Un millón de pequeñas semillas
18 days.
It always feels like the longest summer in El Sermon.
I wonder why my mom and her siblings find so much joy sitting without electricity or running water. What makes them tolerate the bug bites that are so irritable you could crash out in an instant?
Waking to the call of a rooster or stepping outside into a morning painted with bright sunlight and cartoon clouds.
In retrospect, when you’re on the plane ride home, it isn’t all that bad. But it is a different dimension–that small village in the middle of nowhere.
My whole life, I’ve tried to trace where this wishful want for more came from. The hope of a better life, a better environment, or a gentler future.
Being in my grandpa’s home reminds me that I come from dreamers. As I sit on his blue couch and look at the walls, I’m met with versions of my aunts and uncles that once existed. What was that like–I wonder; Living here when your life was elsewhere.
If I could have one last laugh, one more embrace, or one more drive to the milpas with my abuelo, I’d ask him if he was happy, and if so, what was his version of happiness like.
When my abuelita passed away after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, what stayed with me most was the way she clung to her rosary, as if gripping it tighter might help her hold on to her memories. The sight of her fingers wrapped around those beads reminded me of a child clutching a teddy bear for comfort and safety.
I should’ve had one more summer with both of them, happy and well. The ending of it all was an intense coin flip. One day, before we know it, parents become the kids. And one day we’ll take care of them the way they took care of us.
I see this act of love every summer.
How lucky am I to have a blessed home to come to in San Luis Potosi. How blessed am I to feel the motive of coming back here. I’m grateful that I get to experience the joys of Mexico. The warmth of freshly made gorditas and the sweetness of jugo de bolsa. I’m going to miss the church pews alive with mariachi singers and the desperate breeze from paper fans.
As much as I love Mexico, it doesn’t quite feel like home. It’s familiar, a part of me, undeniably—but it’s never fully mine. I’m not fluent in the language or entirely at ease in the rhythm of life here. Sometimes I wonder: am I Mexican enough, or have I become too Americanized to ever truly fit?
But I know that I’m rooted here. I know that my seed has been fertilized by the water of the arroyos and nurtured by the warm yellow rays of el Sol. So I let that be enough.
It has to be enough.
