... i miss my people... extrano mi gente...

I think my body is reacting to the stolen hour and to the fact that I was twirling on Saturday night on heels and that is not something that I usually do. Today I saw my dance partner and he was saying that other people there at the wedding were asking him how long we had been dancing together and he said it was the first time and they were shocked. I love to dance and since I stopped teaching Zumba http://www.zumba.com/ I have not danced so much. Zumba for those that do not know, is aerobics with latin music or hip hop or whatever you want it to be. But you do dance. I would teach latin dance to my students in a very simple fashion and they learned. My Dad, el gringo, moved to Puerto Rico with my mother and he learned Spanish and to dance, Paso Doble (spanish bull fight dance), merengue (from Dominican Republic), plena (from Puerto Rico), danza (from Puerto Rico), waltz (from France I think), and good american rock and roll. He was a big man and weighed over 200 pounds. This man would glide on the dance floor as a gazelle. He would make his dance partners look very elegant and sophisticated. He took pride in his form. I wonder who taught him? My mother? Well she is not longer here to tell me. But most probably.

Dancing is an expression of my soul, my spirit. If you ask me how I feel the happiest dancing, I must say that it is when I am in a very open dance floor or space and to close my eyes and just dance. Maybe I acquired that when I was growing up and going to all these formal dances in Puerto Rico and my boyfriend and I were very smooth on the dance floor. We danced together for 5 years and really were in tune. We knew each and every step to follow literally by instinct. That is a great flowing sensation and kind of liberating.

These formal dances in Puerto Rico where usually held at the Rotary's Clubhouse, Lyons Clubhouse or at this beautiful Hotel Montemar which is high up on a cliff facing the Caribbean Ocean. Unbelievable view. If you ever go to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, go the Hotel Montemar and just watch the sunset, it is on the west coast of the island. We would wear long gowns, long white satin gloves, and white rabbit furs. Believe me, we did all this. Don't ask why... I don't know the answer, except that it was the tradition. There would be a live orchestra. Pablo Elvira y su Combo, El Gran Combo, and on and on. The dance would last until about 2 am when the orchestra would play, "Se acabo, se acabo, se acabo lo que se daba se acabo." Meaning: "Its over, its over, what we were giving away is over." Then everybody screams, "la napa!" That means an encore. So they always end up playing another song.

My beautiful island. I miss it so. I miss my people! Extrano mi gente! Tonight I miss my mother. Not always, but today I wore a throw that I gave her for mother's day last year and it smells like her. I will always say that I believe it was not her time. I feel it was human error and that people do not walk into a hospital ok and not walk out if they did not come in with a life threatening condition. That is my opinion. I definitely do not believe that humans come with an expiration date. Am I sensing some unresolved anger towards her initial treating hospital? I guess I have to meditate on this.

My grandmother Ita... I inherited her independent spirit, the palm of her hands, her love for cooking, her dynamic personality, her determination, her dare... she had to leave her husband and in the early 1940s she got on a ship to New York City where she got her own clothing business. That is something people back then did not do. Women did not leave their men, let alone go to a difflerent continent! My palms are very wrinkled and all my life I wondered who had my wrinkled hands until I saw Ita's. Then I realized why she and I were so intense... it was written all over the palm of our hands. If you believe or not, I have heard some palm readers that do not charge money tell me things that brought chills down my back. I used to walk to the Plaza del Mercado de Loiza, Loiza Fresh Marketplace. She would get her plaintain leaves to make pasteles, plantains, yautia (which is like a root, like the potato) and whatever she needed to make them. I would help her clean the plantain leaves and put the ingredients on the pasteles. I loved doing this with her. Maybe that is why I love to cook today, el Gringo also loved to cook, so I have it from a few different gene pools.

Going to say PEACE OUT!