Diwata by Barbara Jane Reyes

Next on my list of poetry to read is Diwata by Barbara Jane Reyes. If this portion of a poem is any indication of what the rest of the book is like, I'm finished!

"She was born with fins and fishtail,

A quick blade slicing water.

She was her father's mermaid child.

A river demon, elders said.

...She lit oak pyers and bade the wind

A whispered requiem."

-Barbara Jane Reyes

Diwang Pinay -Spirit of the Filipina

When I heard about the production of Diwang Pinay, I was unsure of whether I wanted to attend. Would I want to see something about Filipinos overseas workers here after coming back? Would it be watered down compared to my last four months or would it be too much? Did I want to deal with either of those outcomes?

Ends up I didn't have to deal with either of those possibilities because it was perfect for my reentry to the us. I'm no critic but I felt and learned so much from the show which was brief but laden with the density of truth, love and struggle.

Each of the seven scenes focused on common themes experienced by real Pinay domestic workers living and working here in ny. The actors taught us about the struggle of raising other people's children, the interchanging monotony and rush of tasks, abuse, being away from one's family for years at a time, economic struggles, and coping mechanisms.

The play was powerfully created and produced using the stories and voices of the actresses themselves many OFW's for at least 5 years. because of the way it was created and produced. These were the stories of real women working in ny and they wrote the play themselves through a process that empowered them to have a voice.

So often I've seen the lines of OFW's in the airport and my heart always wrenches at the sight of modern day manongs and manangs who still have to make it work away from family, in a foreign place with so few resources. Diwang Pinay allowed us to hear intimately those voices on the OFW line and the voices of those who never or rarely even make it to that line.

In the last scene, the writers came to the front to share messages written to their families, mostly to their children. The room was filled with the tears and sobs of both the actresses and the audience who felt the separation, "the distance" as Geologic says "between our souls and our hearts."

I'm so grateful I was moved to go, even though I was uncertain of how it would make me feel. It's the little things that can keep us connected and it's the little things that will keep us apart. Diwang Pinay was definitely a bridge to home for which I am so thankful!

Welcome Back!

I couldn't be more thankful for the welcome back that I received this week. Despite my withdrawal and the cold, I had such a wonderful time reconnecting with my parents, my cousins, and my friends. I had a fabulous week of freedom with my parents, a few warm move in/shopping/tea/movie/sleepover/lunch with Leigh, a lovely brunch with Tina and Anthony, a great birthday party for Jodi Ann, an AMAZING reunion with Oli and Feven full of reading, dancing and firfir, and an awesome lunch with my family.

Tina and Anthony!

Happy Birthday, jaebee!!

Fev rockin the merch -fly as ever.

Never static

Yummy lunch with the fambam.

I really couldn't ask for a better re-entry.

I Miss My Friends and Cuzzos!!

I've jokingly been saying, "I need friends" here. But I'm not really joking. lol. I am beyond grateful for this time to be mentally alone. When I was teaching, the grind did not give me the time to read, write, and think at my own leisure for myself primarily. At the same time, I hecka miss being able to kick it with people my age that I love and trust.

I miss my cousins.

While I have my dope cousins here in the PI, they work and aren't always free to bum around with me.

Thankfully, I've reconnected with my homegirl Cris, who was one of the coordinators of my PI 2003 trip and have found an amazing friend in her while here.

Spending time with Cris made me grateful for her presence in my life and even more grateful for my family at home. Yall make my days move with meaning and love. xoxo.

Riot in the Sky and Surplus Dropped!

My sister Sahra has done it again. After a short hiatus from the blogosphere Riot in the Sky is back online and better than ever. I didn't think it could look any better, but it does! I could say the same for Sahra girl as well! :) My friends are too fly for their own good!!

Sahra also dropped her new epic poem Surplus on the website as well. Download it asap. You need to read her genius! I had the pleasure of reading it before its release and was moved by its imagery, honesty, and its call to truth and action.

Sahra always says, "No homie bias," but I have some straight up, forreal homie bias because my friends are DOPE!!

From Shantaram

MyHanh shared this great quotation with me from Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts:

"Nothing grieves me more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn't meant to be."

PI Day 113: Time, Space and Tricknology -A Love Letter

Goodbyes and separation have always been weird with me. When the time comes, I ignore it or I try to treat it with huge pomp. This time, I ignored it and in my first week away it has hit me when I'm awake, alone, late at night or in the early morning -the jet lag a physical reminder of the parts of me that I've left at home.

Time, Space and Tricknology: A Love Letter

Fascinating. With this computer, through these pixels, I can see your faces. I can hear your voices. It’s a weird place that I’m in. My spirit grasps onto the family that we built over the past few years by invisible threads spanning oceans.

But I'm in betweening right now -trying to hold on to sisters and brothers in a way that's just not possible anymore. Your faces on the screen talk TO me,

but it isn't the same as your bodies and souls right next to me, seeing, hearing, living with me.

Like a long distance relationship, we catch up on catching up...the present together not a possibility.

So I wonder what my community will look like here.

It will be small and different from you at home.

You and I, we will speak less and I will live here.

The time and space continuum trips me out. I am the only one awake here. Endless darness meets my eyes out of the window. Everybody is sleeping in the rooms around me. I sit in the shadows, the light of the screen reflecting on my face. The only sounds are my fingers tapping, the wiiirrrr of the fans, and my breath.

I think of you.

You are in the middle of your busy day. The sun is bright and you are one of many people hustling to the next thing -class, meetings, lunch, train, students, account, computer -all things you do in the sunlight.

You drop me a quick line in passing, a quick smile, a quick hello, a hug, a kiss, a silent prayer, while I am here pondering the differences in our lives in this millisecond...

.0...1...2....3...4...5...

In my stillness, I close my eyes and imagine you...

Methods and time change, but

Our love does not.

I miss you.

See you soon.

On Feminism for Brown Girls Today!!

"More than any other generation before us, we need a feminism committed to "keeping it real" We need a voice like our music -on that samples and layers many voices, injects its sensibilities into the old and flips it into the old and flips it into something new, provocative, and powerful. And one whose occasional hypocrisy, contradictions, and trifeness guarantee us at least a few trips to the terror-dome, forcing us to finally confront what we'd all rather hide from.

We need a feminism that possess the same fundamental understanding held by any true student of hip hop. Truth can't be found in the voice of any one rapper but in the juxtaposition of many. The keys that unlock the riches of contemporary black female identity lie not in choosing Latifah over Lil' Kim, or even Foxy Brown over Salt-N-Pepa. They lie at the magical intersection where those contrary voices meet -the juncture where "truth" is no longer black and white but subtle, intriguing shades of gray." -Joan Morgan

Thank Leigh-ness that she handed me this book, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. It's an oldie, but goodie, and came at a moment when I was ready for it. It has flipped the script in so many ways and talks about a feminism of love, brotherhood and sisterhood. It's not angry, but acknowledges much of the pain that both men and women go through and how all of it contributes to our interactions with one another. Pick it up!!

On Speaking

Recently read part of Audre Lorde's "Transformation of Silence." It was beautiful. In my departure, even for only a few months, my goodbyes make me want to speak of my love to and for all the people in my life who make it what it is. Lorde said,

"...it is necessary to teach by living and speaking those truths which we believe and know beyond understanding. Because in this way alone we can survive, by taking part in a process of life that is creative and continuing, that is growth."

Speak. Love. Always.

On Sisterhood

"Sisterhood is not an entitlement. Sisterhood is a gift. It is something to be developed, honored, and respected." -Rachel Bagby

Excited for my training at The Brotherhood Sister Sol this week!

My Sister Myself part 1 of 2 @ Yahoo! Video

My Sister Myself part 2 of 2 @ Yahoo! Video

Back to Reality

I am so, so grateful for people who shake you up and remind you to snap back into reality. Sometimes, our focus becomes so myopic, we lose ourselves. I have good friends who help me take a step back and get some perspective, and for that I am truly blessed.

Biba's Boston: 2 -Esko's House

Biba's Boston: Number 2 -Esko's House

It is absolutely time for my last two entries in the Biba’s Boston series. I’ve been running behind on my own deadlines, trying to keep up with the new thoughts I’ve had around transitioning and education. I certainly couldn’t leave this series unfinished before allowing myself to completely delve into this new chapter of my life, though. And I definitely could not leave out my last two favorite places in Boston, Esko’s House and my old spot in Cambridge.

After the first 3-5 years of life in the United States, my parents moved us out of Queens and followed my uncle’s family and other Filipino families to a suburb of New York City. I spent my childhood in this suburb surrounded by family. While weekdays at school were predominated by Italian American, Irish American kids and teachers, American lunch food like hot open faced turkey sandwiches and fruit cups (wth?!), the English language, and navigating my own American identity, my weekends were full of Tagalog, adobo, Filipino BBQ, white rice, karaoke, Church and ballroom dancing.

Halloween with the Cousins

Cousin Pyramid

New Year's with the Fam

John Mikey and Goy's 8th Grade Graduation

My best friends were my cousins. Whenever I did not know what the hell to do with the foreign behaviors of the white kids around me or felt an inkling of rejection because of my difference, I always had my cousins to go back to. Those girls were my life blood, forreal. They are like my sisters because of the way we were raised. My parents rarely had to worry about what this parent or that parent was saying or doing when we were over because…they were our cousins!Family was and always has been life and it has quietly but powerfully defined the way that I understand and operate in life.

The Girls I Grew Up With

Fast forward to grad school at Boston College. I wasn’t living in a dorm anymore. Many of my closest friends had moved home or to other cities. My blood family was still in New York and my college family was scattered all over the country. That’s where Esko came in. The summer of 2005, I graduated from BC. But before I completely left the undergrad life behind, I participated in one of BC’s many “service trips” held in the spirit of Jesuit education. I had been chosen to go to Salvador in Bahia, Brasil, following the footsteps of my last partner who had gone on the trip the previous year. We would be working at an orphanage called Sementes do Amanha –Seeds of Tomorrow. When I went to the first meeting, who was there, but Eskedar.

The small community of color at BC made it so that we all knew each other. Sometimes this created a lot of “Save the drama for your mama” situations, but it was generally great because we were connected. Esko and I weren’t tight at the time. She had heard of me through one of my close friends and then we had taken a class on the Caribbean together. This was a class with one of the most mono-toned professors in the Black Studies department and was held after lunch hours in the building whose cafeteria was known for its fabulous fried foods. All this, in combination with my poor study habits and late night socializing and revolutionizing made for a great afternoon cat nap (I’m ashamed to say it, I really am.) While I was dozing off somewhere towards the back of the classroom with the other good for nothings, after walking into the class late because I had been finishing my last chicken tender, Eskedar was in the front, chipper as a puppy, taking notes, and participating in the little discussion that there was. I, of course, became known to her as the Filipino girl who would borrow notes because she slept during class.

Meighann, Me, and Esko in Salvador

Suffice it to say, I was happy to see my generous note taker at the first meeting. We had a great time in Brasil. Those trips make you love or hate people in a way and at a rate that you can’t get when you’re a roommate, friend, or acquaintance during the academic year. That was the start of our lifelong friendship, I guess. After that, I’d visit her during her senior year at BC while I was in grad school and the year after that I’d visit her as an RA while she was in grad school at BC and I was doing my first year of teaching.

It was during that first of year teaching that my partner and I broke up after three years of some serious dating. She, along with some of my other friends were there for me in a way that saved my life. While we didn’t talk about the situation too often since she didn’t really know my partner, she was there for me and our friendship grew. In all honestly, I can’t say exactly when our friendship turned into sisterhood…maybe she can tell you, but I honestly don’t remember. It was probably all those nights she forced me to sleepover at her dorm because she didn’t want to be alone in the O’Connell House and she had air conditioning in her room and she had a meal plan I could mooch off of. What can I say? I’m a shameful opportunist. Haha.

Me and Esko in Roatan, Honduras

That summer after she graduated, instead of sleeping over at her dorm, I started staying over at her house. And the summer after she taught in Honduras, I was again, always at the house. It was during those summers that I finally really spent time with her family. At first, her extended family smiled politely and asked about me in Amharic at family parties. Soon, I was there so often, her aunt wondered if we were dating. Technically, no, but we joked that we were since we were always together.

Esko and Mulu

Esko and Hailu

Mulu and Hailu at Costco

I became a regular –there for dinner, cleaning up after meals, grocery shopping, carrying groceries in from the car, showering in the mornings. Hailu and Mulu, her parents, became staples in my life. We didn’t talk too much, but we were always there. We’d sit and watch tv (my favorite is when Hailu turned to the Journey concert because of Arnel Pineda, the new Pinoy singer and made me watch it by myself or when we'd watch the Celtics games and Hailu would call Rondo "she") or I’d listen to and smile at their conversations in Amharic while Betti or Esko translated for me. Abush, her brother newly arrived from ET came to check out apartments with us when I was moving out of Brighton. My life wasn’t complete without teasing from her younger brother Abraham and I would call her older sister, Betti for advice.

Big Sisters in the House

Hanging with the Cousins

In the past year, while Esko has been living in Boston, I’ve grown even closer to them. Mulu was there listening when Rodley died. She gives me a look when she thinks I’m being silly.Hailu smiles in greeting when I get there. I come over without Esko being there just to say hi or bye if I’m leaving Boston.

My First Abesha Wedding

Foster Mom in Boston

The Womens

With the Aunties

It was there, in that Ethiopian household, a culture and family, completely different from my own that I found family in Boston. Their family, like mine revolved around the community.Their weekends were spent with one another with food, in prayer, in sorrow, and in celebration and Esko’s house was the center for much of those activities. And there I was, the random Filipino girl that was always tagging along behind Esko. They welcomed me into their home and made space for me in their lives and I will be forever grateful for the way that they filled that space I was missing while I was living in Boston. They became my family and they always will be.

My NY and Boston Fam!

won't you celebrate with me

won't you celebrate with me

by: Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

Happy Birthday to my fellow Libras.

Thanks to Leigh for this beautiful poem she found for her birthday!

What I Know to Be True

I'm always talking about how sick wit it my friends are. This past August, Leigh celebrated her 40th birthday. Instead of gifts, Leigh asked us to write her what we know to be true as snapshots of the folks who love her and whom she loves so much. I wasn't able to attend her celebration because of my own brother's birthday party, but had wanted to sing a special song to her. I made this as her gift and wanted to share it so that people could begin to understand the caliber of dopeness in the women around me.

Biba's Boston: 3 -Tita Gigi's Ranch

Number 3: Tita Gigi’s Ranch

For the longest time, I never thought I’d enjoy the country life. I swore up and down that I was meant for the city, though most of my life was spent in the suburbs. But spending time in Rochester, Mass. with my aunt and uncle on their pseudo-ranch has been a huge blessing and may have even opened me up to the country life a lil bit...a lil bit, I said.

Tita Gigi's house in the winter

My aunt and uncle are the epitome of City Slickers living the country life now. They’ve travelled to cities all over the world as architects specializing in aquarium design -spent a lot of time in Italy and Portugal. They used to own an apartment in one of the brownstones in the Back Bay, right on Comm. Ave. As urbanites, they dressed in sleek, streamlined clothes always in shades of black or grey. Their apartment in the Back Bay was that version of upscale, authentic minimalism that one hopes to achieve through purchases at the Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, or Restoration Hardware.

Tita Gi in the Back Bay with her old dog, Baci

Tita Gigi always loved animals and nature, though. Amongst the few pieces of Italian or Portuguese décor in the apartment there would always be a real bird's nest, some twigs and branches, a dog leash or some other horse or dog paraphernalia thrown in there from her pets. We tease her that her horses, dogs, and cat are our cousins.

Tita Gi with Sonny Boy (left) and Iabony (right)

Carlos and Juni with Mona

With Iabony

A few years back, she and Tito Michael decided to buy an old farmhouse in Rochester, MA. It’s super beautiful and super old, was around during the 1700’s and has so much history to it. They have a few acres of land that now hold two areas for their horses Iabony and Sonny Boy.There’s a beautiful pond behind their house and they live next door to a huge cranberry bog.They’ve made the house both simple and beautiful. It reminds me a little of Leigh’s Haven, only bigger.

At the farm in 2006, Laloo and Tita Nita visiting from the Philippines and Georgia

Mom, Tita Sandy, and Tito Sherm lounging

If you read about Leigh’s Deck in my last entry, you know that her place cultivates love and family. That’s why I love Tita Gi’s place so, so much. In the past few years, I’ve spent time with my aunt and uncle and the rest of our extended family on their “farm.” Mom has six living sisters and Tita Gi always says that the house is good to bring together the family. It’s torturous for Tito Michael –all gajillion of us there at once, but he’s such a good sport, as long as we don’t force him to be in photos, which we do anyway.

The Stateside sisters

I have memories of huge meals with my aunts, uncles, and younger cousins (I’m the oldest of the Castro clan’s grandchildren and have seen these moments longer than any of our generation). We cook and buy food for days and just hang out -playing badminton, going out in the canoe, skyping Laloo or Tito Boy in the Philippines, or Tito Al, Jenny, and Ingrid in Sweden; playing with the horses or dogs (not so much the cat since he does wonders on our allergies), playing Cranium for hours, looking at old pictures, or just talking about life and our family.

Ben and Carlos playing badminton

Our Davaoenos visiting from the Philippines

It’s been in this space that I’ve been able to learn and appreciate my mother’s family with a depth I haven’t known anywhere else. Like I said, Mom came from a cast of seven sisters and while all of the living sisters are extremely educated, have dope families, and are living pretty comfortable lives, they didn’t always have it easy. Tita Tootsie died of leukemia at the age of 7, leaving the family at 6 sisters. Lolo Frank died two years later when the girls were super young. The oldest was 13 and the youngest, barely 1.

Mom's family before Lolo died. Mom is all the way to the left.

Laloo ended up having to struggle hard to raise six girls on her own. In spite of the challenges of raising six girls, in the Philippines, in the 50’s, Laloo, once a beauty queen, was able to send them to some of the best schools in Manila by becoming a seamstress and eventually running her own business. But those material comforts didn’t come without some gaps. There was life without a father, a lot of affection that wasn’t expressed, a culture of tough love, lots of pressure to be the best, lots of time with a mother stressed from work, finances, and loss. But there was also family support, time in the province at their Lolo’s farm, lots of titos, titas, and pinsan.

Castro family reunion, 1965

Castro family reunion, 1966

It’s been there at the farm where I’ve heard so much of what life was like for my mother, her sisters, and my Lola. I have developed a deep respect for my mother’s family, an incredible understanding of family dynamics and Filipino history, a deep love for my family, and an undying confidence in the women around me. Each of the women in my mother's family has a story that I've learned from. In some of my most difficult moments, they've been there with advice, or have just been there -no words, but maybe some key lime pie. I don’t think I can truly express how much these times at Tita Gi’s farm have meant to me, especially not at 3:15 in the morning!

No, country girl I may not be, but I’m a family woman for life and Tita Gi’s is a place where I’ve learned what that means and how to live it.

July 4, 2010

Here are some HILARIOUS videos from HappySlip that totally remind me of my family:

Pahntee:

Peephole: