New Season, New Digs

The awesome window in the new digs

 A couple of weeks ago, I was walking around Brooklyn with my poetry family and we were counting the number of times we had moved in our lives.  I counted 12 in the past 12 years (including 4 1/2 countries). 

As New York finds herself in the early days of her same-time-next-year romance with Autumn, I find myself in the early days of a new romance with an space that I could really love. And this space, I think it knows the kind of loving I need. It's bright and airy, with giant windows of blue sky and moon. Buzzing in the daytime and smooth at night, this space gets it so right.

I occupy myself and my spaces with newfound confidence as my focus and energy are clearer and fuller than ever before. I am strong in my body, in my heart and in my mind. I am blossoming with creativity and purpose.  

Could I be entering Act 3 in the story of Tish? Oh hell, yeah!

April 4 Poem: The Dance of the Left-Right Sway (4/30)

And each city is a flash,
each citizen a speck
on this train ride between
townships. Strangers sharing
this car, this air, this free wifi,
this conductor, this suspension
between to and from. Behind,
conversations of apparent
importance, spoken on a 
Blackberry with urgency.
"Family emergency... No,
there will be no way to reach
me at the hospital... Yes,
I promise to be on email 
as much as I can..." then
a long silence, not even a sigh.
Across me, a watermelon 
coat outshone by a smile, 
it must be love, a new love
she cannot contain.
She stares out the window,
as if to make a wish and 
then, she is suddenly sad..
Beside me, a logbook,
an iPad, a calendar and
a calculator. It is tax season
in the East Coast and he
is both King and drone,
he leaves his armaments
only once and returns with
his third coffee. 

And the speed of the 
journey is swaddled in
the softest sunlight,
camouflaged by the
left-right sway. And the man 
with the clicker is always
the boss. And the suit
who steps out to take
a call means business,
so does the pearl-wearing
hair flipper he is here with.
The conservative in the
seat next to me reads about
the missionary position, and
the hipster across from him 
is bored. And the argyle 
sweater in the middle is
pensive and the watermelon
coat is smiling again.
And each city is still 
a flash, and each citizen
is less of a speck in the 
sway and the rock from 
New York to Boston today. 

Notes from The Road

I have resisted the urge to be hard on myself for not writing enough. I have resisted the temptation to lay the blame elsewhere. Life is what it is, and sometimes there is no room even for the things that matter the most. I have started an experiment, instead of reading on the train I've started writing. If it's an issue of time and space being limited, I thought to make use of the time and space available to me.

For real. Leaving the iPad behind, and focusing on the trusty Moleskin and pen. Sometimes it's a fragment that comes to me, sometimes the begin of a thing that eventually becomes a writing artifact. Last week, on Tuesday this notion came to me. I am still waiting for the next train ride that gives it more shape. But here it is, an impulse from the train. A notion of a piece of writing:

"As if there was anything else she knew how to do, she let him in. Again. Without question or condition. She let him back in."

Watch this space and see where the ride take us.

A New Place to Call Home

There is no exact number I can come up with when I try to count the number of times I've moved in my life. More cities than the fingers of two hands, and enough countries to occupy all the fingers of one hand. Even still, finding a place that feels so much like home in a city that is so far away from most of the people who know you best and love love love love you is always a magical thing. It's been a week to the day, and the report remains stellar.

An early drawing by Gaél, a foto with a story I might tell you, an old-school writing kit from my brother.

The place is warm and nurturing, somewhere between a beachside fire and a shot of whisky. Neat, of course. It sits on a tree-lined street, where today an HBO series will be shooting (yep, it's THAT pretty). My desk sits facing the street, so I get a cool breeze as I think and work surrounded by mementos from friends and family. This new life is punctuated by touches of where I am from, a pair of ash trays bearing the words "Casa Vallés" from Abuelo's collection; the scapular my great grandmother brought to the Philippines from Spain - a present during my First Holy Communion, one one side The Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin on the other. It is all part of the dichotomy of who I am, and I like it like that.

This is how we do breakfast chez nous.

For all the time I've lived in New York and for as much as I love this city, I have not felt like I could claim a space and call it home until now. The art that sits waiting for me to get my bearings will soon board a ship and find themselves, as I have, in a new place to call home. Until then, I continue to get to know what this new home will mean to me and my story. I invite you to come over for a meal, we do quite well in the food and beverage department. I may be a New Yorker but I will always be a hospitable Filipina at heart, ready with a big hug, warm meal and clean sheets for my friends. Come visit us in Brooklyn, donde hay vino para el vecino.

Love, Sex and The Spaces in Between

Yes, they're real and yes, they're mine.

"Are you polyamorous?" asked the beautiful black woman in braids at the after party in SoHo. Long thoughtful pause. "I guess I can't be, since I'm not sure I know what the word means."

This was my first Sex and the City-esque experience as a New York resident. The simple exchange is layered with commentary about me and especially about America. Where I am from, there isn't a lot of sex talking. This is not to be mistaken for a lack of sex, indeed people enjoy healthy sex lives. It's just not something most people casually, openly discuss. We're more a doing kind of culture than talk-about-doing. More feeling and vibing, our communication is often more about what isn't said, the meaning between the words, the subtleties of timbre and lilt, of eyebrow raise and lip purse.

America is different. In America, there is a rational and almost blunt word for most everything because it is a culture that processes with head more than with heart. This makes the language of American seduction as simple as it is complicated. In its directness, it can sometimes feel blunt and rather un-sexy.  Consider the action word - the Americans say pick up and the British use the word pull.  One pursues and the other invites pursuit. You see, when it comes to sex and seduction, I come from the philosophy of the pull, clearly I am sexing and seducing in the wrong language!

Years after that first conversation with Tara I don't think I'm any better at speaking America's seduction but I understand it better. I appreciate how they make room for different lifestyles and ways. I like that their language fuels tolerance by creating words that potentially lead to acceptance which eventually brings about understanding. I also know now more than ever the importance and yes, the sexiness of the things we can never pin down to a single word.

So here's the thing, me and my tribe are making America sexier. We come with our sensuality and our brand of loving to challenge the American pick up and luxuriate it with a double shot of the pull. We color the way America loves with alba, amor, cariño, alab, init and so much more. You will love us, we will seduce you,  you won't have to narrow it all down into a single word and yes, it will be sexy. It already is.