A Year-Long Correspondence between Wendy C. Ortiz and Lizz Huerta
January
WCO: Here we are, a new doc, a new year, a “new” decade. Welcome! Which brings me to my first question, my new dear correspondent: how do you commemorate this particular passing of time, from one year or one decade to another, if you do? I’m also curious if/how this might extend to writing projects--does an unfinished project continue on into the next year and how? Do you have any special writing ritual(s) that mark transitions?
February
LH: Hello from the very end of January and Santa Ana winds. I’m sure they’re the same up in L.A. December 31st was a month ago and it feels like a lifetime. Time has really messed with me this last year or so, slowing down to a crawl then speeding by so fast I feel like I skimmed across weeks, months. Thank everything for my journals. I think if there is a ritual, it would be looking back over my journals at the end of the year and seeing my emotional arcs and wanderings.
On December 31st I was on a plane back from visiting my grandmother in Mexico. I pulled out the journal I had started on the full moon in September and oooof, I should not have read that one on the plane. I dislike crying in public. It was a lot. 2019 was the year I turned forty and made some big big lifestyle changes. I signed a two book contract with a big five, which blew my mind. After twenty years I stopped working construction to write full time. I started off dead broke and ended the year feeling safe-ish, financially, for the first time, It was the most transformative year of my life. In the fall I kind of just went splat. Seeing the journal entries from that period, even though they were just a few months old, kind of punched me in the belly. I was sitting on the plane reliving the doubts that had swarmed up around me. I had stopped trusting my instincts, my intuition and I had to go through the shadow of the joy I had experienced. What an initiation. What pain. And there were moments when I was feeling so deeply I’d step back and be in awe of what I was feeling and could momentarily see it as exquisite. I felt very human. When I got home I looked through my other journals from the year and was able to re-embody the joyous moments: my best friend’s wedding, meeting with publishers, a family vacation to Mexico for my fortieth, sacred friendships and cackles. The entry when I wrote about typing “the end” in the last draft of my manuscript, how thunder shook my apartment and I shouted “the gods have accepted my book!” Going through those entries, rereading my dreams (I write down my dreams daily as you do, dearest bruja), notes on other projects, was like looking at a wild roadmap of wow. 2019 was the most pivotal point of my writing career but somehow I barely wrote, outside of my journals.
I have several projects floating around, though the most pressing is a book that’s due this summer. I’m focusing my energy on that but do dip in and out of some short stories that have been in progress for years. I can sometimes, in rare moments, write something and be done with it but mostly my stories and the rest hang out for years, ripening until I believe they’re ready. So most of my projects are years long. I used to judge myself for my slow process but one of my practices is to stop being so critical to myself, to speak to myself in kindness and accept my processes, even if they sometimes frustrate me.
The regular rituals around the work are lighting candles, pulling tarot or oracle cards before writing, or when I’m stuck to see what the cards say, where they send me. I usually have something scented in the air, incense, or oil in a diffuser. A Wiccan friend makes me a special essential oil blend called “Writers Potion.” It smells like libraries and forests. She’s been making it for me for years and now I associate with writing. I do have some deeper rituals but they’re not for the world. And I have a lot of hacks, weird shit I come up with. Right now my new thing is writing while leaning on an acupressure mat. I dig it.
It is so damn important to figure out what works for us in this world, especially as creative and sensitive humans. It has been HARD out there lately, the whole icky situation with your brilliant book and the book that is really close to your book, plus the American Dirt chaos. I can’t imagine how tender you must be right now. Are there practices you lean on? What have you learned not to do in times like these? How do you take care of yourself, keep that divine flame burning? Have you found a way to transmute or channel the emotions and/or energy? Sending so much bruja love. Be well, sis.
March
WCO: I totally remember you telling me once about the Writers Potion oil. I will never stop congratulating you about your two book deal so HEEEEY, congrats again! I’m in awe that you look back at what you’ve written in a journal. I have not done that in… years. At this point I only look back at journals for references to something specific I’m writing, and it’s been from journals pre-age 30. There’s so much about what you’re saying about reading, treading over what you most recently went through, that reminds me of
Lol I lost that train of thought for a few reasons. One: I was writing it on Sunday and my family is around me and it’s easy for me to lose a train of thought like that. Two: I have recently been on a new schedule of not writing on any days except Wednesday and Friday, and I already feel the difference. I’ve been working with consultant Beth Pickens since January, though we had made the appointment back in December. I had no idea that my work with her would coincide with everything going on* most recently. I’m adding that asterisk because I imagine it might need a footnote. I want to imagine it will be a mere footnote on this year.
Anyway: in my work with Beth, one piece of homework I have for the month is to only write on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to have two full days off each week (Saturday and Sunday). As someone who used to work every day (whether work related to my therapy practice or writing work), this has been a challenge. In addition, I am only on twitter for fifteen minutes once a week. The first weekend off/without social media I definitely had moments of boredom. Anytime I want to write or felt compelled to work on something, I left myself a voice memo. What a concept! By the first Wednesday I was itching to write, and banged out an essay draft. This is totally unlike how I have typically worked recently.
I just finished the second weekend of this new practice. I love it. It sounds cliche, or obvious, or just basic, but I SEE and notice things so much more now. The wisteria are returning in my backyard. I’ve been watching big bees and flying furry beetles make their stops on the purple flowers. I’m looking at the sky more. And every thought I have either passes or turns into a quick note or a voice memo, for later.
Thank you for seeing me in my tender moments. I’ve been using the Protection oil you gave me last month when I got to see you. You yourself are a balm, I’ve felt that every time I see you, whether it’s running into you at AWP or hanging at your apartment (an experience I still have strong memories of). I’ve definitely been leaning hard on these new practices around writing and staying off social media has been important. My routine of meditation, stretching, and exercise has been keeping me somewhat centered. Meditation goes such a long way. I know you’ve been working with meditation, too. Working on not creating stories in my head about things I have no real knowledge of helps. Humor is huge. Constantly remembering that I have support, and real people who in real life are my allies and friends, has been important lately. I had some friends over for dinner the other night--what a concept! Now that I am mostly off social media and feel “cut off” from “knowing” what “people are up to” (lol) it’s imperative I reach out and see people IRL! It was such a harmonious little get-together that we all agreed we would like to next have an art night, where we’re making things at a table together. Most if not all of these folks are writers (one musician), so I think we’re on the right track.
One of the other realizations I’ve had during this time has been that the best and really only work I can do that might transform someone or something is in my writing. Another NO, REALLY, HAHA, THIS WAS TRUE ALL ALONG moment. Like, the best way to channel all the energies is to write. And write, I will. Just slowly. It sounds like you can relate. Slow writers of the world, unite.
I realize that some of the answer to this might not be for an audience, but do you have any ideas you can offer around how to deal with other people’s destructive energies if and when they direct them at you? And another completely non-related question: I have thought of your work in construction before--and congratulations on being able to quit to write full time! Is there anything you miss about the work? You’ve mentioned ironwork and painting in the past. I think of how much this kind of labor impacts one’s body, and how any kind of labor impacts writing. How did this kind of work impact yours, if it did? What’s your current schedule or structure for daily life these days?
April
LH: April 1 and we’re all fools I think.
I woke up this morning and realized I hadn’t written you back. I can’t believe how much the world has changed in a month. How bruja of you to ask me about my protection, my schedule, my structure when all of that has completely transformed during these days of isolation. I woke up in the middle of the night last night with a strange but familiar feeling and it took me a little while to name it. Hello depression my old friend. Not surprising. I haven’t touched another human in over three weeks and haven’t left my house more than twice in a month except to go on walks. Funny how we’re all, as a society, as a world, in such deep protection mode and learning what that means to us. I have conversations from my second story window to friends who walk by the alley. I’m using my screens to communicate so much I bought one of those fancy ring lights to illuminate my face. I live alone, I’ve been single for a long time and don’t date. My closest friends live faraway so our communication has remained the same. I miss my little rituals of connection; dropping by to see my parents, seeing my sisters and their kids, my weekly brunch date, my Friday night gin rummy game, my Tuesday sushi taco night. I am grateful to be in a position where I have a home and small cushion of financial safety. I know there are so many who don’t have the kind of abundance I have. And I’m deeply lonely. I put a hot water bottle into a pillow and place it against my back at night to trick my body into thinking there is another body in bed with me like a big spoon. I’m scared of getting sick and dying alone, untouched, unheld, unseen. I haven’t even kissed anyone in my forties and I don’t want to die unkissed this decade.
I bought a ukulele last year and finally have pulled it out to teach myself some songs. The songs I want to sing are the ones my father has been singing to me my entire life. The first song I learned was Cien Anos. (can’t figure out the enye, but obvs a hundred years not a hundred assholes.) This song is one we always sing together. I’ve learned No Volvere and Paloma Querida too. I miss going over to my childhood home and sitting in the backyard in front of a fire with my dad while he smokes a cigar and sings under the passionfruit vines that have taken over the backyard. I sing these songs home alone and feel connected to those moments and hope one day soon I can take my ukulele over and sing with my dad. He hasn’t stopped working. He can’t. It is a true addiction, if he can’t work he doesn’t know what to do with himself. We were raised Jehovah’s Witnesses. My sisters, mother and I have all been begging him to stop working. I told him You raised us for years to believe the apocalypse was coming and now that it’s here you don’t believe in it anymore? He’s stubborn. And he finds most of his value in work so I get it. I pray every day and have altar candles going nonstop in a plea to our ancestors to keep him protected, that he doesn’t get sick or bring something home to my mom. And I sing. I sing the songs he taught me. I sit in front of my altar, singing and weeping. And I’m learning Bad Bunny songs too on the ukulele.
I haven’t written. I can barely journal. I pull cards in the morning, write them in my journal and that’s it. I know if there is a future me she will want a record so I’ve been recording a daily video diary every day at 4pm, for five minutes. Then I put it on private on youtube and hope the future me appreciates these moments of record. They aren't exciting. I talk about what I’ve eaten, who I’ve spoken to, my emotional state. Sometimes I cry or play ukulele. A different kind of journal.
I’m on a social media break. I can’t be online right now, too much anxiety out there that resonates and amplifies my own.
I do miss construction. I miss being outdoors more than I realized. There are so many microseasons I’m missing for the first time in twenty years. This is the month for black widow eggs. And mockingbirds singing. Birds flirting then fucking. Crows peeling bark from trees to build their nests. Jasmine blooming, the nasturtiums sending their shoots out for another season of climbing. Lemons rolling down the street from overladen trees. This is the month for seeking hummingbirds nests. Next month is spiderwebs. I miss the camaraderie of job sites and talking shit to other contractors and joking. I miss audiobooks. I miss how painting had become a form of meditation, of an active practice of intention and creation. I miss it. I do.
The last six months, after my crisis of faith, I got really into exercising, into lifting weights. And now that is gone too. My lower back pain is back. I miss the gym and the feeling of working on my strength. I miss the endorphins and the little muscles that had started to pop. I’m going for walks, kind of, but even that feels shitty. Everyone I pass gives a wide berth, I get it. But living in a world where everyone looks at you like you are a death sentence is pretty fucking jarring.
I’ve been thinking about the work you do as a therapist and how intense this period must be. Not only having to process and experience this on your own but to then have to help countless others, all day everyday, deal with it too. I stopped going to therapy in November, to try and integrate all I’d learned, see if I could go it alone. Ha. Ha. Ha. Excellent timing Lizz Huerta. I wonder about you and other therapists, how you are handling this period, all the anxiety and fears. I wonder how many therapists won’t be able to go on, to continue with this career after this is over; all those compounded traumas and fears. It must be exhausting. And it is important work. And just, ay. I can’t imagine. I’ve limited communication with a few friends because their fears and anxiety were too much for me. I hope you and your fellow mental health warriors are taking care of yourselves, each other, and that you get a good long vacation when this passes.
How is this changing you? You’re at home with your partner and child, I assume. Going through this as a parent and working from home must be such an adjustment. (My sister calls her house Burning Man because the niblings are dressing themselves daily and creating strange art installations everywhere. She lets them so she can try to work from home.) Are you getting outdoors at all? How do you explain all of this to your delightful kid? I adore your kid, her attitude and brilliance; she is truly magical. How are you taking care of yourself and family these days? What new rituals have arisen?
I think we’re entering what will be a very hard month. May our losses be minimal and may we get through it with as much grace and gusto as we can muster. I had a tattoo designed by an artist a few weeks ago. It will be my post-pandemic survival tattoo if I survive this. Twin serpents in a DNA double helix form to represent my ancestors and all they survived so I could experience human birth. Are you forward-planning any gifts for yourself for when this passes? What do you look forward to most? What art forms are bringing you comfort or solace these days? Sending so much love your way. xoxoxo
May
WCO: My hope is that this reaches you in a slightly more easeful space. That your father is protected, that all of your family and friends are. I’ve thought often of your daily video diary this past month. I appreciated your writing about the seasons and their creatures. Especially so because I’ve had so much time to contemplate the ones in my own backyard for the past six to eight weeks. I’d started my partial fast of social media back in February, and part of my new practice was also to not take my phone into the backyard when I went back there to sit. This has revealed to me all the hummingbirds and their paths, the bird families in the orange tree, the laughing crow with something in its beak always, and the other birds I haven’t found names for yet, but I’m trying. We’ve had an overladen lemon tree and picked enough off for two small buckets, one to share with neighbors (one exchanged a child’s mask for lemons) and one for lemon syrup to mix with ginger and to make lemonade.
I’ve been thinking about you and the friends I have who are alone through this pandemic. I can only hope that you are touched and held soon, however that might occur, or that the feeling arrives in dreams, some kind of comfort. Smiling thinking of your sister’s house, which left its impression on me when we visited way back. I’m getting outside, at least once a week, to the one park nearby that’s open. I try to take my kid, because there’s always the promise of ducks and a big pond where people fish at the end. I’m trying to be patient and kind everyday with my kid but it hasn’t always happened--I notice we’re all feeling the effects of too much closeness, though I may be the one feeling it the worst. Gone are my days of many hours alone. I do envision a future where I will be able to go away for a week in silence, alone. I also envision going to one of my favorite bars, and enjoying having every single person--men especially--being six feet away from me.
Today was the first day I wrote something since we’ve been in quarantine. I also had to pull together some unpublished work for a journal that interviewed me. This, as I am also asking myself how much of myself I want to put out there anymore--the anymore comes from a place of having offered, put out, etc. for the last six years--sometimes in service of my books, or my love of teaching. It’s strange that I had already been pulling back this year--before I wrote my essay on how Excavation got published, before the pandemic was full rot blossom in everyone’s mind. Now I’m pulling away further. Three teaching engagements were cancelled because of the pandemic, engagements I would have had to travel for. I’m grateful for the first year in six when I won’t be traveling. At all. At least I don’t imagine being able to before 2021. Which made adopting a dog much easier. She is part of my new ritual, this creature. I haven’t lived with dogs since I was a kid, growing up with two: a bulldog and a terrier mix. I’m learning a new creature’s personality. My cats, not as much, but they are all sleeping in the same room currently, so I think we’ve made progress.
How is this changing you is such a great question I hope everyone is asking themselves. I don’t know how yet. I’m overwhelmed with work--seeing clients in a strange schedule unlike when I was going into an office. Having no separation between work and home sucks. And yet I’m grateful I can make it work, that I have work. Between that work and semi-supervising my kid and juggling spaces to be or work or nap in the house with two others has pretty much sapped me of energy. I have a hard time working with video for therapy sessions but it’s doable. What I can’t imagine is a future with a mask in session in person. I miss my offices, especially my Monday office, with all of its west-facing windows and natural light.I’m not thrilled with anything I wrote today but because it’s the only thing I’ve written in several weeks, I’m gonna give myself a break.
I’m luxuriating in a ton of poetry books I’ve had for quite a while but never found time to read until now. I miss the ocean. I might look forward to freely being in the ocean, and on the beach, most of all. My birthday is the day after the most current stay-at-home order expires. I don’t like that April is gone.
I love that you have conceived a post-pandemic survival tattoo. May you survive and thrive toward its etching, and toward all the writing I hope arrives for you, too.
This uncertainty we’re all tolerating...this collective unknowing… it makes me want to ask, What do you *not* know these days? Of those, which have you “made peace with” if that can be said?
All the love, ease, peace, and protection to you, Bruja.
June
LH: June 3rd response. May got away from me, somehow. Outside of this quiet, incense-filled sanctuary I live in, there are vast and necessary protests. The energy is wild, I don’t know how you’ve felt but holy wow. Shift indeed. I keep to this idea of swamp, not the political swamp, my language for swamp is fuller. I feel we’re in the swamp, where what needs to die and decay will break down, transform into something fertile. And the timeline cannot be rushed. I’m in a deep solitude which has been deepened even more by this isolation I’ve willingly come to. I’m grateful for those putting their bodies on the line for justice. I’ve been giving where I can, to bail funds, to mutual aid, offering to send food to those rising up.
Oh bruja, I don’t know so much. I don’t know what’s next, for me, for our communities, for this planet. I don’t know what we’ll look like, individually and collectively, when this part of the timeline shifts. All I can do is surrender, one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn, over and over. There is no rushing the timeline, or the lessons/learnings. I try to find peace in surrender but I WANT to know more, which is natural. I stick to my practices, meditation, prayer, affirmations, ritual, Dreaming. The cards are clear, transformation is happening, though I don't think I needed to look to the cards to be aware of that. I wonder what my life will look like a year from today, and compare it to where I was a year ago today. I don’t think any of us will be the same. We can’t be. We shouldn't be.
Last week I left some peanuts out on my balcony and caught the attention of a pair of mated crows who live in one of the neighborhood trees. I remember watching them gather materials for their nest at the beginning of this pandemic. I was delighted to have the beloved corvids on my balcony so I’ve been leaving out unsalted, shelled peanuts out every day. The crows are vocal and hilarious. I forgot to leave the peanuts out a few days ago and got an early morning text from a neighbor that said “One of your crows is shouting on your balcony.” I went for a long walk the other evening and the crows followed me, flying overhead, cawing out. They’d disappear for a few blocks but soon I’d hear them cawing out their greetings and see them. I joke to my neighbors that I’ve become a part of their murder. The larger one has this gorgeous collar they puff out when they visit. We have started a call and response. The larger of the crows caws twice and dips their head. My writing chair is about 7 feet from my balcony, I caw back twice in my best crow impression and the crow will tilt their head, seeming to listen. I wonder what I’m saying.
I’m in edits for my book which is really a deep revision. I started the book nine years ago and going through the many drafts I can see so clearly that I am not the same person I was when I started this project. I see pieces of wounds and joys in the narrative, pieces of myself I’ve outgrown or shed. I try to come to the page with grace, let the story emerge and there is a grief in it. I’m not mourning who I was, I had to be that person to get to where I am but ay, the sads come up. I do like what’s emerging, the shape of it. I was experiencing deep depression for many years while I worked on the project and I see it on the page. It’s wild.
I miss hugging. And being in close energetic exchange with those I care about. What an initiation period I’ve been in, I thought I was at the end but nope, pandemic came and said deeper. So deeper I go.
Did you know I have really curly hair? I did not until very recently. Working construction for twenty years I had my hair in a bun and under a bandana five days a week. I decided to let it loose, let it become what it naturally is and I’ve been shocked. Curls! Ringlets in some places. Volume. I had no idea, I thought I had some wave but nope, full on curls. I love it and am kind of in awe. My hair seems happy to be free and wild. I haven’t watched any of my video diaries but I see the thumbnails over the last 75 days and my hair goes from very flat and thin to voluminous and lush. I’m still learning how to work with the curl and I love it. A pandemic gift, one of many.
I’m so happy you have a new animal friend in the family. And that you’re getting to know your garden more intimately. You have a lemon tree! I love California in lemon season, everyone giving away the fruit before it falls or rots. I juiced tons of lemons from my father’s tree and froze the juice in cubes. It must be such a shift to do your therapy work from your home, your sanctuary. Video is hard, especially for intimate conversations. Do you have ways of separating the spaces, at least energetically? Any cleansing? How are your conversations with your fabulous offspring? I’m sure she has incredible and hilarious observations. I love your kid and look forward to seeing her grow even more into her power and gifts.
I bought a trampoline, a small one. And then I found a hilarious video online of a man using a trampoline to super-power his affirmations. I tried it and loved it. So now I put on what I call my NASA-Bra, (engineered to keep everything strapped firmly down and out of orbit), start jumping and shouting affirmations. Cheesy as hell but right now it works. I have bounce-bounce everything I need bounce-bounce to embody my best self bounce-bounce. I walk bounce-bounce in grace bounce-bounce wherever I go bounce-bounce because I am grace bounce-bounce. Whatever works.
(One of the crows is here, I left out half a hard boiled egg I didn’t finish and the crow seems so, so pleased at this new offering. If crows did happy dances I’m pretty sure I’d call these bounces of delight I’m watching a happy dance.)
Are you finding your writing is different due to this strange season we’re in? Is there anything you’ve been surprised to release?
Sending so much love to you and the fam. Summer is coming. Another solstice, another peak of light. I hope you’re all safe and that you are gifted moments of the solitude I know is so important to you. (OH SHIT! BOTH CROWS AT ONCE! That’s never happened. They say hello. Caw caw caw.)
XO
L
July
WCO: Dear Bruja, my eyes got wet reading about your corvid friends. When my father died I began seeing him in the crows flying overhead on my hikes in Griffith Park. Fostering these relationships with animals is something--one of the things--that crystallized for me during this pandemic. Whether it’s serotonin or oxytocin, simple or complex care, I want to be with the animals around me more so than I ever have. I know I’ve told people in my life that as I age I feel like my deep love for animals magnifies, and it was already huge from the time I was a child. So many crystallizations, clarifications.
I write to you on July 4th, a date that hasn’t had meaning for me in some time. My “RELAXING” playlist is playing, and even in the daylight hours, like now, before noon, there are still the sounds of fireworks going off. My animals at most widen their eyes, one cat lowers herself closer to the floor, but no one seems traumatized by the explosions just yet. I guess tonight we’ll really see how our new dog handles it all.
How is your solitude? When I last wrote you, it’s hard to imagine, but I thought maybe there would be some relief, somehow, when I said the stay-at-home order expired the day before my birthday. There has been no relief. Reopenings, my ass. I am still hunkered down with the family. I don’t envision returning to one of my offices, ever. Meanwhile, all the energy in the streets was, and is, incredible. Here in Los Angeles I remember the first televised protest, in the Fairfax district, and I remember thinking, I HAVE NEVER seen a protest in this area. And then when protests started breaking out in a bunch of places I’d never witnessed protests before, and then I understood it was a conscious decision by organizers, I was amped. We watched so much on tv, and kept ourselves inside.
I’m now returning to this, on July 6th, a day that feels heavy, and the first day of my official staycation. Like you, I am sticking to my practices--over here it’s meditation, exercise that makes me sweat, light strength training, and a lot of stretching. It’s been more difficult for me to have time with my tarot decks, because I prefer to have more solitude when pulling cards than I’ve had.
How is that deep revision going? I love that phrase and all it offers. I also think it feels right for this moment in time, we are all undergoing our own deep revisions whether internally, externally, or both.
One thing that needs revising here is that separation between work and life. I’m open to ideas about it, drop into articles that float by on my radar, and yet it’s pretty elusive. I had wondered if this week, with time and space, I could come up with some easy ideas to make this separation more potent. Today, though, I am mainly just feeling like easing into this week off (while maintaining all those practices. I’ve learned that ideally I need about 3 hours from wake-up to complete all my practices before working. I have conflicted feelings about this).
Ever since I read about your curls I’ve thought of my own. I rarely have folks around me who can relate to the change in hair. Lol. I have sworn to people who only knew me from my 30s on that I never had hair this curly in my life, and I’ve had to convince people who have known me all my life that I swear I did nothing to make my hair curl like this. I’ve chalked up the change to hormones. My hair as I knew it had some waves, has always been thick, but most of my life I’d just brushed it into straightness. In my 30s it changed drastically. I let it air dry, it turns into curls. I never brush it anymore. I loved seeing the photo you posted today on ig of screen caps of your daily video. I am (still) in awe. But how funny to watch your hair change. Over here the only changes are more gray hairs, though my kid has pointed out to me that they look fake in their strange silver shine.
And speaking of this child...I just keep feeling like I’m this front row guest at a close-up, sped-up viewing of a child turning into a teenager. Some of our conversations during this time have been incredible. And a lot of conversations have been frustrating. We’ve witnessed some massive meltdowns, usually coming after she has video chatted with a friend whose parent has not quarantined the family, and so the friend has spent time with other friends. My kid is feeling the angst of not being allowed to socialize that way, and it hurts all of us. She’s also been exposed now to all kinds of existential shit in the past few months that I wonder if she’s just processing it all until it seeps out or explodes into a big emotional outburst. My favorite thing she said to me this week was, “What is heterosexuality again?” She is currently in a Zoom meeting with two of her friends.
I’m going to be imagining you shouting on that trampoline. I love it. It kind of reminds me of the practice of saying affirmations or wishes in the midst of orgasm…
My writing is very different due to this season we’re in, yep. I feel drifty. I want to digress all over. I lose more and more belief in my ability or interest in keeping to any kind of plot or throughline. It feels pretty reflective of this moment we’re in, now that I write it out this way. I also feel like there’s plenty to release here, still. So much I can’t even articulate just yet but I’ve been trying, in a new notebook, for the last few months now…
How to work while in the swamp. For years I held an image of myself with a massive machete, in a kind of swamp, slashing away to make a path through. Dredging. It was a metaphor for how I felt about my writing, or what writing resembled to me at that time.
What does summer unearth in you, if anything? How have you typically approached this season, and how differently do you approach it now?
In solidarity, with love, and admiration, and hugs that come to you in waves, or in dreams,
Xo
W.
August
LH:
Hello Dearest Bruja,
Today is August 2nd and tomorrow is the full moon in Aquarius and I am deep in my feelings. This morning I went to visit my parents for a socially distanced family visit. I mentioned the full moon tomorrow to my sisters and they both groaned, none of us ever sleep well on the full moon. They told me their kids don’t sleep well on the full moon either and they were trying to mentally prepare for a wild night. I have an ascending Aquarius and an Aquarius moon and my feelings are very, very close to the surface right now. I had a little wailing session yesterday that shocked me, I didn’t know I could make the noise that came from my chest. I let it happen, felt it all. One of my practices is letting myself feel what I have to feel. And I have been FEELING. And spending a lot of time curled up on the sofa with the fans blowing, forcing myself to stay hydrated.
Spending time with my family is a salve, even when we’re not in pandemic. We laughed, joked, argued. In masks, in the front yard, not touching. I was expecting a chill morning but my dad insisted we hang a tire swing from the Jacaranda tree in the front yard and before I knew it, I was twenty feet up in the air in a romper and Crocs. My dad, Gods bless him, is almost seventy and refuses to slow down. I’m terrified for him because he refuses to age even as his body trudges slowly into elder. We had a ladder incident today and if I hadn’t been there to swoop in and grab the metal beast, it could have ended badly for him. Fucking mortality. I spent an hour rubbing the medicinal bruja balm I make into my mom’s knees. I painted a light for them. I made a hot dog into a monster and convinced my picky nephew to eat it so his mom could spend ten minutes in the hammock with a book.
Summer is, or was my favorite season. I think that comes from childhood. I loved summers. Summers meant endless days of reading and staying up late watching black and white films on AMC. It meant no social awkwardness at school, no social anxiety, no wondering if I was being judged in every moment. I had such big plans for this summer. First summer in over twenty years not working construction and I planned travel. I planned wildness, lush roaming and opening up in ways that hadn't been available to me before. And instead, pandemic. Isolation. More solitude than I have ever known. This last year has fucked me up in more ways than I want to admit most days, the highs were stellar, the lows were and continue to be shattering. An incubation period. Instead of lush wildness and open roads I sit at home. I’m in another round of edits and there’s that to focus on, but I look out at the world and I want to be in it. I also want to be alive, so I isolate and feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. I go out for groceries or just to drive and it makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me. People are having their summers. My neighbors have parties. The beaches are packed. The streets of my neighborhood are crowded. It pisses me off because I feel like I have been sacrificing so much for the greater good and there are tons of folks out there who just thought “Nah, I’m over it” and continued living. Day 134 of my video diary tonight.
I think the meltdowns are normal for all the kids these days, including our own, tender inner children. Seeing your lil love timewarp into preteen must be fascinating and strange at the same time. I love her curiosity. And I feel for her, it has to be incredibly frustrating to have friends who are living their lives, or taking isolation less seriously. Of course she wants to be out. Of course she wants exploration and friends and all of that social life she has been used to in all her known memories. Does she have any creative outlets? Have you noticed her play changing? How are you and S planning on homeschooling and how, oooof, how will that fit your work schedules? Parenting during a pandemic has to be such a constant reshaping. I keep telling my sisters to drop their kids off with me if they need breaks but I think they think I can’t handle their kids these days. And, they might be right.
This next phase of revision/editing is tough. It’s the last one before we go into line edits so this is it. This is where the work is. And I’m struggling. My next deadline is the new moon in August. I’ve so far managed to make sure my deadlines are on the new or full moon. Last night I told a friend that I’m the InstantPot when it comes to writing/editing. I do best in high pressure/short timeline situations. The book is different. I have no idea how it will land in the world but when I read it I’m impressed at moments. The book is weird, no doubt. I read it and it’s like reading myself; my weird fears and traumas and desires in a fantastical world with intense Dreaming, strained relationships, betrayals and riotous moments of joy. And there’s magic in it, I know that, I feel it. My practice is to sit before I write, meditate/pray, and say to the story “I trust you. I trust the story that chooses to emerge through me. I surrender.” I hope it works out. I hope the story finds the readers who need it.
I’m thinking of buying a little cargo van and turning into a camper so I can try to escape some this winter and sleep in wild places, alone. I have a cousin in LA, Primo Feo, who works with cars and he has his eye out for me. I want something used, maybe from a fleet. I’ll pop in some insulation, a bed, buy a portable potty, get some solar panels, battery, camping stove and hit the road. All while singing “Let Me Drive My Van into Your Heart” from Steven Universe. I already have the van named, I will call her La Vantastica. I hope I make this happen, but if not, even Dreaming about it is magical and distracting.
What a year, Bru. Eight months in. We had no idea when we started this correspondence what a weird shape this year would take. We thought Jan/Feb were wild. Ha. and here we are, trudging through the swamp, emotional machetes in hand and wondering how, HOW it will keep changing. Are you getting creative work done or just journaling? Any creative outlets aside from writing? How have your dreams been? What gift has this summer brought you so far? Are you dancing alone when you need it? What’s happening in your backyard right now?
Sending all the love, patience and grace your way. Luz y Paz, LH
September
WCO: Oh, Bruja. I read the first paragraph of your reply, just now. I write to you from the Full Moon in Pisces, September 1st, my feelings are deep and I’ve been riding some serious waves of angst in the past 12 hours, more so than the usual everyday pandemic/autocratic takeover of the country angst. It’s a little after 4:30pm and I say 12 hours because I was awake at 4:30am. With a lifetime of sleeping well, almost too easily, I’m over here waking up at 3am or 4:30am, with all the problems in my life, and the world, suddenly urgently needing my attention and wanting me to solve them all. I’ve learned and developed a lot of practices around calming myself: telling myself I am only allowed to think about anything inside the room, and that’s all (did I write this here, earlier in the year already?); pretending I’m on a raft in a large quiet body of water while counting breaths backward from 20; visualizing taking twenty steps, counting backwards again, from the shore to the water off of Whidbey Island, which when I just looked up to find the name of this place from my memory, learned it’s called “Deer Lagoon.” I want to call my therapist but I paused therapy late last year and I feel for therapists everywhere right now, and I mainly want to call her to tell her how uncanny it is that this place is called “Deer Lagoon.” The why is something I will write about, so at least, from this sleep issue, I get material.
I remember the photos I saw on ig of the tire swing!! And feeling so happy for you that you spent time with your family. I’m glad you were there for your dad when you needed to be. Oh, your balm--I have been using the latest batch you gifted me with, for a period of time in July, daily. Thank you again and again.
I totally feel you about the sacrifice, staying home, seeing a world that is largely incongruent with what your own experience is. The dissonance between what my family and I are doing and how the world around us is behaving is an ongoing complete and total mindfuck. Last week we made a decision that I seriously felt wrung out over: we spent a lot of money on a house with a pool and a hot tub over the hill in the Valley, near my mom’s house where I grew up. We continued to work because I have to. Our kid went to zoom school as the kids are calling it. The traffic right outside on Victory Blvd. sounded like any other day in the Valley. I felt occasional pangs of guilt about how much money we spent but ultimately felt it was worth it. To get up in the morning and hot tub and swim, then work, then hot tub and swim every evening? Yeah, actually, I needed that after 5 months of quarantine. Anyway, we had my mom over. I’ve really tried to enforce with words how important it is she stay home, and she really started complying in April. She went out once in June when it seemed like the virus was subsiding and looking back at June, it feels like we were so naive. She hung out in the backyard with us, distanced, last week. And we had dinner indoors, but with a sliding glass door open and the A/C running, and I had to hope that we did as best we could with regard to safety. I knew that the experience might make my mom want more--she lives next door to a trump fan, I won’t even go into that--I can’t even--but I know that her neighbor is living a completely different existence than the one I’m asking my mom to live in. And I sometimes wonder if my mom, who turns 83 in 10 days, thinks I’m crazy because I’m so hunkered down.
How am I planning on homeschooling? LOL. Who even knows. We’re in the second full week of school, and luckily this kid can be about 90% trusted to stay on task with zoom lessons. “Afterschool” is tougher. She’s way more interested in watching her favorite YouTubers and Gacha Life. I’m glad school has started, though, for the social outlet--she’s in a class with a few of her longtime friends, and they’ve started facetiming each other, initiating zoom meetings. They sometimes use multiple devices to play Roblox on the same server?? I honestly feel so overwhelmed by maintaining my own schedule, and to some degree, hers. Her teacher, thankfully, seems amazing, so that’s another bright spot. Meanwhile I’m watching friends with kindergartners who are NOT HAVING IT, hate zoom, and rightly so. I mean, it’s so much to ask!! I hate it, too!! But I can adjust, I’m pretty neurotypical and 47.
Crying reading about your book and your experience in the editing and rereading of it. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS BRILLIANCE TO SHINE ON US. It is a Thing to Look Forward To, which we all need so much these pandemic days. I’m going to start sending my own energies out for you to realize La Vantastica. Yes!
I’m getting some writing done, yes. My 7000+ pandemic tv watching essay recently found a home and I’m waiting on edits, probably severe ones! Lol. I’ve started what I think of as the second part of the essay, because I for sure haven’t watched any less tv since the writing of the first essay. And I’m working on three other essays-one about midlife, one about an artist, one about my dad--while another is brewing. I’m much closer to understanding what I think my next book’s voice and structure might look like, and I’m starting to venture back into it, slowly. I’m not sure if I think of this entirely as a creative outlet?, but I’ve been enjoying reading old issues of Bomb and new issues of Artforum. Starting notebooks is my only creative outlet and yet it’s still writing! HAAAAAAAA. Wow, maybe I have a problem. Oh wait, cooking. But I don’t think of it as creative because I’m following recipes so precisely? But I do love turning on satellite radio and just cooking. That is not something I ever thought I’d say, but there it is. Finally this Taurus understands why cooking is a pleasure. Tell me about some of your creative outlets that are not writing? I think of you jumping on the trampoline.
The gift this summer might be that I learned how I want to spend my time for the rest of my life (a hard thing to say, really, because of where we are today--the president defending a 17 year old white kid murdering people, the impending election that pretty much assures we are going to be witnessing a lot more violence, no matter the outcome--so I don’t really know how much of my life there is really going to be?? I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but shit is getting worse. I may not get to spend my time the way I would like, the way I just learned how I want to live).
I think I read on ig that your cat went missing? I hope she finds you, and you her. If not on this plane then in Dreaming. <3
What do you most love for dinner during the pandemic? Are you working on something alongside your book edits? What is your usual practice with juggling writing projects? What’s your hope and vision for how January 2021 will look?
I hope to show up in another dream of yours, and invite you to mine, Bruja. Thank you for your text wishing me a happy Full Pisces Moon. Sending you potent energy, ease, comfort.
October
LH: Beloved Bruja, It is October 5. I just finished my breakfast, a bean and cheese burrito I stuffed with Flamin Hot Cheetos. Trump has Covid, my cat is dead and my book is (over)due today. Yay Monday. September took me down, all the way. Full splat and that’s okay. I needed the splat. My Mexican grandmother got Covid and survived, which feels like a miracle since she’s a few months shy of ninety. Meow Meow, my part time roommate for the last eleven years, is gone. I have this weird guilt because the last time I saw her, I called her a milk-stealing-asshole after I caught her on the counter, her face in my frother. There was coyote scat in the alley so I’m pretty sure she got circle of life’d. After she disappeared, I realized she was the living creature I touched most consistently over the last eleven years. She said good morning every morning and made sure to make eye contact with me every night. The loneliness of that realization gutted me. Doing this alone has been hard. A bunch of details and memories coalesced and everything crashed down around me. Days in bed crying over the state of the world, with a roll of toilet paper because I was too depressed to put on clothing to buy more tissue. I had this image of myself, my heart dragging between my legs like it was a prolapsed uterus, barely hanging on by a cord. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t express the ache to anyone in any way that made sense so I just went into it. Full wah. The kind where you can’t even look in the mirror or bathe. I still meditated and journaled every day because those are practices that always end up being the lifeline back from the shadow. A mess. I hauled myself out. I don’t know if it’s surrender or radical acceptance or if they are the same thing. I’m better. Today will be day 197 of my video diary.
I’m glad you got away for a few days. I loved your pics on IG. It sounds like it was a good reset. In Pandemic time, I’m sure at this point that little trip feels like years ago. Hot tub and swimming in between work? Heaven. I get the guilt on spending. I’ve given myself a hard budget and stick to it. I don’t know what the future will look like in terms of work. I have no idea what the publishing industry will look like or how the book will do. And, I always have the skill of painting custom finishes. Our family business is doing really well these days which I’m grateful for, and it makes me a little sick. Our clients are all really wealthy people and they’re spending like whoa. New construction, tons of remodeling. I went down to the business last week to paint a set of ten-thousand dollar gates for rich clients who live in their own compound. The gates were set up outside the warehouse. I was applying a fancy bronze paint, highlighting the scrollwork. About forty feet away there was a line stretching across the parking lot. There’s a recycling center next to our shop and it has never been busier. People are struggling. The recycling center has a line outside of it every morning and the entire parking lot smells like stale beer from the cans and bottles. I wonder what they thought when they looked at the gates. I feel like I live in so many worlds at once sometimes. It’s dizzying.
My ADHD loves creative outlets. I’ve had so many. Some I’ve even followed through on. I’ve enjoyed needle felting the last few years. All the stabbing is really satisfying. I’m not good at it but somewhere have a box of needle felted spheres in different colors. Maybe they’ll show up in my life again and turn into art. I dance around my apartment a lot, that’s a creative outlet for me. My writing music is pretty weird and not always danceable. It’s Bad Bunny, the soundtrack to Steven Universe, the soundtrack to The Fountain and DJ Sasha Marie Radio on Soundcloud, Chapter 22.
What does a “normal” day look like for you these days? Did you have to make a HIPAA compliant space to work with your clients over video? What does a HIPAA complaint work space look like? I totally get the need to return to therapy but you affirmed my choice not to in your last letter. Will you take a break when pandemic is over? In general terms, do you think we’re all having breakdowns?
What do you most love for dinner during the pandemic? I’m a grazer. I love to cook but cooking for one during pandemic has sucked. I usually try to make a big meal on the weekend and eat it the rest of the week. This last month with my underworld journey, I ate an obscene amount of salt and vinegar chips. I supplemented with green juice and probiotics though? I’m alive. That’s a win. I have bowls of nuts around when I write, for crunching and thinking.
Are you working on something alongside your book edits? I started a short story recently that is my joyous side piece. One of those that will probably never see the world but I love it. It cracks me up, I’ve let go of all of my filters for this one. When my brain is fried from book editing I’ll take one Pomodoro session to ignore the book and go into the story. It was born from a conversation with a friend of mine who asked me what happens to offerings after they’ve been offered. We joked that they turn into creatures that accompanies the person who placed them. I’m also trying to turn another short into a script but that is more a jumble of notes in a drawing pad than anything actually cohesive.
What’s your hope and vision for how January 2021 will look? I want everyone I love to be alive and healthy, number one. And I hope we have a new president (not Pence) and the world did not explode in November. I hope I’ll be looking back on 2020 with awe and grace. What about you? In your wildest joy possibilities?
I’m going to take an epsom salt bath, lay on my acupressure mat, do some stretching and finish the very last weavings in this book before pressing send. I’m so close. I’m glad you’re excited for it. I have no idea if it’s any good anymore, or if it makes sense. I’m too close to it. Saturday I called Yvonne (you met her in February in LA. She saves my life constantly) and bawled over video chat. I had finished editing a really emotional scene and I blubbered away, crying about how much I loved it. Then a few hours later I was pacing, wondering how long it would take for folks to figure out I’m a hack. I think all of this is normal. In before days I would celebrate with a massage or a few hours at the Korean Spa. Pandemic celebration means I’ll let myself binge-watch the shows I’ve been denying myself until the book was turned in.
Will you celebrate Halloween or Dia de Muertos? What will T be for Halloween? No doubt she’ll be stellar. What are you holding onto for joy these days? What’s your dream vacation at the end of this? Alone? With fam or friends?
Sending so much love this month of blue moons and shifting chaos. I look forward to a day when we can cackle together in real life. Xoxoxox Lizz
November
WCO: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh the last seven days have been this incredible rollercoaster. It is Sunday, November 8th. I used to love rollercoasters until my twenties when I started getting sick from riding them--the nausea that lasted hours was no longer worth the ride. Hormones? I don’t know but I changed. This recent rollercoaster was like the pandemic--we rode it collectively. It seems utterly bizarre that a week ago today there was so much angst about what the week would bring, and as of yesterday, not even 24 hours ago, we seem to be emerging from a nightmare...and I have moments of incredible disbelief, then belief, then remembering there is half a country who voted for the likes of this monster--I have no problem calling him that--he is a 1000% corrupt psychopath. Full stop. Anyway, I started a new journal yesterday, which was odd, and then a couple hours later the election was called and it’s like we all started a new timeline, but one that is still full of unknowns and, well, we’ve still got a few months left with the abusive rapist at the helm.
I’m glad you are past September, which sounds like it was nearly unbearable. It feels ages ago, does it to you, now? Thank goddesses your grandmother survived covid, that is incredible and gives me hope. My heart goes out to you and your cat, too. I hate saying goodbye to animals. HATE IT. Literally a week after we got that strange getaway in the Valley with a pool, both of our cats’ healths started failing. We are now in month two of both of them being treated for endocrine problems. One has to be injected with insulin twice a day. This means we can’t get away again, not anytime soon. So we’re homebound for the remainder of the
pandemic--maybe, maybe, there’s a future where we could get away by hiring a catsitter who knows how to give injections? I don’t know. I can’t imagine it yet. It basically feels like we’ve been on a merry-go-round of animal care with these cats and our still relatively new dog who has her own issues--she’s lived in a park, she was traumatized, and has funny feeding issues. In a way it’s been something else to focus on--something other than the horribleness of reality outside our doors. This is the first time in my life when I have been able to afford the kind of care our animals require. We are grateful everyday that we can take care of these animals. I hope a new animal walks into your life. I think often of the times when there was an animal present in therapy sessions, like a client bringing a dog or cat in a carrier, and how immediately it shifted the energy in the room. So much love. Oxytocin, probably. Endorphins. Makes me want to have Coco in therapy rooms in the future.
We didn’t do a whole lot for Halloween. I set up a simple altar for my dead. I wish I had had some flowers. Tavi did not even dress up on Halloween proper, only for her classroom’s zoom session. She was “the murderer from your basement”--a black dress she had Sandy rip a little, a black veil, and she had a scary painted face. I like that she was not a character from a tv show or something this year--she was her own creation.
You asked what a “normal” day looks like for me...these days it’s journaling, having breakfast, exercise for 30-45 minutes, then starting work--ideally three sessions a day, sometimes four, but no more than that. Then I check out. These days it’s Animal Crossing. Conducting therapy that’s HIPAA compliant...hmmmm...well, I don’t know if I want to draw much attention to compliance here, but technically everyone has been informed that video and phone are not guaranteed 100% private, and I do my best to provide as much confidentiality as possible in these circumstances. To answer your other question: I think everyone is definitely having breakdowns. Everyone, in their own ways. I can’t even answer the question about how I might be after the pandemic--like, traumatized and scared to be around people again?? I don’t know. I’m the adult in the house that is not tasked with being out in the world so I have way less interactions than Sandy. It’s a lot to consider, the interactions and situations that were once mindless. For Sandy’s birthday in October, we made a reservation to go to the Theodore Payne Foundation to get some plants and pots. That was the extent of my social interactions. Oh, and a week ago yesterday we had Myriam over in the backyard for over four hours. I seriously wonder if I will still be an introvert after all this?? Like, I don’t want to be alone for very long, and the thought of traveling alone again makes me a little nervous. I know I’ll need to get past that--that it’s purely due to spending what will be over a year in proximity to my family 24/7...so it’s hard to imagine what the other side will feel like.
You’ve mentioned the construction going up, the projects, and I can’t help but think of the one we’re on the verge on here--and yet we’re most definitely not in the realm of rich. It’s a project that’s been in the works for 4 years now, and the timing has been such that it will begin in the next few weeks. We had to remove our orange tree, which was heartbreaking, and we spent the last two weeks clearing out our garage to be demolished. This is another instance in which I’m in awe that we are managing to make something big like this happen--the construction of a studio in place of the garage, a studio that I can use as an office, that we can use for guests, and eventually for our kid to live in--things I couldn’t imagine even ten years ago. And here we are. Meanwhile I take Coco for a walk past the RVs parked nearby where folks are living full time. I’m able to use my mother’s garage to park a bunch of stuff we have no room in our house for, another privilege. This year I’ve probably managed to direct more money to organizations and individuals than I ever have in my life, and hope to continue to. And still, it will always feel precarious to me. I’m not convinced it will ever feel not-precarious. Our status as a queer family of color, as women, in this country--how could it feel not-precarious.
As we get closer to December it’s a reminder that we won’t be having our annual tamale-making extravaganza, so we will miss every single last person who has ever made it to our dining room over the past 11 years. I honestly don’t even know who has been here and who hasn’t anymore. It’s always mayhem and I love it and I will miss it. We always have close friends who literally fly in to L.A. and come straight to our house on the Saturday before Christmas every year, and new friends who come with old friends--ahhhhhhhhh it hurts to think we won’t be hosting it this year. For now I have to focus on next Saturday, this kid’s 10th birthday. Ten years ago I was sick as fuck, coughing, trying to sleep sitting up in my old apartment’s living room, watching the news at 4am. I went into labor on my grandmother’s birthday, November 12. 36 hours and a C-section later, this child. Who is now in the next room playing Roblox with a friend, loudly. Oh, Bruja, does the election make things feel different to you? Are you scheduling things to look forward to? I keep envisioning a long drive where I am unafraid to stop and use a bathroom. That’s as far as my imagination can go these days. My heart is with you--I hope your cat visits you in dream realms--and I send you all my love in these shortened days and longer nights. I’m aware that our year in correspondence is coming to a close--and it’s truly the strangest year I’ve ever lived. As I said before, I am heartened that your book will be on the other side of all this, and I can’t wait for its arrival!!! Thank you for being a friend, comrade, correspondent, now and always.
December
LH: Bruuuuuja! Today is December 6, a Sunday. I have rice and lentils going on the stove and my yoga mat on the floor to try to stretch out my hips. It feels like a lifetime since last I wrote to you, the election hadn’t happened yet and the virus, while not great, hadn’t started to creep as close. We’re going on stay-at-home again, you and me and everyone in Southern California tonight at midnight. I heard my neighbors having a party this afternoon, one last gathering maybe but I doubt it. They don’t really care about the safety of others, it seems. I was on the phone way too often these last few days with friends who have loved ones in the hospital. The disbelief, the shock of it, feels so cruel. We had a scare with my father last week and his aunt and cousin are in the hospital. It feels too close and I think the next couple of months will be challenging. Meditating. Stretching. Taking vitamins. I started a new journal this morning. Moment to moment. The days are both long and short and it gets dark so early.
I’ve slipped into a quiet, quiet peace the last couple of months, really limiting my time online and doing my best to stay still. This year has been so much incubating, shedding, ripening. Late summer was hard on me and then something shifted. I don’t know what. But I’m okay, quiet, lots of solo dance parties. The crows I feed have been joined by two squirrels and a pair of doves. If I go out onto the balcony and the crows aren’t around, I can “caw” twice and if they’re close, they swoop in. The squirrels are only here because Meow Meow is dead. They’re really funny and one is obsessed with a potted plumeria I have on the balcony. The hummingbirds are annoyed at all the new visitors and I’ve seen them chase the crows away.
I saw the pictures of your project on IG! I LOVE that your family spray painted the inside up before the demolition. The construction of a studio sounds like a dream, a new space to inhabit and to be. I love the idea of you thinking of it as a future home too, a space that will be home to so many stories and memories. And a place for any of you to escape to those moments that require escape. I hope to be at your tamale party next year. Last year it coincided with my family tamale party, that was the last time I saw a bunch of my cousins and aunts all in one place. Will you make tamales this year without the party?
The morning the election was called I was ready for it. I had booked a tattoo appointment for election day so as to have somewhere to put my energy that was just for me. I didn’t look at the news when I got home. I spent two days not looking at the news. Then on Friday, the anxiety started to creep in. When the call was made on Saturday it sounded like a sports team had won something major in my neighborhood. People were screaming and shouting outside, banging pots and pans. I went for a walk, neighbors were handing out plastic cups of champagne on their front lawns. It felt surreal, I had been preparing myself for disaster, again. It was strange to celebrate alone, via FaceTime or What’sApp video calls. There were celebrations locally, people wearing masks, but I think it’ll be a long while before I’m fully comfortable in a crowd again,
I don’t really have anything big I’m looking forward to when this world shifts again. I’ve grown to really love my solitary life, though I do miss touch. I want to hug my parents and my grandmothers. I want to dance somewhere dark, among strangers and have random conversations with people. To see smiles in real life again. To not have to decipher the eyes of anyone I’m talking to, wonder if it’s a grimace or a smile. I want to get on a train and feel the rhythm of it. I just want to sit with friends somewhere in public, laughing loudly while we share a meal and lean our heads in close for quieter conversation. I know it won’t be normal for a while, and that’s okay. I don’t know if it’ll ever be normal again, and that’s okay too. I feel so different. And I am, like many of us, I think. I look at the stills from my video diary (tonight will be diary 258 and I still haven’t watched any) and I look completely different. My hair is curly. I have a visible tattoo. My face has a different shape. My years-long construction tan is gone. I’m wearing glasses for the first time since junior high. And there are dozens of invisible changes that no one will ever know about probably. This year feels like a lifetime and I’m grateful for who I've been becoming. Sometimes I pass by the mirror and ask “who are you?”
I had a slight weird happen. My imprint closed right as my book was accepted as final. Macmillan assured me and the other authors on the imprint we’d be re-homed. I had a couple of weeks of not knowing which imprint I’d end up on, or who my editor would be. Luckily, I was in a really good meditation space/flow those weeks and decided to trust. I ended up at an imprint I really like and with a young woman of color editor I’ve met before and vibe with. It all worked out. But all of this means I have no idea what’s next for the book. And I’ll trust because it feels better than worry and I’ve had enough worry this year.
I hope your cats get better and/or that they can live good lives with the injections and caretaking. These little fur friends are such special companions, they change us. I'm glad you have Coco and a reason to go for walks. I’ve had a couple of dreams about a bull terrier so maybe there’s one in my future, or maybe I have a thing for dogs with triangle shaped eyes. And as much as I want another animal friend, I hope there’s travel in my future, extended travel, and a pet would be hard to leave behind.
I’m looking forward to us getting together sometime in 2021 and being in awe at this year. In the beginning it was American Dirt and the rest of that whole situation. We had no idea what was coming. I’m tired but maybe it’s just more incubation happening below the surface. A year. I remember you sending me the email asking if I wanted to do this correspondence, it was September of 2019, a whole lifetime ago. I remember being so excited and wondering what it would look like. Ha! We had no idea. I got to see you once, that night in LA. And little fragments of your life on Ig and through these communications. Thank you for asking me to join you in this. I hope that us in the future will look back and have a lot to say about how much we survived and learned. It has been wondrous and magical to connect with you via these pages (over 12,000 words, I’m a nerd, I checked.) I hope the future holds more collaborations for us, many cackles and comfortable silences of looking at the sky and being in awe of it all. Sending so much love your way, foreverever. I’m so grateful and happy you’re a part of my life. Xoxoxo Lizz
Lizz Huerta is a Mexi-Rican writer born, raised and living on Kumeyaay land, colonizer name San Diego. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, The Cut, Miami Rail, Lightspeed and others journals/anthologies. Her first book, The Lost Dreamer, a young adult fantasy, will be published Winter 2022 by FSG for Young Readers.
Wendy C. Ortiz is the author of Excavation: A Memoir, Hollywood Notebook, and the dreamoir Bruja. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, StoryQuarterly, FENCE, and elsewhere.
