realizations

Realization #1: I thought that a week would be enough time to work on the new story I started last week, but I have been unexpectedly busy these past few days. Instead of rushing the story, I have decided to put it off for now, and I'm going to let the format of the piece be fluid. I'm not going to force it into a story if it would be better as a poem. I often throw ideas out because I don't think they'll make good stories. BUT they may make good poems. This is one of my realizations: Material can take any form as long as it complements its message and doesn't reduce it. I was having trouble with the idea I had for my story because I felt that I was forcing it to carry a bigger meaning just so I could write a story... when in reality the idea itself wasn't bad, but fewer words would do it more justice than letting the message drown in pages of unnecessary words.

Realization #2: Because I won't have enough time to write a new story and mail in my submission before the deadline, I have decided not only to revise, but to re-envision a story I wrote a few years ago. There's something about coming back to a piece I have written in the past and making changes to it that makes me feel comfortable, older...different. My next realization: It's easier to see opportunities in one's own writing after some distance and coming back to it with fresh eyes.

Realization #3: My mom is a pretty amazing woman. She was born in a rural town in Mexico where she didn't always have shoes to wear on her feet. She worked in her parents' fields picking tomatoes after school. She could carry a bucket full of water on her head after fetching it from the creek nearby. She always wore dresses as a girl because back then, women didn't wear shorts or pants. She grew up across the street from the man she eventually married and became a father to her 4 children. She learned to sew at age 15. In her twenties she raised two daughters with the help of the women in her family while my father worked in the U.S. through the Bracero Program for two years off and on. She has raised 4 successful children, who are now adults. She has survived one bout with cancer in 2008, and is now fighting her second. Like I said, she's pretty amazing. My final realization: My mom's life has been anything but ordinary and it deserves to be shared.