How I met and why I meet Stacy C

Several years ago--and I guess I could dig up the original emails to find the exact date--I heard from Chicana writer/novelist/poeta Sandra Cisneros, asking if I would be interested in or willing to take some time to meet and possibly mentor a north Texas friend and young(er) writer.  This person, Stacy C, a high school teacher who works with "spec" (she pronounces it like "speck") kids and also writes poetry, is the daughter (well, actually, one of several) of a teacher friend of Sandra.  This teacher friend was a huge fan and became quite close friends with Sandra, even visiting her at her casita morada (purple) in San Antonio.  Unfortunately and sadly, Mama Campbell passed away about 10 years ago, and daughter Stacy has been challenging herself to draft and polish countless unfinished poems in the memory of and to honor her dear mother.

Sandra herself didn't have time to mentor Stacy, but she recommended me because I live in north Texas and she believed me to have the sensitivity and nurturing willingness to meet w/ Stacy.  Well, it did work out: I contacted Stacy, she seemed receptive, and we occasioned to schedule de vez en cuando (now and again) lunch/brunch meetings at local restaurants within bicycling distance of my home.  This became a cherished tradition, where we would get together at least seasonally, bringing backpacks of fotos, recuerdos, books, and ideas to share with one another at a table (public, mind you) over which we laughed, dined, drank, and cried.  It got to be that we couldn't show up empty-handed; we needed ephemera and documents, framed images and poem copies to show and tell about.  And now, even though the sped-up nature of time in the second decade of the 21st century has kept us from meeting more than once or twice a year, it becomes even more imperative, even urgent to bring the right things, the palpable proof of the life we've lived since our previous sharing session.

It had been over a year since our last meeting, and Stacy and I didn't dare put it off any longer, so we met at Rodeo Goat ("because it sounds like a fun place," she'd written as we mulled over a location to convene) this past Wednesday.  I stuffed a  Texas Beat Festival t-shirt, bag of chocolate mint leaves (thank you, Kelley), and a few other small gifts in my new messenger bag and pedaled over to meet Stacy.  Once we embraced and took our place at the backlot picnic table and placed our order, we immediately launched into chat about writing and music and ideas and future and current projects.  We exchanged our gifts and shared our minds.  This time, I didn't get to read any of her latest poetry pieces in progress.  She's on a hiatus from writing, but misses it desperately, as we all do when life interrupts with its myriad requests, demands, tantrums.  I tried to reassure her that the light in her room of writing will turn back on again.  And I felt my words resonating internally in consideration of my own stumbling blocks, writing blocks, boxing matches with procrastination.  I hope to benefit from the advice I offer others by applying it to my self.  Ultimately, all it takes is applying thoughtful pressure to the keys, one letter at a time.  Like t-h-i-s.

Friends to Celebrate With - that's my favorite kind of buffet!

Met on the rooftop of the Live Oak Music Hall for a coupla hours.

Bringing playful conversation and closeness between friends.

Cody [above] made vegan gluten-free donut holes to share earlier in the afternoon.

He seems to love cookin' fun foods.

                                          Dear Meg, teacher and artist.  Her comfy scarf invited tight
                              hugs as it started to get chilly outside.  Bless her and her strong commitment to the kids she teaches.
Swaziland in 2013, right, Meg?

Bree and I kickin' back on the rooftop, welcoming a view of the Harvest Moon in all

her glory.

 Bree made a cool art card for me, which was comprised of "Happy Birthday" in 50 different languages of the human world, hand-written by Bree in 50 different marker colors.  Wow!

Musician and composer James sat with me and tried to teach me how to play my "Tammy Birthday Song" on our special tabletop keyboard.  If you can't see it, well, you might need to get in a magic frame of mind.

Rose Ann, I'm sorry but there were no cake candles for me to blow out, so I opted to blow your hair instead.  Thinking of dandelion fibers, blowin' in the wind on a beautiful September night.  (By the way, I'll always cherish the 50 words you wrote for me.  Pure inspiration.)

Gloria, we have almost the same exact skin tone.  What's up with that?  We must really be hermanas in life!  Jazz at the library, let's go!

If you have friends, you have everything.  (Jessica, we didn't get a picture together!)

Photo credit:  Jessica Fuentes
Date:  September 30, 2012
Location:  Fort Worth, Texas

During drought, one must find water.

Photo Poem 1.

L with an extra Ele

a meditation on kinship
on the occasion of E.C.'s 2012 birthday




Easy, they think it’s easy maintaining my liquid and
Lovely smile. Only the digging ones, curious comrades who care and dare to
Look below the grin and guffaws, they are the ones who will ever get to
Enjoy the resonant spectrum of the total and

Complete me, the swallowed bird, with dinky displeasures, and buzzing back anger: the
Hard and sometimes humiliating sunspray of what I live to transcend and
Under which I sometimes get
Pinned. I embrace those who dig and spelunk, unafraid of
Intensity and skin-wound, the companions of my heart synched into my stride, a
Kinesthetic empathy as they walk parallel aside me, pulsing salvation tales, breaths of sweet respite, and lay-me-down-softly seafoam.

Opportunity for Artists - part 1

CALL TO ARTISTS
Submit Your Original Artwork for the 2012 National Latino Congreso

Entries due February 12, 2012!

Since 2006, the National Latino Congreso has brought together Latinos from all walks of life-From grassroots community members to national elected officials- to create a united Latino Agenda on a variety of issues. For the 2012 NLC, the Conveners will choose from original artwork entries that capture the principles of the National Latino Congreso.

The chosen artwork will be published on all promotional materials for 2012 NLC gatherings, including the NLC website, the Official NLC 2012 Program Book, as well as 2012 mailing and correspondence.

Artists whose artwork is selected will receive a cash prize of $200 and international recognition.

Guidelines for Submissions:
. Color or black-and-white artwork in JPG or PDF format preferred;
. Each submission must be sent with the artist's name, telephone and email address;
. Entries must be submitted no later than February 12, 2012 by 11:59pm PST (Pacific Standard Time). (No exceptions) Email submissions to info@nalacc.org.

The winner will be announced on February 14, 2012.

Buena Suerte!

Opportunity for Artists - part 2

There is an opportunity to submit a portfolio for review by Nickelodeon between February 6th and February 17th, 2012, in preparation for applying for a Nickelodeon Artist Fellowship.

What is the Nickelodeon Artist Fellowship?

"Developed to broaden Nickelodeon's outreach efforts, the Nickelodeon Artist Fellowship is designed to nurture the development of emerging and diverse artists for positions within the Nickelodeon Animation Studio, while supporting their growth as creative visionaries."

More info here.

Born September 3rd, 1937

I love my Daddy, born Aristeo Gomez, but known as "Ted Gomez" over the years. Born and raised in west Texas, in the Stamford-Anson region near Abilene. They were pretty poor--it was during the Depression, after all, that he was born--but things got even rougher when his mother (Dominga) left her husband (Jesus) and all the young kids to go chasing after another life, maybe another man--as I've heard. As the second-oldest child, Daddy had to quit school (after 6th grade) to stay home and help Jesus with work in the pastures (Daddy drove a tractor at the age of 12) and raising his siblings (Wendell, Paul, Adela, Lorenza, Stella, Ray, Martin, and Wally). He was gentle and creative, I imagine, because he certainly was by the time he got to raise me, my brother Ted, and sister Miranda. As a father, he was consistently very attentive, nurturing, and patient.

We heard that he once caught a baby raccoon (or two?) and gave it to his sisters for a pet. And for Christmas, all Jesus was able to provide was a paper sack with peanuts and maybe an orange or apple in it.

By the time Daddy was in his early 20s, he was a seasoned hard worker, enough so to have saved earnings to buy himself a new car. He dressed in the coolest threads, Levis and sports shirts and penny loafers. Or in a Western style, cowboy boots and snap-button Western shirt, again with the Levi jeans. And always, the well-coifed hair, with the help of the ever-present Three Flowers Brilliantine styling gel. (To this day, Mama says that whenever she has a chance to take a whiff of Three Flowers it reminds her of Daddy.) Daddy was definitely something to look at. Which is why I often refer to him--when describing him to my friends--as the "Mexican or Chicano James Dean." I really hope that he was happy and had great adventures in the years after he was done raising his siblings and before he had a family of his own.

Love you forever, Daddy.

My daddy as Buddha

Some of us are lucky enough to be able to look back on our fathers as "heroic" but I'll go a bit further and add that, for over a decade now, I've also thought of him as a "Buddha." Strong but silent, patient and enduring, and always kind and helpful. In this early picture, taken in the 1960s, he looks to me like the James West character of the tv series "Wild, Wild West." But instead of a gun-slinging Secret Service agent, Daddy was a ranch hand and field worker who could do everything from shearing sheep and branding and herding cattle to picking cotton and other agricultural products. Because he loved cars, he became a self-taught auto mechanic and he worked on all of our cars--especially near inspection time.

He and Mama loved to dance and she tells us that together they once won a jitterbug dance contest. If only I could have seen that. She and Daddy would sometimes travel to the Mexican town of Acuna to see the bullfights, and to go dancing. The photos we've saved from those trips show a quite stylish couple, looking glamorous and happy. My parents truly loved and cared for one another. I would say that Mama is still in love with him--even after two decades of him being gone. That's enduring love.

21 years ago today: December 12, 1990

Daddy wrote me one letter after I left for college in Maryland. It was the first time I'd been so far from the family on my own for more than a weekend away. It's a precious letter, which I'll keep for rereading for the rest of my life. In it, Daddy wrote how quiet the household was without me and how, when he arrived home from his night job--and i wasn't there doing my homework or up to greet him--that is when he missed me most of all.

There are many many things that could be written about Daddy: what i have heard about his life before my birth and what i remember about him from his years as my father. Those complete and detailed accounts will come in time. For today, suffice to say: he was an amazing man and father, husband and sibling. He left us way too soon, way too young.

On December 12th, 1981--on Virgen de Guadalupe Day--he was overtaken by a brain tumor that had probably been a sinister invader growing since before i'd left for my first semester at college. The next day, December 13th, i received a fateful call from Texas that Daddy was going to have emergency surgery to remove the just-detected tumor, but not soon enough to save the vision in his left eye. Things went on a sometimes-nightmarish freefall from there for Daddy. (He was diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes and eventually lost complete eyesight in his right eye, becoming completely blind.)



These changes affected the entire family, of course, and imposed hardships too painful to detail even decades after their occurrence. But i must mention that the Virgen de Guadalupe has figured quite significantly in our family as well. It was on her celebration day (December 12th, 1981) that Daddy was diagnosed to have the brain tumor. It was on Virgen de Guadalupe day that he passed quietly away (December 12th, 1990) after almost ten long years of illness and neglect. Gone but never forgetton, as they say.

So, once again, another Virgen de Guadalupe day to commemorate and remember. It's been twenty-one years without Daddy as i first knew and loved him. But our relationship is stronger than ever, existing on another, more ethereal and spiritual, plane, which sometimes manifests in the most mysterious and miraculous ways. I'll leave those details and explanations for a future date.

Rest in eternal peace, Daddy. And thank you for the gentle surprises and welcomed gifts that you continue to bestow upon me. I love you forever.

It's so cool to have a mom who digs poetry.

It's so cool to have a mom who digs poetry. And it's so cool that she will call you up, day or night, when something related to poets or poetry comes up on tv or the radio (never the internet, cuz she's just not there yet) and she knows that you'll probably appreciate it too. For the last few years, she's even started assuming that I'll know the poet she's watching or listening to. "Tammy," she'll say over the phone in one of these calls, "she's saying some of her poetry, and it's on Channel 13 (the PBS affiliate here in the Dallas market), and you probably know her." Truthfully, I often do. The poet network is vast, but tight. We need each other, cuz, in reality, poets appreciate other poets more than anybody else will.

So last week, when mom was watching the Latin Grammys on television, I was surprised to get a phone call from her. She was practically in tears, well, she had already cried them, but I could detect the hangover of her weeping as she spoke. "Can you see if you can get the Grammys on the internet at your house?" she asked. "It's so beautiful, with the orchestra and a young man, he looks like some of your friends--his head shaved and he has tattoos--he's reciting poetry, and I just started crying, it was so beautiful..."

Extremely touched by her caring to share, I immediately went online and tried to hook into a livestream of the broadcast, but to no avail. Telling my mom that it was probably a rapper (and it turned out to be the lead vocalist for Calle 13), I assured her that if the segment was as powerful as she made it out to be, it would probably go viral online as a video on YouTube or whatever. Sure enough, today I got an email on the Historia list-serv that directed me to the link for exactly that Latin Grammys performance. I clicked, I watched, I wept. It was beautiful. Just like mom said. After the second viewing, I decided to phone her and let her know I'd seen the spot and that it'd already gotten over 80,000 views. Nothing that excellent goes unnoticed by the internetters. But I'm proud of my mom for noticing on her own, no thumbs-up needed.