Tag: immigrant

…because you make me dream…

Live & Learn24 Comments

Into the car with the passionate taxi driver. “You stay young forever,” the man told me, whipping around moodily, “because you look good.” And drew a meditative face with his hand over his face… “Kind,” he said to himself, “you seem kind. I speak English to you,” he said, “because you make me dream.”

— Patricia Lockwood, Will There Ever Be Another You: A Novel (Riverhead Books, September 23, 2025)

Notes:

  • Some real nuggets in this book but regrettably cannot (NOT, absolutely NOT, unless you are a masochist) recommend this book.
  • NY Times Book Review by Dwight Garner: “A Novel That Captures the Agony and Absurdity of Covid Brain Fog. In “Will There Ever Be Another You,” Patricia Lockwood recounts the pandemic’s devastating effects on her life.”
  • Image: Boston Globe by Greg Hoax

Fifty years of sun and water. That is the price.

Live & Learn28 Comments

“In the dream, a man had cut down our fifty-year-old pistachio tree, Leila’s and my tree. In the dream, we had a pistachio tree. Fifty years old. That alone.

And so we were deciding what to do with this man, what his just punishment should be. I said something stupid about him owing us a year’s pistachio harvest, the cost of the tree. And then Leila said, in English:

“I do not care about the pistachios, Roya jaan. I do not care about the tree. He owes us the fifty years of sun, fifty years of water inside that tree. Fifty years of sun and water. That is the price.”

She said it in English. I woke screaming. English, fifty years of sun. I wept for a week. Separation from what you love best, that is hell. To be twice separated, first by a nation and then by its language: that is pain deeper than pain. Deeper than hell. That is abyss.”

— Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!: A Novel (Knopf, January 23, 2024)

Notes:

  1. This man can write! Highly recommended.
  2. Amazon January, 2024 Book of the Month
  3. Book Review by Junot Diaz, NY Times, January 19, 2024: “A Death-Haunted First Novel Incandescent With Life. In “Martyr!,” the poet Kaveh Akbar turns a grieving young man’s search for meaning into a piercing family saga.
  4. Portrait Credit

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Live & Learn14 Comments

Their experiences in the world are involvingly varied: one was a nurse in Colombia, another an orchid keeper in Vietnam. But as I prompt them with questions to write about, I feel repeatedly surprised by how alike their answers sound. 

What do you miss from your past? 

The warmth of home, the smell of grandmother’s cooking. 

What is life like in the present? 

Confusing. Lonely. 

What surprises you about Denver? 

People sleeping on the streets. In my country they’d be with family. 

When you picture your future, what do you hope? 

Safe children. To feel at home. To live my dreams.

— John Cotter, Losing Music: A Memoir (Milkweed Editions, April 11, 2023)

 

Notes:

  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Sunday Morning

Live & Learn19 Comments

A homie named Cruz spent his last dollars taking a Metrolink train sixty miles to Los Angeles from San Bernardino, where he had relocated his lady and newborn to avoid the dangers and desperation of his previous gang life. He had a part-time job but could not get his boss to give him more hours. Now he sits in my office, rattling off a list of the pressures and needs of his family. With no safety net in sight but me, he speaks of no food in the fridge, no lights, landlord looming, no bus fare. When he finishes this breathless account, Cruz stops, shaken and exhausted. He grows teary-eyed and says quietly, “I just keep waiting.”

“For what, son?” I ask.

“For the last to be first.”

~ Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

Notes:

Walking. O say can you see by the dawn’s early light.

Live & Learn51 Comments

Olson_4_little_boy_border_agent

Dallas, TX.

Wednesday. 4:05 am. Pre-Dawn.

It’s sticky, the air is heavy, rain showers are imminent.

I’m walking from an outbuilding to the lobby to pick up an Uber to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. I’m on the first flight back to New York.

Two bodies are framed in their silhouettes. They stand under a street lamp filling a work cart with garden tools. They stop talking, watch me approach and offer a “Good morning Sir” with full smiles and broken English.

Of Mexican origin.

I approach the front desk. Martina is the tag on her lapel. “How was your stay Sir?” She doesn’t break eye contact. Customer Service coach whispering in her ear during orientation, be confident, you belong.

Of Haitian or DR origin. Continue reading “Walking. O say can you see by the dawn’s early light.” →