18!

Olivia is 18! We celebrated Covid-style, in our house with just us four (five including Charlie). I’m proud of the young woman Olivia has become: strong-willed and independent, perceptive and artistic. I stand in awe of Olivia’s quiet self-confidence, her ability to navigate any situation, her willingness to see the best in others. May this be the beginning of a beautiful adulthood. We love you, Liv!

Now

A while back, my 15-year-old son Mateo came home and told me this story. He’d been at the gift store at the bottom of our hill to buy a fancy candle for a friend’s birthday. Mateo shops at the gift store a lot—he’s a generous giver of gifts to friends–and the shop owner knows him. But on this day, the shop owner was absent, and another woman stood behind the cash register. Mateo brought the candle to the counter, opened his wallet, and pulled out a $20 bill. He handed the bill to the woman. The woman promptly held the bill up to the light and examined it to make sure it wasn’t counterfeit. “She wouldn’t have done that to you,” Mateo said. “Because I’m old?” “Because you’re white,” Mateo said. “Also, if I were going to use a counterfeit bill, wouldn’t I have paid with a $100?” “I guess she didn’t notice your Michael Kors wallet,” I said. “Or your Air Force One sneakers.” “No,” Mateo said. “She just noticed I was Latino.” Another day, my 17-year-old daughter Olivia told me this story. Normally, Olivia comes home on the school bus, gets picked up by a carpool, and is driven up the steep hill to our house. But on this day, the carpool driver had a scheduling conflict so Olivia had to walk home from the bus stop. It was one of those scorching hot afternoons in California, and Olivia stopped at the local market to buy a lemonade before beginning the vertical climb. Her backpack was filled with heavy books, and in a few minutes, Olivia started sweating. She stopped on the sidewalk under the shade of a tree to drink her lemonade. As she drank her lemonade, the woman of the house with the shade tree opened her door. She stood in the doorway and watched Olivia drink her lemonade. Olivia got nervous being watched. She wondered if there was a law she didn’t know about. A law against drinking lemonade under a shade tree next to the sidewalk. Olivia put away her lemonade and continued walking up the hill. The woman came out of her house and followed Olivia. She followed Olivia for several houses, until the hill got very steep and she turned around. Later, Olivia told me about the woman. I asked Olivia, “Why didn’t you tell her you live on this block? That you were going home?” “What was she going to believe?” my daughter said. “That I live in a house on top of the hill? That I’m the daughter of a doctor? Or was she going to believe I didn’t belong there, that I was wandering around the wrong neighborhood.” “Didn’t she see you were dressed in school clothes? That you were carrying a backpack?” “No,” Olivia said. “All she saw was that my skin is brown.” As my kids become adults and move into the world without me, I can’t protect them the way I could when they were little. I can’t assume they’ll walk into a store or up a hill or anywhere else and be cloaked with the same privilege I was born with. I live with the fear they’ll make a misstep, or what’s perceived as a misstep, that some innocent action will lead to tragedy. There’s so much I can’t control. But a few things I can control. I can acknowledge my own subconscious biases and work to eradicate them. I can vote. I can protest. I can write about my family’s experiences.

Cancelled due to Covid.

For the past ten or so years, families from our Bay Area Guatemalan adoption group have gathered this weekend to celebrate, connect, and catch up; to compare stories of travel to Guatemala and reunion with birth families. The gathering is our touchstone–a few blessed hours of conversation when everyone we talk to has walked the same path; a time, once a year, when we feel heard and understood. It’s the day we marvel together with love and pride at our beautiful children growing into adults. The day we witness our kids’ deep bonds of friendship. I wish I had an album of photos to share with you, but out of respect for everyone’s privacy, I don’t post pictures. So I’ll share a photo of Olivia and me during her Quinceanera year, which we celebrated with two other young women in our group. (A grand event!) And a photo of me during last year’s pre-party Costco run. Tomorrow, our group will celebrate via Zoom, set up by one of our moms who’s great with technology. We’ll miss the delicious potluck side dishes everyone bring, the burgers on the grill, the sweet desserts. We’ll miss the hugs. But we still have one another. That, we know, will never change. xoxo

“Breakthrough” movie

Olivia and I watched “Breakthrough,” the 2019 film about the boy in Missouri who was skating on thin ice with friends, fell through, was rescued, and spent many minutes unconscious—enough minutes that recovery seemed futile. Probably everyone in the world has seen this movie except us. Olivia suggested watching it because she knows I’ll watch any film with a Guatemalan angle, and in “Breakthrough,” the boy, John, was born in Guatemala and adopted by a couple in Missouri. I started crying about 10 minutes in, when, during a scene at John’s middle school, he was confronted with the dreaded “family tree” project. And I basically never stopped crying. The film is tense, fast-paced, and realistic. The performances are excellent. “Breakthrough” isn’t for everyone. John’s mother is deeply religious, the family is connected to a church community, and prayer and faith figure prominently. But if you’re okay with those elements, and you, like us, are behind in your movie-watching, check out “Breakthrough.” We loved it.

Mother Mother

Hi Friends: If you’re on this page, we probably know each other through my first book, Mamalita. I’m writing now to tell you where I am in my second book, a novel, Mother Mother. The cover is set and galleys are in final proof stages. The cover artwork uses a painting by one of my favorite artists from Guatemala, Hugo Ayala. The title is “Nahuala,” from the Guatemalan town, and shows a winding cobblestone road filled with light, and a blue sky behind the dome of a white church. I crossed my fingers Ayala would grant me permission to use the work, and he has. If you’ve been to Antigua, you probably know the La Antigua Galeria de Arte, now on Fifth Avenida in the Nimpot building near the Arch, formerly on Fourth Calle up from Dona Luisa. The gallery represents Hugo Ayala and was generous in helping me secure permission. Thank you, La Antigua Galeria! After laboring so long on a book–I don’t want to tell you how many years: off and on for 7–this stage feels surreal. To finally see the pages typeset, my name on the cover. I still can’t believe it. The book cover uses only a detail from the Ayala painting, so I’m posting the entire image here. The painting hangs in our living room; I bought it several years ago in Antigua after we’d visited that part of the country. I’m honored to have it part of my first novel. The Advance Reading Copies of Mother Mother should be printed in about three weeks. Publication date is November 2020. xoxo