A tree so old it had been there since before Texas was Texas. Since before Tejas was Tejas. Since before me and my mother. Since before before.
And when the swirling inside me grew still I heard the voices inside my heart. I’m afraid. I’m all alone. I have never lived on this earth without you. Then I really felt sorry for myself and began to shake like branches in rain. Mother, Ma, Mamaaaá.
“Here I am, mija,” the wind said and mussed my hair. “Here I am, mija,” the trees said and shushed me. “Here I am, mija,” said the clouds grazing past.
And when the night fell, the moon rose and blanketed me with her rebozo of stars. “Here I am, I’ve been here all along, mijita.” “Here, here, here,” said the little stars laughing. “Here I am, here I am.” The light filled my bones.
After three days, when her heart was smooth as river stone, Marie came out from under the house where she’d been hiding, and said, “Here I am.”
AFTERWORD
In Mexico they say when someone you love dies, a part of you dies with them. But they forget to mention that a part of them is born in you—not immediately, I’ve learned, but eventually, and gradually. It’s an opportunity to be reborn. When you are in between births, there should be some way to indicate to all, “Beware, I am not as I was before. Handle me with care.”
I live in San Antonio on the left bank of the river in an area of the city called King William, famous for its historic homes. South of Alamo Street, beyond King William proper, the San Antonio River transforms itself into a wildlife refuge as it makes its way toward the Spanish missions. Behind my house the river is more creek than river. It still has its natural sandy bottom. It hasn’t been covered over with concrete yet. Wild animals live in the tall grass and in its waters. My dogs and I can wade across and watch tadpoles and turtles and fish darting about. There are hawks and cranes and owls and other splendid winged creatures in the trees. It is calming and beautiful, especially when you’re sad and in need of big doses of beauty.
In the spring after my mother died, a doctor wanted to prescribe pills for depression. “But if I don’t feel,” I said, “how will I be able to write?” I need to be able to feel things deeply, good or bad, and wade through an emotion to the other shore, toward my rebirth. I knew if I put off moving through grief, the wandering between worlds would only take longer. Even sadness has its place in the universe.
I wish somebody had told me then that death allows you the chance to experience the world soulfully, that the heart is open like the aperture of a camera, taking in everything, painful as well as joyous, sensitive as the skin of water.
I wish somebody had told me to draw near me objects of pure spirit when living between births. My dogs. The trees along the San Antonio River. The sky and clouds reflected in its water. Wind with its scent of spring. Flowers, especially the sympathetic daisy.
I wish somebody had told me love does not die, that we can continue to receive and give love after death. This news is so astonishing to me even now, I wonder why it isn’t flashed across the bottom of the television screen on CNN.
I wrote this story in the wake of death—poco a poco, slow by slow, little by little. A writer who had come to visit had lost her cat. The real Marie eluded capture for over a week, but searching for her forced me during those days to meet neighbors, and the idea for this book came about.
Some people who heard me perform it out loud thought it was for children, but I wrote it for adults, because something was needed for people like me who suddenly found themselves orphans in midlife. I wanted to be able to make something I could give those who were in mourning, something that would help them find balance again and walk toward their rebirth. Since I’ve long admired her work, and because she’d recently lost her own mother, too, I knew that the artist Ester Hernández would be right for this collaboration.
Ester flew out from California to San Antonio on a scouting mission. Neighbors and their kids posed for us and got involved in the project: we included real people, houses, and places almost as if we were creating a documentary, and this book became a collective community effort.
I liked the idea of the pictures telling another story about the people of San Antonio, of cultures colliding and creating something new: Folks with blond hair, a German last name, and a Spanish first name inherited from a Mexican grandmother several generations back. Tex-Mexicans with Arab and indigenous features and a Scottish surname. Ultra-devout Catholics with Sephardic roots. Stories the Alamo forgets to remember.
We are a village, of sorts, with big houses and little houses, home to trust-fund babies as well as folks who have to take the bus to buy their groceries. We have houses with American flags and homemade signs. “God Bless Private Manny Cantú.” “Bring Home the Troops Now.” “Please Don’t Let Your Dog Poop On My Yard.”
I wanted both the story and the art to capture the offbeat beauty of the rasquache, things made with materials readily at hand, funky architecture and funky gardens, creative ways of making do, because it seems to me that this is what is uniquely gorgeous about San Antonio.
I knew as I wrote this story that it was helping to bring me back to myself. It’s essential to create when the spirit is dying. It doesn’t matter what. Sometimes it helps to draw. Sometimes to plant a garden. Sometimes to make a Valentine’s Day card. Or to sing, or create an altar. Creating nourishes the spirit.
I’ve lived in my neighborhood for over twenty years, longer than I’ve lived anywhere. Last April, just as folks brushed a new coat of paint on their porches and trimmed their gardens for the annual King William parade, my neighbor, Reverend Chavana, passed away unexpectedly. His family surprised me by asking if I’d write his eulogy. I can’t make a casserole, but I felt useful during a time when I usually feel useless, and I was grateful.
There is no getting over death, only learning how to travel alongside it. It knows no linear time. Sometimes the pain is as fresh as if it just happened. Sometimes it’s a space I tap with my tongue daily like a missing molar.
Say what they say, some may doubt the existence of God, but everyone is certain of the existence of love. Something is there, then, beyond our lives, that for lack of a better word I’ll call spirit. Some know it by other names. I know it only as love.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my lovely neighbors and friends who took the time to pose or inspire this story. First and foremost to Rosalind Bell, who lived it. And to Blanca Bolner Bird and her daughter Eleanor, Penny Boyer and Lydia Sánchez, Antonia Castañeda, Theresa E. Chavana and family, David A. Chávez, Josephine F. Garza, Helen G. Geyer, Rodolfo S. López, Carolyn Martínez, Craig Pennel, Gloria Ramírez, William Sánchez, Beverly Schwartzman, John M. Shirley Jr., Roger S. Solís, Brad and Dina Toland and their children Alec and Maddie, Mike Villarreal and Jeanne Russell and their children Bella and Marcos, Anne Wallace, and finally, the real Marie. For allowing me the liberty to imagine your story, I bow with gratitude.
I want to thank la maestra Elena Poniatowska for her generosity in allowing me to borrow her words from La Flor de Lis.
I am grateful to my Macondo buddies, who serve as my personal editors—Dennis Mathis, Kristin Naca, Erasmo Guerra, and Ruth Béhar. For faith and vision I am blessed with my agent Susan Bergholz and editor Robin Desser. Liliana Valenzuela once again gave light to my work with her own sparkling translation; as ever she did so with a poet’s ear, a hummingbird’s speed, and the Buddha’s patience. Thank you, Olivia Doerge and Irma Carolina Rubio, for your gentle care during my period of grief. Finally, how did I convince Ester Hernández to agree to voyage beyond the zone of comfort? Who knows, but good lucky.
Thank you, San Antonio. Gracias a la vida.
—SANDRA CISNEROS
Gracias, Sandra, for being a sister and comadre by honoring and entrusting me with the illustrations for your beautiful story—our story, which allowed me to venture into new territories of creativity. For Susan Bergholz, our agent, and Robin Desser, our editor from Knopf, f
or your respectful support, wisdom, and guidance throughout this book project—my first. To my son Jacobo, daughter-in-law Kazuyo, and granddaughter Anais Yuzuki for your unconditional love and support. To all my other family and friends who were patiently and lovingly behind me when I “disappeared.” To all of you who inspired and modeled for us, especially Geri Montano, Michelle Mounton, Ana Guadalupe Avilés, Anais Tsujii Durbin, Luz Medina Hernández, Esperanza López, Sonia (SashaBlue) Martínez, Renee Peña-Govea, Maya Paredes Hernández, and Buzter Chang Chidmat—we couldn’t have done it without you … thank you for your belief in the book. Y, gracias a Tonantzin/la Virgen de Guadalupe and the spirit of my ancestors, I know I am never alone…
—ESTER HERNÁNDEZ
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954. She is the author of two novels, the internationally acclaimed The House on Mango Street, and Caramelo, awarded the Premio Napoli, nominated for the Orange Prize, and shortlisted for the International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award.
Her awards include National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships for both fiction and poetry, the Lannan Literary Award, the American Book Award, the Texas Medal of the Arts, and a MacArthur Fellowship.
Other books include the story collection Woman Hollering Creek; two books of poetry, My Wicked Wicked Ways and Loose Woman; and two books of children’s literature, Hairs/Pelitos and Bravo, Bruno; as well as Vintage Cisneros. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages.
Cisneros is the founder of the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral and the Macondo Foundations, which serve creative writers.
Find her online at www.sandracisneros.com.
A NOTE ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Ester Hernández is an internationally acclaimed visual artist best known for her pastels, paintings, and prints of Chicana/Latina women. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Library of Congress, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, and the Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo in Mexico City. Her artistic archives are housed at Stanford University. Born and raised in California, she lives in San Francisco. Find her online at www.esterhernandez.com.
ALSO BY SANDRA CISNEROS
Caramelo
Woman Hollering Creek
The House on Mango Street
Loose Woman (poetry)
My Wicked Wicked Ways (poetry)
Hairs/Pelitos (for young readers)
Vintage Cisneros
Have You Seen Marie? Page 2
