As she engages my work as Alive & Direct and we connect as adults in this current chapter of our lives, my mother continues to reveal parts of her own journey that surprise me.
Recently, I found out that, during her years spent living and teaching in Puerto Rico, she self-published a collection of original, Spanish-language poetry. We are not a Spanish-speaking household: my mother descends from two Eastern European Jews; I descend from a Jewish girl from the Bronx and a Puerto Rican man who spent most of my time with him (under my tutelage) perfecting his English.
As legend has it, my mother taught herself Spanish by reading El Diario, attending Sunday services with her Puerto Rican friends and listening to Spanish radio stations in New York City. The poetry she shares with me sounds hardly like news or advertisements, but awakens my Boricua spirit (and reminds me that Spanish was actually my first language) like only Salsa music has.
Here are two of my favorites. They remind me of the moments when, in life, illusions succumb to reality.
Poca gente saben el valor de un sueño.
Aunque aprendieron el precio del despertar.
——
Mi sueño terminó con un grito.
No sé si por el sueño o por el despertar.
~ Beatrice Laureano ~
