tell them it is the rigors of graduate school that now make me sob in my mother’s arms in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.
After another night of crying about lost love, I call my mother into my bedroom. Unsure of where to begin, I choose the logical. “Mami,” I begin in Spanish, “it’s been a long time since I’ve had a boyfriend.”
She nods and gives me a small smile.
I look at the pink wall of the bedroom I have in my parent’s home, the writing awards, the Ani DiFranco CDs, the books. “ Estoy saliendo con mujeres .” I’m dating women.
Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out. She covers her heart with her right hand in a pose similar to the one of the Virgin Mary that hangs over the bed she shares with my father.
“Mami, are you ok?”
“ Ay, Dios mío .”
When she doesn’t say anything else, I fill the silence between us with a concise history of the LGBT, feminist, and civil right movements, which combined have opened the door to higher education, better laws, and supportive communities of what would be otherwise marginalized people. “It’s because of how hard you worked to put me through school that I am fortunate enough to be so happy and make such good decisions for myself.”
By this time, my mother is hyperventilating and fanning herself with her other hand. She stammers, “I’ve never heard of this. This doesn’t happen in Colombia.”
“You haven’t been in Colombia in twenty-seven years.”
“But I never saw anything like this there.”
In the days that follow, Tía Chuchi accuses me of trying to kill my mother.
We’re on the phone. She’s at Tía Dora’s apartment. As if it’s not enough that I am murdering my mother, Tía Chuchi adds with grim self-satisfaction: “It’s not going to work, sabes ? You need a man for the equipment.”
For this, I am ready. I am not being sassy. I really do believe she doesn’t know and that I can inform her. “Tía, you can buy the equipment.”
She breaks out into a Hail Mary and hangs up the phone.
My mother develops a minor depression and a vague but persistent headache. She is not well, the tías snap at me.
“Don’t say anything to her!” barks Tía Dora over the phone. “The way this woman has suffered I will never know.”
But she wants me to know.
Tía Dora stops talking to me. She throws away a gift from me because she can see that the present (a book on indigenous religions in Mexico) is my way of trying to convert her to loving women. Tía Chuchi begins walking into the other room when I arrive home. Tía Rosa alludes to the vicious rumors the other two aunties have started about me. “It’s terrible,” she says, and then: “ Siéntate, siéntate . I made you buñuelos just the way you like. Are you hungry?”
Tía Rosa still complains about the back pains from the accident of years before, but she is living in her own apartment again. In her sixties now, she is a short, robust woman with thick eyeglasses and hair the color of black ash. Her husband is long gone, and since the bed is half empty, Tía Rosa has covered the mattress with prayer cards. Every night, she lies down on that blanket made of white faces, gold crosses, and pink-rose lips.
That my romantic choices could upset my mother and tías had been a given since high school. A lot can be said about a woman who dates the wrong man. But dating the same sex or dating both sexes has no explanation.
My mother now is hurt. More than anything, she is bruised, and she wonders what she did wrong. “This isn’t what we expected,” she says quietly one day as we walk toward Bergenline Avenue to catch the bus.
I keep thinking that if only I could tell my mother how it works with women, she would understand. The problem is I don’t know.
The closest I have to an explanation is a Frida Kahlo painting titled The Two Fridas , where the artist is sitting next to her twin who holds her heart, an artery, and a pair of scissors. That is how I feel about
After another night of crying about lost love, I call my mother into my bedroom. Unsure of where to begin, I choose the logical. “Mami,” I begin in Spanish, “it’s been a long time since I’ve had a boyfriend.”
She nods and gives me a small smile.
I look at the pink wall of the bedroom I have in my parent’s home, the writing awards, the Ani DiFranco CDs, the books. “ Estoy saliendo con mujeres .” I’m dating women.
Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out. She covers her heart with her right hand in a pose similar to the one of the Virgin Mary that hangs over the bed she shares with my father.
“Mami, are you ok?”
“ Ay, Dios mío .”
When she doesn’t say anything else, I fill the silence between us with a concise history of the LGBT, feminist, and civil right movements, which combined have opened the door to higher education, better laws, and supportive communities of what would be otherwise marginalized people. “It’s because of how hard you worked to put me through school that I am fortunate enough to be so happy and make such good decisions for myself.”
By this time, my mother is hyperventilating and fanning herself with her other hand. She stammers, “I’ve never heard of this. This doesn’t happen in Colombia.”
“You haven’t been in Colombia in twenty-seven years.”
“But I never saw anything like this there.”
In the days that follow, Tía Chuchi accuses me of trying to kill my mother.
We’re on the phone. She’s at Tía Dora’s apartment. As if it’s not enough that I am murdering my mother, Tía Chuchi adds with grim self-satisfaction: “It’s not going to work, sabes ? You need a man for the equipment.”
For this, I am ready. I am not being sassy. I really do believe she doesn’t know and that I can inform her. “Tía, you can buy the equipment.”
She breaks out into a Hail Mary and hangs up the phone.
My mother develops a minor depression and a vague but persistent headache. She is not well, the tías snap at me.
“Don’t say anything to her!” barks Tía Dora over the phone. “The way this woman has suffered I will never know.”
But she wants me to know.
Tía Dora stops talking to me. She throws away a gift from me because she can see that the present (a book on indigenous religions in Mexico) is my way of trying to convert her to loving women. Tía Chuchi begins walking into the other room when I arrive home. Tía Rosa alludes to the vicious rumors the other two aunties have started about me. “It’s terrible,” she says, and then: “ Siéntate, siéntate . I made you buñuelos just the way you like. Are you hungry?”
Tía Rosa still complains about the back pains from the accident of years before, but she is living in her own apartment again. In her sixties now, she is a short, robust woman with thick eyeglasses and hair the color of black ash. Her husband is long gone, and since the bed is half empty, Tía Rosa has covered the mattress with prayer cards. Every night, she lies down on that blanket made of white faces, gold crosses, and pink-rose lips.
That my romantic choices could upset my mother and tías had been a given since high school. A lot can be said about a woman who dates the wrong man. But dating the same sex or dating both sexes has no explanation.
My mother now is hurt. More than anything, she is bruised, and she wonders what she did wrong. “This isn’t what we expected,” she says quietly one day as we walk toward Bergenline Avenue to catch the bus.
I keep thinking that if only I could tell my mother how it works with women, she would understand. The problem is I don’t know.
The closest I have to an explanation is a Frida Kahlo painting titled The Two Fridas , where the artist is sitting next to her twin who holds her heart, an artery, and a pair of scissors. That is how I feel about
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