Left to right: Giselt, Simona, Jennifer, Beth, Norma, Robin, Debbie, Kelly, Becky
Who knew there would be a full moon illuminating the courtyard at Las Granadas Bed and Breakfast last night, March 8, when Professor Robin Greene and I planned our Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat a year ago? And, who knew that it would coincide with International Women’s Day? Who knew that nine magnifient women would gather on this day to lift voices in poetry, song, memoir, and reflective writing? Sometimes, the universe aligns perfectly.
We invite Zapotec women from the village of Teotitlan del Valle where our retreat was based to share our experience. Expatriates join in. Together we sit, hear stories and poems about mothers, loved ones, the experience of first-time travel out of the U.S., a first date. We honor each other with applause, a wonderful meal, a toast of sweetened juice made from the hibiscus flower (agua de jamaica). This is our local tribute to the universality of women. We lift our voices in community.
Rebecca King, one of our retreat participants, is a writer and poet who returned to college to complete a degree in English and creative writing as an adult. She will graduate from Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC, this spring. This is the poem she wrote during the retreat and read last night, giving me permission to share it with you. (Above: Becky works on last minute changes before the fiesta and final reading.)
(Reyna’s mole amarillo with green beans, choyote squash and potatoes, that she dishes out from the cooking pot.)
Where I Stand by Rebecca King
I stand
on the kitchen chair,
in the white house
before the twins came.
My mother, wearing
her green dress with the
white flowers,
moves her arms
back and forth,
a slow rolling.
I am five,
clumsy, messy.
Soft, squishy dough
sticks to my fingers.
Together, my mother
and I knead, roll,
gather the dough
back to center.
Now,
almost forty years
later, I stand
on the dirt floor
of Reyna’s kitchen
in Teotitlan, Mexico.
I move my arms
back and forth
a slow rolling.
I am forty two,
clumsy, messy.
The mano de matate
heavy in my hands.
I knead, roll,
grind the onions,
peppers, tomatillas,
roasted sesame
seeds into stone.
I gather the paste
back to center,
feel the ancient
rhythm of the women
where I stand.
Photos immediately above: we are eating a lunch of amarillo molé prepared by cooking teacher Reyna Mendoza Ruiz outside in her immaculately clean traditional dirt floor kitchen. She prepared the luscious traditional sauce using a metate that Rebecca refers to in her poem. Rebecca opted to also take a cooking class with Reyna, which inspired her poem.
Photo Diaries: Blending Photography and Prose
What is photojournalism? Our workshop instructor June Finfer, Chicago documentary filmmaker/photographer/playwright explains it this way: It is making a picture, capturing the connection, creating something out of what you are feeling as you go beyond the surface of what you see.
Our charge this week is to make photographs and then write about impressions that our photographs evoke. The narrative accompanies the picture. June asks us to consider each photo and what persona relationship we have to it. Can a photo answer questions such as: What do you expect here? What is it about this experience that has changed you? ”The exercise becomes like a picture story, says June. “Photography creates possibilities for a common language when language is a barrier. We all go to the same places and each of us comes back with a different feeling, experience, impression.”
Photograph #1: Making Tamales by Norma Hawthorne
Las mujeres, the women, sit together under the palapa, ancient hands and some younger and still soft, take a fistful of soft masa paste, smear it into the cups of tender young green corn husks. They are comadres, sit together under starlight. A child clings to his mother’s apron hem. Together they sing an ancient hymn of womanhood under the stars by the campfire, preparing the meal, obscured by steam from the cooking pot. For eternity, for now, for us.
Photograph #2: Tlacolula Child in Yellow by Norma Hawthorne
Lost underfoot or forgotten? Which among those legs and backs is the parent who loves her and leaves her to look out at something distant, beyond her grasp. It is a feast day. Their attention is on the priest who gives mass and absolution. She looks toward a future unknown. Were she mine, I would hold her and cherish her, this small, delicate child dressed in yellow.
Photography #3: Woman with Bundle by Norma Hawthorne
A refreshment is what she asks for. I ask for a photo. Perhaps, she says with lips pursed and a glint in one eye. I am not stealing her soul. Her hat is a bundle of grain stored in a grain sack, stamped words too blurred to read even magnified. Here she is: proud, defiant, strong, survivor beyond what is possible to endure. Her hat sanctifies her, a blessing. She is my gift of the day and I return the gift with pesos for a refresco. A dios.
Photograph #4: Señor Secundino at Las Cuevitas by Norma Hawthorne
Rugged, etched wood, rough-hewn, the texture of life — furrowed brow, creased cheek, gnarled hand, cracked leather strap, bristled mustache, mottled goatskin pulled taut over pine drum, rough pine, watch the splinters, tiny diamond pattern in finely woven straw hat, a brim offering a bit of shade. But now it is night. The shadow cast by an exposed light bulb defines him: solid, durable, tenacious.
Photograph #5: Sunset at Las Cuevitas 2012 by Norma Hawthorne
Shadowy figures, silhouettes mark time until sun sets. Beyond are mountains, magnificent purple, black. Sun rays spray the clouds like a crown of glory. In the dusk muffled voices utter a universal prayer for the ages: peace, good health, shelter and warmth. See the distant town. The church steeple. The call to forgiveness. Feliz y prospero año nuevo.
Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat is coming up March 2-9. Consider joining us.
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Posted in Creative Writing and Poetry, Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats
Tagged blogsherpa, creative writing, culture, Mexico, Oaxaca, photography, poetry, postaweek2012, retreat, workshop, yoga