I reflected on my life nearly every day of this year. I feel all the way here, mentally and spiritually, to the point that my younger selves revisit to give me my flowers. A conversation with seventeen-year-old me, “you didn’t end up losing your shit. Natasha, you actually kept trying to better yourself….” It was a difficult age, a curious but walk-on eggshell type of stride. Twenty-six follows curiosity when it pings, speaking in a cadence no other could mimic, making you think I could sing.
A year that brought things back full circle, visiting the motherland, a coming into womanhood. So here are a few things that happened to me this year, seasoned with good and bad, feeding the chapter that made me come into my own.
The D.R.
About 13 years had passed since visiting the Dominican Republic. A return to nuestro país, like the family always says. Welcomed by distorted yet somewhat familiar faces that would call me daughter first, followed by my nickname, Hija, Lola. What a comforting thing to hear, a coming home of a sort.
Everyone was a little older, with a few new faces in the crowd. My cousins had children who played juegos de cartas with sticky fingers de jugo de mango and ran around the second floor of a two-story house, driving tia crazy. There were changes I hadn’t expected to see, like tia having a short fresh head of curls. Ay, es que con este calor no se puede ta iendo al salon pa sudarse el pelo.
I wondered if it was really the heat or if somewhere under all that pelo malo talk there was some pride in pelo natural. All my hair compliments ended with a pero Lola tiene pelo bueno por el lado de su papá, por eso es que se le vez tan lindo. It always went back to good hair and bad hair. Even in its natural state, my hair was related to my bloodline being connected to my father’s Spanish side — the good side.
That tia had a husband looking for work. So they huddled around me and told me that any plans I made, I would always have a driver. I had a guide and my tio had a job. More hugs and carrying out the conversation in the air to attempt to make it out the door. Too many years that passed and everyone wanted a piece of me, more time to hear me speak about my life, and all the adventures they’ve briefly heard about through the grapevine.
I promised I would return, but I did not. Fitting thirteen years of lost time in a two week and a half trip was too much to visit someone twice in one trip. So I did what a good American family member is supposed to do. I gave them some money. I was blessed and told to return.
An unbreakable Dominican tradition, It is how you maintain relationships. It is how you take care of your people. And though I wanted more time, I desired their respect, to be known as ‘good blood’ because Mami kept this ritual throughout my childhood. A mujercita now, I got no passes. I had practices to fulfill if I wanted to stay connected to them.
From San Cristóbal, I was driven deeper into the campo to meet a brother I had only heard about from my father’s side. I was nervous about everything. Was he going to laugh at my chopped-up Spanish? Would he find my appearance strange? Would he feel a way about me for having gotten the chance to have some of our father’s time, more than his, in my life?
Along the way, I was praying that he lived somewhere nice, that he was happy, and that there was love in the place he grew up in. Because though my childhood was ruff, the love that was given to me throughout those years shaped me. I think I’m a good person…
He was less of a speaker and more of an observer, one of us. Brown eyes and a version of my father. He seemed to be taking me in as much as I did him. His mother, sister, abuelita, tia, primos, and best friend all sat and chuckled at my questions. I could feel the excitement building, but disappointment lurked as the sun began to set. I would have to leave soon, not knowing when we’d physically be with one another again.
His mother, who I remembered from a trip years ago when papi had the freedom to travel, the trip before he was deported, sat proudly next to her son. With deep brownish-red hair, I recall being comforted by this lovely woman in a place that now felt bizarre after my parents’ divorce. Swimming in my nostalgia is a memory of being on a pasola with her and my siblings. She took us to her mother’s job to say these were the kids of the man she loved, the man she would marry.
Her mother gave us her blessings, and we were returned to my father. He told her off for having his kids on a pasola through the campo where we could’ve been in danger.
Here we were, in a little casita where my eyes tiptoed as far in as they could as I sat in the marquesina waiting for my jugo de lechosa. My little brother’s mom was kind and studied every part of me as I sipped and talked. I only hoped she was a good mother to him.
Two hours made up for a lifetime of not knowing much of one another. I pulled out my wallet and handed my brother some money to share with his little sister, who said she loved me like the sister she always wanted. And though I wanted more time, I desired their respect. I wanted to be known as a good sister, one who would look out for her own, who would come again.
Mujercita
I need to talk about this trip.
It fed the woman I’ve become this year. I did not feel like a woman at twenty-five, or twenty-four, not at twenty-one. But this trip around the sun has riddled thoughts out of all the seeds I chose to plant — that whatsoever comes out of the ground grows from my intention and choice.
Not everything was sunny and sweet. Other times I felt defeated. I dined with the wicked and faked laugh. I was invited to the beach by vicious men that I believe would be a few beers in and try to undress…
or drown me.
I swung by for a favor I owed to a man
and to find out the truth – for myself.
I thank La Rubía from across the street, who witnessed and involved herself in stopping a killing. I ate from the hands of the corrupt and folded pesos in their hands before I left.
It is tradition to feed and look out for the family. Maybe I would be remembered as a good niece. On the car ride home, I decided it was the last time they would see me.
Sangre
The trip was long and heavy. I didn’t know how to talk about all the truth, all the things that happened while I was growing up in Nueva Yor. Tears began to make their way down my cheeks. I felt a moistness from below. It was one of my stress periods coming. I got up and dark blood covered my shorts, a deep dark red kissed the white tiles. I did a hum-cry like a child looking for help.
I knew that no one was home, but I cried and hummed and felt woman for the first time.
I did not feel like a woman at eighteen because I could not handle the truth that came out of my mother’s mouth. I stayed away from everyone I grew up with at twenty-two.
But this year I was ready to receive the truth.
there it sticked
then it clicked
one did feel mos’ 26
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