl and swallowed his wisdom.

Soon I was back to smiling on the outside while my emotions remained hidden, sinking deeper into the darkness within.

I remember being 13 years old and being asked to write what we wanted to do in life. I and several of my friends wrote about what they didn’t want to do in life: never get arrested (or at least not arrested as an adult), to live past 24, to live past 16 without fathering/mothering a kid, and to not OD. The list was an example of pretty basic survival goals that never went beyond an actual desire to bring to fruition the individual dream that lives in each and every one of us.

For a long time this was enough; I just didn’t want to fall into the wrong steps. I wanted to live long enough to move out of my neighborhood; I wanted to live long enough to help people; I wanted to live period. But things change as you mature, as you become a parent, and as you get out of your environment that keeps a mental helmet strapped around your head. The restraints start breaking apart and you start to allow yourself to dream that there might be something out there for you to pursue- something or someone that you can contribute to and it scares the bullshit out of you.

I’m 26 and as another year rolls along I feel stronger, healthier, and more frightened than I have ever felt before. There is no match, in my opinion, than the real fear that has crept inside of me now that I have made it well past 24 and well past the basics of my survival list. I’m not 13 anymore; joking about living another 10 years if I’m lucky; I am an adult that has cleared the hurdle and is now expected to take the next leap. What do you do once you have fulfilled your own expectations? Many of us have entered the territory of our dreams – the land of “what if” – and we should not forget that we are capable to take that dream and run with it without looking back.

Reflections can be cathartic; they can remind you of where you were and how far you have moved forward, but we should never allow the past to shackle us and keep us prisoner to our own mind – break through and run with it. Run towards what lays before you, run towards the possibility of happiness and drop the guilt of shedding your old skin.

I write this at midnight on a Saturday night because the thought occurred to me that it’s not only me that feels that I owe something to the inner me, the old me, many of us might feel the guilt of being happy. Many of you might feel that you do not deserve to be happy but you do. It’s as simple as the sun rising every day and as long as it sets every evening I am going to keep walking and running towards my happiness and keeping it in my grasp even if I am well past accomplishing the items on my “To do or not To do” list.

You have to go out and do something with your life. Don’t allow time to pass you by as you idly hide in a corner and keep playing the same tune.

With that note – Happy New Year

Sisters! Happy birthday Bella!

Happy 6th Birthday Bella!

Love Mommy

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

The Leaning Tower of Pisa has 296 steps to reach the top. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2010. If those were steps, it would have climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa 4 times

In 2010, there were 39 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 42 posts. There were 50 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 110mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was November 12th with 60 views. The most popular post that day was College.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, digg.com, android-vs-ipad.co.cc, michael-jackson-secret-exposed.xpac.info, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for olympic and grand linear park, “susana benavidez”, boyle heights blog susana benavidez, “downtown news”, and downtownsusana wordpress.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

College November 2010

Events for Downtown L.A. Parents January 2010

About December 2008

Staying Fit January 2010

Raw Feelings November 2010

Seeing my little girls grow up with smiles on their innocent faces makes my heart swell up to the point that it hurts to take a breath. How can I love them so much? I see them and tease them, “It should be illegal how much I love you!” and enjoy the waterfall of giggles that follows. Every smile and “I love you”, every kiss and hug, every sparkle in their eye, eases the pain that I have inside. It cleanses my wounds and allows them to heal.

Iza – I hope that I can always show you how much I love you, how much you mean to me, how much good and happiness you have brought into my life.

As you twirled around in your brand new puffy dress you looked so giddy; waiting for your special day. When you saw the lighted candles on the cake, your eyes lit up in a way that I found almost alien to admire. Your little hand reached out and took mine as we sang Happy Birthday to you. Your eyes locked onto mine and your smile made me want to weep; such happiness in a child, such a clear understanding of what your life should be.

At the end of the night you were deep asleep on the couch, leaning against your sister. You were like two precious dolls, frozen in infancy, plainly showing perfection. As I dressed you for bed and tucked your little body in, I couldn’t stop whispering how much I loved you in your ear and you rewarded me with an angels smile in your sleep.

Always be happy Iza, always be your carefree charming self. You are my little sun and I am a flower that leans toward you, seeking nourishment in my heart. I greedily take your hugs and kisses and draw strength from them.

Sweet Iza, Happy 5th Birthday!

Mommy loves you so, so much

I moved in a fluid motion around my kitchen as I chopped the garlic cloves, red onions, sweet and spicy bell peppers, then heard their sizzling song as I tossed them into the pan over the fire. The nacho toppings were done, the beans were boiling in a soft murmur, and the sangria! Ay the sangria.

Here I am, a modern strong-headed woman, following in your footsteps.

I used to look at you, confused and angry as I saw your figure bent over the oven, the stove, and the table – furiously stirring, chopping, and tasting your feast that would feed the entire extended family.

I was angry that you let them put all the cooking on you; annoyed that you didn’t see that they were taking advantage of you. I wanted you to say, “Basta! You will make your own meals and host your own parties, and leave the heaping mess of beer bottles and discarded bones in your own backyard.” But every year you would cook a turkey, your famous costillas, mashed potatoes, gravy, ham, rice, beans, the list would go on and on.

But I never heard them say thank you and I was pissed, in a way that only teenagers can be. I hated that you had to come home from your longs hours on your feet as a cook, only to be welcomed by the heat of your kitchen, your work never done, only stopping in the wee hours of the night. Only to wake up at 5 to get to work. Why? Porque ama?

Yet here I am, running around buying all of the supplies, ingredients, and necessities for the party – in the metro no less, just to see my chiquitas smile…

You confuse me in so many ways yet I love you so much. I can’t bring myself to be truly angry at you; I try by recalling all of the pain you gave me to inherit – but it’s a farza. I love you mami.

Everything you have done, you thought you were doing for us. Whether I agree with the steps you took along the away or not- my heart still beats thanks to you.

The girls aren’t spoiled with material things but sometimes I wonder if I smother them with all of the things I want to do for them.

Will they know mami? Will they know how much I love them, how my whole body swells with pride and joy at the mere thought of them.

As I grow up and see my friends around me; I understand you a little more. I don’t condone what you did but I get it. I have so many friends that grew up like me: short on love and full of need.

As they became young mothers some of them took all of the emptiness from their childhood and filled it with the love for their own offspring. Their children, like my own, saved them. They were done looking for love in loveless sex, booze, packets of powder, and needles.

But a lot of them grew up and turned into their mothers: slapping their kids around to unload their fury at life, becoming self-obsessed with self-pity, and abandoning their kids emotionally while they continued their search for the right elixir that will dull their pain. They are stuck in childhood, arrested emotionally and erratically lashing out in anger.

No one was there to hold your hand when you were left alone to care for your siblings. I can’t imagine how lonely and scared you must have been. You had no one but strangers to turn to when the migra came to the factories where you pulled double shifts before you could even be called a young woman. So alone, so full of pain; I never realized just how strong you really are.

I need to tell you how I feel. I wish I could take you in my arms and cradle you in them, guarding you from harm – the way your parents were unable to do for you. That’s what I do with my own girls, I express feelings I was unable to express with anyone else. You and dad grew up in fragmented harsh realities; you did the best you could and I thank you. Thank you for showing me what strength and resilience is, even when I had to use it around you both – thank you.