The Late Arrival

1.) Making béarnaise sauce. Truth is, I never know what was in béarnaise sauce. I just knew I liked it on poached eggs. One day, I looked up a recipe, made it and was like omg, I just did something I never did before! That was one of the many “firsts” that keep on coming even as I inch toward the half-century mark. 2.) Traveling 600 miles on Route 66. It’s a really long drive that carries passengers through endless fields of grass at various degrees of greens and browns, through backsides of forgotten townships, through cattle standing witness to torrential rain and weather patterns that change on a dime. And billboards, endless billboards that invite you to pull over and visit Uranus Fudge Factory.  Yes. It's a real thing. 3.) That Time I Thought I Was Dying I had my menstrual period for three weeks. THREE WEEKS. I thought I was dying, and with each passing day, I regretted all the junk I’ve accumulated over a lifetime only to leave it all to someone else to sift t...

In my brain, I've got folders in which I file stuff. Some are memories that need to be tucked away for safe keeping. Others are within reach for easy retrieval: what meeting is when, what activities my daughter's got going on or when which bills are due. Still, there is another folder that holds memories or experiences that pack too much punch to process immediately, like the few years around my mom's sickness and subsequent death, and more recently, our family's trip to Missouri to retrace the steps of tragedy that eventually led to my great-grandparents' resettling to here in Milwaukee. The most recent addition to that folder is the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's performance of In The Heights. When I went, all I knew is that I needed distance from our bonkers reality as well as its effect on my emotional health. Given that the musical centered on residents of The Heights who are mostly Hispanic/LatinX -- many immigrants or first generation -- the...

Hearing is one thing. Listening is quite another. Hearing is noticing the neighbor's dog barking and brushing it off as a nuisance. Listening is noticing the dog barking, and wondering if the dog is barking in alarm at a potential threat to myself or my family. We hear a lot of facts lately that leave room for us to fine-tune them to a palatable truth. The un-palatable truth is, if I'm being honest, I've heard a lot of facts, but I don't know whether I've done the work of listening to facts. Listening is work. It'd be me listening to you and the words you reflexively choose; noticing whether your arms are held close to your person, or whether you lean in toward me as you speak; whether you feel comfort enough to look me in the eye or if you're nervously looking off in the distance. And if I'm really listening, I just might be able to hear what you don't say. Then ultimately, I'll understand your facts, your truth. But gra...