No nip and tuck to help erase
the bitter winters that pierced through her skin like daggers.
Or the nights she laid her head
against bare floors that bore blisters on her spirit.

No sweet lullaby to sing
for the aspirations
she carried on her back.
Her eyes, heavy from centuries of disappointment
have witnessed birth, death, love, hate.

Her lips, have only spoken the truth even when she wasn’t understood.

Navigating through unfamiliar places, with strange faces, and labeled an alien.
A word used to describe anything that is different.

Never fulfilling prophecies of men destined to be kings, but instead nurtured boys whose lives would end before they began like Emmitt Till, Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin, or the ones who never make the news like Manual Diaz or Cesar Cruz.

Searching for justice in a foreign land,
ambition is now placed in the hands of future generations
who don’t even know the strength they possess.

Honor, power, self-respect once petroglyphs etched on stone
are now an apparition that have been replaced by half-naked young women
diminishing their self-worth to chase a net worth provided by media empires
of so-called “reality tv” designed to distract us.

Little girl, you are beauty, you are love, you are special
Little boy you are strength, you are honor, you are noble
Reclaim what is rightfully yours.
For the footsteps of our ancestors have long faded
and history has pushed its way into the present
We, are here now
We, are history that hasn’t been written yet.

© 2013 Nancy Arroyo Ruffin

tatted on his skin, a reminder to love himself

because no one will do the job better

but instead, he loved her dutifully

in the morning

in the evening

and until the sun rose again

her warmth had become his security

seeking her out whenever he was afraid

she was the sun at dusk that kissed the sky goodnight

and he, he was the sky that patiently waited.

Word Warrior

Surreal. That’s what it felt like last night as I featured for the first time at the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe. The iconic venue which was originally founded in 1973 in the living room of Miguel Algarin, found it’s permanent home at 236 East 3rd street in 1980. There, is where I was given the opportunity to put my words on display. To stand on the stage that has been the home of some of my favorite Nuyorican poets like Miguel Algarin, Miguel Piñero, Pedro Pietre, Piri Tómas, and Maria Esteves was a dream come true for me.

As I stepped on that stage, and felt the heat  of the stage lights on my skin, I knew that I had to give it my all. There was no room for mistakes although, had I made any, I know the crowd would have been forgiving and supportive (as they always are). When I first arrived at the Nuyo I was extremely nervous. More nervous than when I featured at El Museo del Barrio. This night was so important to me and I didn’t want to fail. I had a glass of wine to calm my nerves and when I got in front of the mic the nervouseness seemed to fade away. “I got this”, I said to myself and once I started there was nothing that could hold me back.

I felt the spirit of all the great poets enter my body. I felt the spirits of my ancestors surrounding me, supporting me, encouraging me. I saw the faces of my sister, my parents, my brother in law, and my aunt all cheering me on even though they were miles away on a cruise. I saw the looks of pride and admiration in the eyes of my family and friends that were physically there to experience this special moment with me.

As I began my first poem I felt unstoppable. Every line and word was delivered with the same love and passion that was present when I first wrote them. To be able to share my gift and receive praise and appreciation for it is a really humbling feeling. It is a reminder that I have been blessed by God and the Universe. It is acknowledgment that people enjoy hearing what I have to say. It is confirmation that my words have a home in this artform that I love.

Last night, for me, in a word, was amazing. I am humbled. I am grateful. Thank you Raul K. Rios and LatinosNYC for the platform, thank you my creative sister Maria Rodriguez for the opportunity, thank you to the beautiful women I shared the night with, and thank you to all who came out and showed their support to this word warrior♥ . ~Nancy

“You are carrying a masterpiece hidden within you, but you are standing in the way. Just move aside, then the masterpiece will be revealed. Everyone is a masterpiece, because God never gives birth to anything less than that. Everyone carries that masterpiece hidden for many lives, not knowing who they are and just trying on the surface to become someone.

Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it. God himself has created you; you cannot be improved.”

~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

What I always wanted, was to feel her touch like inspiration. Slightly parted lips that greet me hello every morning the way the sun kisses the sky at dawn. She is heaven and I want to live in her forever. Build legacies from the ground up because she comes from a strong foundation. Teach her how beautiful she is, not because of how she looks, but because of who she is.  Teach her that she is a queen, born from royalty so she must act accordingly.  Set expectations high so that she never settles for less. Fill her up with love so that she learns that she is worthy; worthy of love, respect, admiration.

Dedicated to Avarie Luz Ruffin

liberation

© 2013 Nancy Arroyo Ruffin

De donde vengo yo is not a question.
It is a statement.
An affirmation of where I’m from.
Because where I’m from, history wears the face of family.

It’s my grandmother’s hands that have molded
boys into men and girls into women
It’s my mother’s strength that she wears everyday like her
favorite pair of shoes.

Where I’m from the cool breeze knows nothing of cruel winters
It’s where the rain makes love to the earth every night
and her harvest can nourish an entire village
It’s where the sun lays its lips on her sugar cane skin,
promising to always keep her warm.
It’s where the moonlight dances
to the timeless rhythms of the drums

De donde vengo yo pride is heard in the song of the coqui
It’s where love is felt in the sound of her bendicion.
It’s where a tasa de café is a sacred experience to be shared
with the one you love over the early morning sunrise.

De donde vengo yo the 1950’s migration was the promise of new life
But weary limbs and losing lotto numbers were reminders
that in this country you need more than $1 and a dream.
Where I’m from I was taught to invest me
Nurture dreams like new born babies.
Because de donde vengo yo
is where Supreme Court justices are born

Where I’m from you do not need a dictionary
to communicate with your people
because there Se Habla Espanol all the time
De donde vengo yo is seen every second Sunday in June
taking over Fifth Avenue.
De donde vengo yo las navidades son parrandas,
los 3 reyes magos, y un lechon
It is where si no hay para todo no hay para nadie
Because we are a giving people.

De donde vengo yo is not a question.
It is a statement.
An affirmation of where I’m from.
A testament to those who came before me.
Underneath my bed is a shoe box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to remind me that
I am from those moments–
snapped before I existed–
de alli es de donde vengo yo.

© 2012 Nancy Arroyo Ruffin

if you were a pure bolt

of fire cutting the skies

i’d touch you risking my life

not because i’m brave or strong

but because i’m fascinated

by what the outcome will be. ~Nikki Giovanni

*That excerpt is from Nikki Giovanni’s poem Fascinations.

“I don’t believe in coincidences. Everything that happens has a purpose, from the experiences that we have to the people that we meet, it’s all a part of our journey. It’s the Universe guiding us to where we are ultimately supposed to be.” ~Welcome to Heartbreak pg. 109

“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.” ~Rajneesh

Born July 27, 2012

 I came across that quote a couple of years ago when I first started writing my book, Welcome to Heartbreak. I found it to be simple, beautiful, and honest. For me it symbolized the feeling of motherhood, a feeling that is absolutely unlike anything one has ever felt before. For me, that feeling came on July 27th, 2012 @ 10:21 AM. At that moment I finally experienced the meaning of true love. After 41 weeks of pregnancy and 5 hours of labor I held in my arms the most purest and honest form of love that I have ever experienced, my baby girl. That moment, for me, was the culmination of a dream come true; a dream that for the past 11 years sometimes seemed unreachable.

My journey to motherhood has not been easy. It has been full of excitement and anticipation, but for a very long time was full of heartbreak, disappointment and sadness. However, despite the range of emotions that entered through me I never once lost my faith. I knew with every cell in my body that I would one day be a mother. As I embrace my new role I know that everything happens when it is supposed to. Timing is everything and as much as we may try to make things happen when we want them to, I know that I was meant to be this baby’s mother. She was sent to me exactly when I needed her.

A friend asked me the other day what I’ve learned so far about being a mother. My response was simple, “First thing I learned is that I never really knew what love was until she was born. This is the most purest, honest love there is. I have never, nor will I ever, love anything or anyone like I love her.”

 With her birth I have also been reborn. She has changed my life forever.  ♥

A lifetime half lived, spent wondering if I am worthy to be blessed with the

Valuable gift of your precious life.

Almost eleven years in the making because some things just can’t be

Rushed, knowing that in this time and in this place you were made for me

I will cherish my new title, in gratitude, knowing that I have finally been chosen to

Experience a love like no other, that which is shared by a mother and child.

“Nevertheless, you have to be prepared for everything. At this point, I make the decision I’ve been needing to make: even if I find nothing on this train journey, I will carry on, because I’ve known since that moment of realization in the hotel in London that although my roots are ready, my soul has been slowly dying from something very hard to detect and even harder to cure. Routine.” ~ Aleph, Paulo Coelho

It is one day before my expected delivery date and this morning I woke up feeling differently than I have in the past few weeks. I can’t explain it really but, instead of my normal routine of waking up, walking to the living room, checking up on my notifications from all of my social networks I instead went into the kitchen made a fresh pot of coffee, was awake to see Lamar off to work, and then I did something that I stopped consistently doing a while ago. I prayed. I consider myself to be spiritual but, for the past few months I have not prayed like I used to. However, this morning something was nudging me to get back into the spiritual practice that for whatever reason I had abandoned.

I sat in my dining room with my cup of coffee, its smell warming up every cell in my body while simultaneously in the background the purring of the AC guided my thoughts. I sat in silence for a while not really knowing where to begin.  It’s been quite some time since I connected with my creator and a part of me felt guilty and ashamed, especially because for the past ten months I have been carrying within me the biggest blessing that could have ever been given to me.

As I sat there waiting for the right words to come I realized that as long as I spoke from the heart that was all that mattered. I began thanking my creator for my life and for all of the blessings that have been bestowed upon me.  I thanked him for my mother-in-law’s successful hip replacement surgery that she underwent yesterday and for her quick and smooth recovery that will follow. I thanked him for placing me in a marriage that is overflowing with love, commitment, friendship, and mutual respect. I thanked him most of all for the life he has placed in my womb and has entrusted to me until the day that I take my last breath.

I realized this morning that for the past three weeks that I have been on maternity leave, I have allowed myself to fall into a daily life of routine that consists of nothing really productive. Everyday I wake up and go through the tedious process of making my bed, brushing my teeth, make breakfast, watch TV, check FB, IG, Twitter, email and other social media networks, make lunch, watch TV, make dinner, watch TV, somewhere throughout the day I shower and then I do the very same thing the next day. I have also been waiting impatiently for my baby to arrive so maybe occupying my mind with these meaningless activities has helped the days go by quicker. Up until today I can’t remember when was the last time I wrote or read anything. Writing used to be a daily practice for me. Somewhere along the line I just stopped and allowed myself to be sucked into this pattern of complacency.

This morning after praying I decided that I would break that routine and do something different. I got the book Aleph by Paulo Coelho that I purchased some months ago, sat at my dining room table with my cup of coffee and started reading. Nine pages into the book and I was already highlighting passages that resonated with where I’ve been and currently am in my life. “I am the result of everything that happened and will happen”, writes Coelho on page 10. He is right. We are the sum of all of our experiences both good and bad. However, some of us tend to spend so much time in the past instead of living in the here and now. At least for me I know that this holds true.

While I am currently experiencing the greatest miracle in the Universe I have not allowed myself to completely enjoy it because in the back of my mind I keep asking myself “What if something goes wrong?” My pregnancy thus far has been perfect. No complications and the baby as far as the doctors can tell is also perfectly healthy. Yet and still because of the miscarriage that I experienced last year a part of me has not completely healed. It is because of that loss that I haven’t been able to fully embrace this most amazing miracle.

Coelho says in his book, ”When faced with any loss, there’s no point in trying to recover what has been; it’s best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new.” How many of us have experienced loss, any kind of loss and have asked ourselves “what did I do to deserve this?” Not realizing that the loss, despite how painful, is making space in our lives for something better. We grieve the loss and hold onto the pain but by holding on we are preventing ourselves from filling up that space with something new and possibly greater than what we have lost.  I am slowly learning that in order to heal my wounds I must have the courage to face them, grieve them, and then release them so that they can heal. Today I am acknowledging that I am still hurting from the loss despite not having spoken about it or even thinking about it for almost a year. What hurts us is what heals us and I am on the path to healing.

So as I wait for my baby Avarie to arrive I will do so patiently, fully embracing this most special time that will only occur once. I will never be pregnant with her again. Now is all we have and I am grateful. To quote Paulo Coelho one last time, “I’ve never been as happy as I am now, because I followed the signs, I was patient, and I know that this is going to change everything.”

They say the child chooses the mother

before they are conceived.

 They search and search until they

Find the perfect place to settle in
Like 1492 Columbus did
In search for a new world.
Yet here I am…
a woman not worthy to
hold the title of mother for
no child has chosen me
to be its home
life sentenced protector~~
Created to breathe life into its lungs
Birth seeds of hope from my ovaries
that will bloom silk petals of the heart
Beauty wrapped up in
golden satin sheets of new beginnings
Carrying within it a shock of ambiguity,
A soul thought up
But undelivered.
Magnificent one, all mine,
A mirror perched
Beyond my reach,
A colossal presence, you sting
with continuity underneath my skin
You are in the ark of my blood
in the river of my bones
in the crests of my muscles
in the ligaments of my hair
in the wit of my hands
in the smear of my shadow
You are everywhere
And nowhere simultaneously
Driven by the restless urge to create
I am inseminated with cultural reminders
of what it means to be a woman.
The woman of the house
Maid to clean,
wash,
cook,
take care of my husband
and when the time comes
bear his child.
But I sit still and wait.

I am a broken clock
that doesn’t tick
My time has not come.
I have not been chosen
to miss those cycles
of the moon rising within
My womb weeps blood tears,
the months the shards of grief begin
flowing through me and out of me
iridescent stem of womanhood.
For the sea of faith,
was too once full
I see you behind
a thin-walled glass veneer of time.
Not meant to be, not born
Yet omnipresent, brown-eyed, laughing,
blowing caramel kisses in the wind.
Above the air I breathe
heavy rainclouds
finally release their pain
ragged currents flow down my cheeks
all of your beauty, has come to an end
I solemnly mourn the death of a dream
Because the nature of life has made it so.

Click on the link for video of me reciting this poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WtOgC6-_P4

Now that I am going to be a mom I find that most of my thoughts are consumed with my baby, what kind of mom I will be, and all the decisions that I will have to make that will affect her life. This point in my life is exciting and while I am anxious to hold my baby in my arms, I am also scared shitless. I will soon become responsible for a life other than my own and that thought really terrifies me. When I think about all the ways I can possibly screw her up I begin to worry. It’s not like I can go back, rewind, and start over.

Today, I spent most of my morning researching vaccines which will be one of the many decisions that I have to make once my baby arrives. There was so much information, that I have to admit, I felt a bit overwhelmed. There has been so much debate about vaccines, how they differ from when I was a kid, the number of vaccines that should be given, the vaccination schedule  and whether or not a baby’s immune system can handle it, and lastly the debate on whether or not vaccines are linked to autism.

While the original study, that was initially reported in the medical journal, The Lancet, by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, helped start a lot of the fear about a connection between vaccines and autism, it has been determined that the findings were based on fraudulent research. Furthermore, the study was never replicated by other researchers, and it has been retracted. Dr. Wakefield eventually lost his medical license in Europe as a result of his research. However, none of this really helps me because I am still just as confused as I was when I began my research. It does seem to me however, that there are a lot more cases of autism reported now than there were when I was a child. Some argue that environmental factors coupled with genetic factors may also be a cause of the higher autism rates. Autism is just one of the many issues that concern me. I am also concerned about the vaccines themselves, without them even having a link to autism.

While I do understand that vaccines do prevent many illnesses that at one time were deadly I am unclear as to why the number of vaccinations has increased since I was a child, how if at all have the doses changed since I was a child, what exactly is in these vaccines (I’ve read that vaccines may contain additives and preservatives such as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, human serum albumin, gelatin, antibiotics, and yeast proteins), and what potential dangers do these additives and preservatives pose to a newborn baby?

While experts agree that vaccine additives do sometimes cause reactions, with the most common being allergic reactions being to gelatin, the antibiotic neomycin and eggs they do contend that they are rare. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), “Parents should be reassured that quantities of mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde contained in vaccines are likely to be harmless on the basis of exposure studies in humans or experimental studies in animals.”

While I may have to do some research and speak with a pediatrician in order to get some answers to my questions I am willing to do whatever I have to in order to make an informed decision. Because, according to the CDC’s 2012 recommended vaccination schedule, at the time of birth my baby will immediately be  given the Hepatitis B vaccine with approximately another 4 shots given when she is 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months. There are 25 shots recommended during the first 15 months of the baby’s life. This is way too many vaccinations in my opinion, but I’m no doctor so what do I know? What I do know is that I need to be as informed as possible in order to make the best decision for my baby. This will be the first of many.

Helpful Links:

www.cdc.gov/vaccines

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/immunizations/a/0608_vac_aditvs.htm?p=1

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/autism/index.htm

Shattered dreams always

drown in pools of potential

once full of promise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blood lines are all that

           remain as reminders of

                      life taken too soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nightly visits, he

gently nudges on my door

begging me to let him in.

~a Haiku poem is a Japanese poem with the first verse with 5 syllables and the second with 7 syllablles and the 3rd with 5 syllablles.~