That they may have life and have it to the full.

Moving is like breaking up: Conclusions

I broke up with Harlingen as my term came to an end and I can’t remember exactly why. Why did I want to move out of my volunteer house every month fed up with others’ hygiene and judgments, why was I so frazzled with work, and why did I feel like I just could never belong here? It all turns ooey-gooey al final. I have connected to the community: the mezcla language, the greasy-picante food, the folklore, the vehicles that are either lowered to the ground or raised to the heavens, the stilettos on small feet, the radio music interspersed with jajaja-ing, bullhorns and whistles, and EVEN the office with la virgen guadalupe tagged over advertisements for somewhere you can get papers, limpiezas from a curandera and gorditas in a package deal.

I have been treated like both a princess and an outcast for my paleness and mannerisms, which has been a profound learning experience. In contrast to past minority immersions (like when I worked at an inner-city YMCA as the only Anglo in the program) I could not return to my family of origin, or really any family, at night. This allowed the difference to permeate me, shame me, please me and challenge me to reckon with it.

Halfway through my time I allowed someone to rub an egg on me as a cure for my “ojo” or bad luck and you know guys, maybe it worked in a bigger way than finding my keys in my pillow. I think I have finally decreased my self-esteem. No, not improved or worsened, just breathed out my gnarled habits of self-destruction and inhaled the delicate dance of the whole. The place where inside meets outside. It is the burn after intense exercise, stretched into parts of the human experience that connected to my familiar ligaments, but I had not explored.

The “answer to immigration” is never “pro” or “con” but HOW.  Maybe when I have some credentials I can go back into this world, but really I hope to never leave. I already located an Ethiopian refugee/asylee center near Ohio State! (Too far ahead, slow down.)

Sweet illusions. Sweet confusion. RGV I aint got nothin but love for you now.