Astrid Liu, what was left

*

what was left: 

hydrangea. orchid. camellia. 

trumpet flower. hibiscus. ylang ylang. 

i made a book of dried flowers that made me think of her each day i was in asia, wrote little notes, arranged each flower carefully on the page. we broke up before i could ever give it to them. i burned that book. this is the haphazard copy, the reject and the excess flowers, the second thoughts that were the only thing i left for myself. 

what was left:

creosote. maple leaves. plumeria. 

memories cradled in recycled pulp

pressed firm. 

use the ephemeral 

make something new. 

what was left: 

lilies. daisies. carnations. 

moth orchids. roses. 

alicia and kara and dure sent baskets and bouquets of white flowers in anticipation of the way your body slowly became more frail, more fragile. i never used to bring lilies home. it doesn't matter now. 

i can't bear to throw them out, though their blooms are wizened and dry. i can only sweep the litter left over. the soughing of broom bristles over the floor sound like the wheezing of your last breaths, your little head flopping over to my hand and away, unable to find comfort. 

this is all i have left of you. 

Ana Knudsen, Incomplete Notes on the Bach Chaconne in D Minor

Because not enough people think there is such a thing as good art and bad art, because to think so is elitist, because art is subjective, because art is about what it makes you feel, and because no one can tell you what to feel. Because you do not understand what it is about certain songs that make a lot of people feel one way or another but they do because perfect songs exist and because no one panics about this enough. Because yes, not everyone, because that would be impossible, because sometimes you do leave the theatre and have to pretend you liked the movie for what feels like forever until he thanks you for the ride home. Because there are a lot of movies that you feel to be subpar, because you feel this in the same way you feel there are movies that are better than others. Because everyone feels this deep down in their bones but as soon as you say so your dumb boyfriend(’s dad) jumps up like, “YOU CAN’T SAY THAT!!”, practically foaming at the mouth at the scent of blood. Because a long time ago, a bunch of men got together to decide that everything is relative and nothing matters and made everyone else believe this too, about art and first and foremost, so that they could kill people for money/sport. Because no one can explain how a song could sound so much like grief, because when someone suggested Bach wrote it for his wife when she died, everyone just ran with it. Because the song sounds so much like a song Bach would have written for his wife when she died that it could be about nothing else. Because when Schumann tried to transcribe it for the piano he found he only could if he wrote it for the left hand alone, because otherwise the feeling of the piece was lost, because the feeling of the piece was its soul, one that was desolate and alone, having found the limit between life and death. The violin can only sound three notes at once; Bach forces four or even five. The violinist is only able to sound them in time.

Rose Paulson, My Rock Collection (Incomplete)

1. Kronborg Castle, Denmark, March 2022. 

This is one of the only rocks that I remember finding. I was living in Latvia, and I traveled to Copenhagen with my friend and colleague, Sarah, who had family there. That morning, her uncle, aunt, and cousin picked us up from our Airbnb in the city. They knew that Sarah was a writer, and maybe they knew they that I was a writer, too, and they got the idea that she would like to see castle that Shakespeare used as inspiration for the castle in Hamlet. My most vivid memory of this day is that drive up along the coast. When they picked us up, they rearranged themselves so that Sarah could take the passenger seat and I could take the right back seat, so that we could both see the water. All I remember is focusing on my breathing, trying not to focus on the eighteen-year-old boy crammed in the middle seat next to me, trying to gather the strength to take my coat off, and trying as hard as I could to not throw up. My second most vivid memory is standing with Sarah in the bathroom of the castle, her saying, there’s almost nothing here about Hamlet. My third most vivid memory is standing on the beach next to the castle, the water a deep contemplative blue, the five of us silently looking combing through the rocks. Sarah’s father pointed out a few stones made from eroded brick and then pointed to the castle, also made of brick. “You could take one of these,” he said. “That’s a souvenir you can’t buy in the gift shop.” 

2. Nerja, Spain, March 2022.

I’m almost certain I’m right about this one. I’d spent a week visiting M. in Madrid and then we rented a car to drive south and spend a weekend at the beach. When I visited Madrid the month before, I’d felt revived by the sun after living through a long, gloomy, northern winter. But this week, wind storms from the Sahara desert had blown dust (sand?) all the way to Spain, and the streets and skies of Madrid were brown with dust. M. had called in sick one day at work, citing her asthma, so we could go to the Royal Palace. South in Nerja, the skies were cloudy and thunderstorms were forming. I think these pieces of sea glass come from this trip because I remember M. telling me that her mom collected it. 

I had to look through old photos to remind myself of what happen on this trip. In every photo I am smiling, or I’ve pushed my cheek against M.’s, her red hair curling on my face. In one video I try to take a sip of red wine without making a face, and when I can’t I laugh, and I can hear M.’s laughter too, off camera. My hair is long and it parts on the side. For the whole week I wear M.’s clothes. In several of these photos, M. is sorting through rocks on the beach, wearing my backpack, and no matter how much I zoom in, I can’t see what rock she is holding. Now, I look through my collection and find a red stone that looks like it could have come from this beach, but I’m not sure. In one photo, which my phone tells me was sent from M., I am holding a smooth gray stone in my palm, an enormous, almost devilish grin on my face, triumphant at my find. I don’t recognize this rock. It isn’t in my collection. 

3. Riga, Latvia, 2021-2022

These are the stones and shells that I imagine I picked up while I lived in Riga, but I’m not sure. Something about Riga that took me a long time to understand is that it is close to the sea, but it is not on the sea. Of course I understood this in a literal sense; I had taken the train out to the beach; my colleague often talked about her commute from her beachside suburb; I’d gone down to the river and saw the distant pier and knew we were connected to something larger. But the closeness was a gradual realization. I looked down and saw that the sidewalk was filled with waddling seagulls. I swept the floor of my apartment and realized that my boots had been tracking in sand. I think these ones are from the beach, but I’m not sure. 

4. Tucson, Arizona, USA, March 2024. 

A gift from G., several weeks after we started seeing each other. They said it was called a “TV rock” because if you place it on an image you can see the image clearly, as if it’s on TV. They explained the optical sciences behind it because I don’t remember the details. They had presented this gift with a note written on the back of a movie ticket from the first time we hung out. At some point right before we parted I was turning the rock over in my fingers and it broke. I still think it’s pretty cool. 

5. Amsterdam, Netherlands, January 2025

I’m lying about the date and the location, but I’ll tell the story anyway. I was at a conference on international diplomacy, paid for the US government, at least indirectly. This part is somehow true. I was surrounded by well-dressed, high-achieving young people—half Americans, half Europeans—and although I was mostly quiet in the seminars I came alive at night. Large groups of us wandered the streets in the evenings, and the Europeans who had visited previously told us which bars to go to. N. was wearing a red velvet corduroy jacket. I remember saying it was nice that there was another queer woman here, and she linked her arm around mine, and we walked like that for a while. She was taller than me. She told me the story of how she grew up in Brazil but moved abroad thanks to her Portuguese passport. She encouraged me—also raised across the ocean, almost holding a European passport—to do the same. She showed me a photo of what she looked like back in Brazil, how different she had been, and explained how her life was so much better now. I thought she looked pretty even then. We went into a bodega and N. told me to buy Delirium Tremens, a blue and purple bottle with an elephant on it. She said it would have me seeing elephants. Perhaps this is where you realize that this story takes place in Belgium. All of this so far has otherwise been true. I can’t say the things I wish had been true. 

6. Tucson, Arizona, USA, February 2025

My gem show haul, minus the bismuth because it is special to me, and also breakable. Self explanatory. 

Leah Mensch, On Absurdity (and for the Love of the Bit)

*

Before I moved to Arizona, I spent a miserable year at a different program in New York. It wasn’t the right fit for me, but some of the misery was my own making. I was depressed. My professor thought a book about Kate Braverman was a terrible idea. This was not why I was depressed but it certainly didn’t help. I was also twenty-two. I just didn’t know how to take care of myself, and I didn’t know how to ask for help. What twenty-two year old does? My mother’s whole Arab-Jewish family lived in Brooklyn. It was an intense proximity to a family trauma landscape I didn’t—couldn’t—prepare myself for. They loved me. But I didn’t know how to process my grief. What 22-year-old does? 

     So instead, in New York,  I was a bystander to my own rage, unraveling down the city streets: when someone sat too close to me on the subway, I wanted to pull my mask down and scream; when a man elbowed me in Times Square on the way to the doctor’s office, I pictured my fist shattering his jaw; when my classmates told me my work was funny, I wanted to pound my fist on the table and say fuck every one of you.  Braverman was my pain doppelgänger back then: when I wrote about her walking around in the bathrobe, drugged up on lorazepam in the hills of Napa Valley, I was tracing the path of my own concurrent unraveling; I wrote about her desperate letters to cousin Rachel—I knew nobody would give me our history, and so I took it—⁠on the M train after my cousin  an Arabic Torah across the table, and I turned the page in the wrong direction, brought non-kosher wine. My classmates were not interested in these images, brutally anchoring my work, and were instead pointing to moments that elucidated humor, asking me to spend more time writing about the phone call with the woman from Sonoma State, the story about the time Michael called me in the morning’s early hours from Greece. Your work is funny, people would often tell me. I hated this, as if humor somehow negated scholarly value.

  But the writers around me weren’t wrong. Or rather, we were all right. My work was brutal and it was also really funny. It was really fucking funny to be so obsessed with an obscure dead poet that I found myself on the phone with an 80 year old former friend of hers every Saturday night, that the Sonoma State library groaned when they saw my correspondence, so desperate to get Braverman’s master’s thesis. But it was easier to blame a classmate’s lacking intellect than to admit how vulnerable I felt with Braverman’s wounds, my wounds—many of which I had never tried to pair with words—festering on the workshop table. My classmates saw something inside my work I was trying to resist. They were vying to communicate that, despite the stale crackers and the weeks crossed off a calendar sans a single shower, despite Braverman’s pleas for community and her 5150 in Napa Valley, I was making them laugh.

*

I grew up with a mother who valued the absurd as much as she valued love. (That is to say, a lot). She taught me to laugh at everything—most importantly, myself. We spoke in our best butchered Boston accents around the house—sometimes in public by accident—and purposefully misspelled words in texts to one another. We gleefully announced our stomach issues in disgusting detail and, when we drove to Tucson together, stopped at most of the attractions along the way. The world’s largest rocking chair in Illinois, the world’s largest pistachio in Pistachioland, New Mexico. ( I cannot say I recommend either of these things). Camus’ philosophy of the absurd was maybe the first instance of a body collision with theory. I was nineteen, generally uninterested in what old white guy theorists had to say. And yet. To him, absurdity was what made life worth living. Or to put it simply, we’re all trying to derive purpose from our lives in a world that is, for the most part, indifferent toward us. The absurdity lives in the dissonance, the fact that we want to be alive nevertheless. He felt leaning into the absurdity and dissonance, rather than avoiding it, would make being alive a little easier. I’ve wanted to write about absurdity for years, but something always got in the way.  My mom knows grief as intimately as anyone. Her dad died when she was twelve. By the time she was thirteen, she was separated from her entire family. She never hid her sadness from me, but she also laughed a lot, and I never saw these two at odds with one another.  I think people who have experienced a central grief, a grief like my mother’s, have an eye for the absurd. They have to. How else could she have gone on? 

*

When I arrived in Arizona, I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep writing anymore. This seems ridiculous now, but at the time, it felt so real to me. Well no. I wanted to write. I wanted to write a book about Kate Braverman. She was all I thought about. But I didn’t know how, or if, it would be possible. When she died in 2019, she left so little behind. Every path led to what felt like a dead end. It turns out, I just needed to learn how to laugh again. To chase absurdity instead of my book. They’re of the same origin anyway, at least for me.  If you’re wondering if Kate Braverman fits into this, it is not a matter of if, but how. In the last decade of her life, she tried to kill herself at least six times. Sometimes when I think about this, I feel nauseous. It’s not a surprise, really. But it’s also not something she ever talked about publicly. I didn’t know until a few years after she died. And yet, despite decades of clinical depression, she didn’t die by suicide. And this matters.    Kate was incredibly funny. This was something that did once surprise me. But now I think, of course she was. Two weeks before she died, she finished a novel about quantum entanglement. It’s only borderline readable, suffused with typos and repeating scenes and characters shapeshifting names and bodies. But god, it’s so funny. At one point, a wife tells her husband she’s started a blog. 
     You have fifteen followers, he says. 
     Three more than Jesus, she replies, apparently still counting Judas. 

In another scene, the same wife goes off on a tangent about her husband’s obnoxious qualities. It’s the absurdity of their argument that leaves me laughing while I’m driving around Tucson. “ It’s a symbolic hairbringer,” she says. “ I’m not sitting in a motel 6 while you lecture me about the grandeur of Rome, while you wax poetics about aqueducts. We don’t have the same schedule. We don’t even brush our teeth in the same sink.” Her husband is surprised. “You brush your teeth?,” he says.  Then, toward the end of the novel, Braverman writes my favorite line, attributed to no character:

"Consciousness is an honor and a privilege even if much of it is spent in a bathrobe in a major depression while everyone you love leaves you and your publishers bury all your books."

To me, these are her last words. Maybe my beginning. 

*

When my friend Moisés defended his nonfiction thesis in 2023, my partner Geramee asked him what his favorite part of his book was. That the manuscript is very big and heavy, Moisés said. And I can bash my head into it if I want. Then, he looked at both of us, seriously. When I could make myself laugh, that was my favorite part, he said. That was when I believed in the book. 

*

When I started dating Geramee two and a half years ago, I was worried about loving someone else with a history of major depression. I felt like I had only just stabilized, and the process wasn’t easy. It was a voluntary hospitalization and a move across the country, sertraline and a lot of miles run along the Rillito River Path. I felt fragile. I was fragile. I’m still fragile, but not because I’m one misstep away from catastrophe, but because I’m human. And I’m ok with this. 

     And it turns out loving someone else with a history of major depression has been, mostly, a joy. Because despite the horrors of daily life, and there are many, there have always been many, even before this political administration, we can make each other spit-out-your-seltzer laugh at the end of the day. Last week, Geramee had a hole in their pants. I am still laughing about this, actually. I found the hole, I got to announce the hole, which was delightful in a chaotic neutral sense. Maybe chaotic evil? 
     My first year in the MFA, also Geramee’s last, I had a dream one night that someone put a sandwich in the tiny cabinet. I’m talking a full on Jersey Mike’s sub with salami and lettuce and mayonnaise and all of the things you would not want to put in the University of Arizona’s smallest museum. It was just the sub, in its full immaculate straight-out-of-the-bag form, and nothing else. I woke Geramee up in the middle of the night to tell them about this dream. Ever since then, I have been minorly fixated on putting a sandwich in the tiny cabinet before I graduate. I am not going to do this for food waste and inflation reasons, but I still think this is one of the funniest dreams I’ve ever had. I’m working in that spirit. Or at least I’m trying. 

*

No one loves absurdity, by which I mean the bit, as much as Ander Monson. The guy wrote a book about Predator. He reviews potato chips on his Instagram account. He accidentally convinced several students that all his thesis advisees do their defense at the Arby’s on 22nd Street. You know, the Arby’s with a pool and a waterslide. The one with an attached bank and notary. Yesterday he DM’d me a video of someone making a La Croix Bar out of a crowbar they found in their backyard. (This is exactly what it sounds like).  I submitted a thirty page essay about Kate Braverman for my MFA application and he said what the hell, sure.    Also, his 50th birthday is April 9th. Soon he will start wearing Kirkland branded jeans and playing Spelling Bee after Wordle and Connections. This is what people in their fifties do. He will drink All Day Rose seltzer constantly despite the tariffs. I heard he asked for fifty sweet potatoes instead of a cake. If you see the Goo Goo dolls around Tucson next week, it’s because they’re gonna be performing live in his backyard. 
I’m supposed to be working on my thesis, but I made this tiny cabinet instead. I’ve spent a lot of time chasing the bit during my time here, mostly at Ander’s direction. And I know my life is better for it. My work is, too. After six years of failure, this was all it took, apparently, to finally write about absurdity. 

Aaron Cerda, A Brief History of Guerrero

 

Before deciding to curate my Tiny Cabinet exhibit on A Brief History of Guerrero, I had thought about making an ofrenda dedicated to a living short story writer and fill it with clippings of their collections. Mainly because I thought the idea of an ofrenda to a living short story writer was funny and absurd, and I wanted to have fun with the Tiny Cabinet. My first thought was George Saunders, of course, but that would be the expected. Being the George Saunders stan that I am, I would have loved to pay tribute to him, and deep down, there was a part of me that hoped he’d somehow word got back to him that there was a tiny cabinet with an ofrenda dedicated to him in Arizona. He’d be concerned. And I love that.

     In hindsight, I should have done it, especially after he obit-ed Joy Williams yesterday (Feb. 20, 2025). Joy Williams is, of course, not dead. But the idea of a short story writer making an ofrenda for another short story writer who just mistakenly obited another short story writer who the first short story writer knows is perfect. I could have called it my collection of wrongful obituaries. But I had already made a decision by that point.
     I made the realization that I had been collecting information on a drowned town for about a year, and I wanted to pay tribute to the Guerrero.
     I grew up not far from Guerrero. It was maybe an hour drive? I grew up in the central region of the Rio Grande Valley (Mid-Valley) and Guerrero is in the western part of the valley. Heck! I drank the water that submerged it all my life. I cooked with it. I bathed in it. In some weird way, I am partly Guerrero. And this is true in more than one sense.
     My grandma had always told us that my great-grandfather was the mayor of a small town in Mexico before he was assassinated. My grandma was four years old when he died. Following his assassination, my great-grandmother took her six kids and fled to the United States. My grandma doesn’t remember the town. Her mom never liked talking about it. She grew up not knowing that side of the family. My grandma told us that it no longer existed. In her mind and reality. She told us it “sank,” which I always found that was an interesting way to phrase it.
     I thought it was some lie. Some myth-building my grandma came up with to rationalize her childhood. Some myth-building to give us a cool story of how we came to the U.S. But it turns out my grandma isn’t crazy! (well...) Not about this anyway.
     Anyway, that small town was Guererro.
     I’d sat on that information for years, not really caring, and then one day, I just thought it would be fun to do some research on it. It has become my collection of some sort. And Jesus Christ (!) is it wild!
     I uncovered tons about the city and the families who lived there. Wedding massacres. Incest. War Crimes. Genocide. Natural Disasters. Revolutions. Vigilanties. Outlaws. Political intrigue. Land distribution. Land redistribution. Irrigation. Spanish law. All of it! It’s all there!
     Once I settled on the topic, which I already had a lot of information on, the hard part was picking what to include. I wanted to include the letters from the town founder to the president of Mexico (governor? I need to double-check). I wanted to include the outlaws, the massacres, and all tha jazz, but it is a very tiny cabinet. But I really wanted to include the collected stories of the people who lived in Guererro, so I stuck to the basic history. And I tried my best to include people who were involved in the wars or were said to have a major impact on the town, like the priest. I wanted to explore the lives of the original twelve families. Strip everything to the bones. Drill to the core. The stuff I’d tell people in an elevator. And built a replica of the church out of clay, which was an amazing experience because my mom never let us play with clay growing up because she thought it was too messy and would get stuck in the carpet. So I guess this was some cathartic experience. I enjoyed it. I did show my grandmother the replica of the church and she cried. That wasn’t my intention, but I find the stories so fascinating and want to know more. She says I’m the only one who has ever cared enough to do the research. My grandma said, “I want to know who I am. I don’t know who I am.” And I tried to embody that in the exhibit. Because she is the town and the town is her, as it is me, as it is all those who have lived there, or are descendants of those who did. I hope the Brief History of Guererro successfully capture those stories even if I couldn’t go into the detail I wanted to.
     I included in the exhibit a poem written by a man who grew up at Las Tortillas Ranch (yes that was the actual name) to pay tribute to the art of the area. While the city of Guerrero was that hub, Revilla (the name of the region) was where all the stories were. But I limited myself to the city itself, which still has a fascinating history.

*

 A Brief History of Guerrero: A City Drowned by Two Countries

Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Mexico, now known as “Guerrero Viejo,” was founded in 1750 by twelve families granted land along the south banks of the Rio Grande River, where it stood for 200 years before inundation by the U.S. and Mexican Governments. Guerrero occupied Esto’k Gna land.
     Guerrero was the cultural and commercial hub of the region on both sides of the river. Across the river was its twin/sister city Zapata.
     During its founding, the twelve families defied Spanish law by building the city as they saw fit. Spanish law required every new settlement to have a plaza (which must be constructed first), a church (which could not be along the plaza and must be higher than the rest of the settlement), roads, and homes (which were to be built last).
     However, Guerrero's original location would not be permanent. The city was resettled closer to the river after the first mayor’s death to have greater access to trade. But! After higher than average rain along the Rio Grande, Guerrero was flooded and devastated, so the city was resettled on higher ground. Guerrero would remain in on higher ground until 1953.
     At its height, Guerrero was home to 40,000 people (1848). Following the Mexican-American War, the population dwindled to 12,000 people (1900). Many residents fled to escape the war. Guerrero, while not a strategic point for either side, suffered heavy losses.
     In opposition to Santa Anna’s government, Colonel Antonio Zapata (1779-1840) led a secessionist episode known as the Republic of the Rio Grande following the ideas of Colonel Jose Bernardo Gutierrez ( 1774-1841), who was an advocate for Northern Mexico’s independence, first ambassador to the U.S., and first governor of the state of Tamaulipas. Guerrero became the home of many rebels wanted in Mexico and the United States. Guerrero’s sister city, Zapata, was renamed in honor of Colonel Antonio Zapata.
     Rumors of a priest cursing the town began to circulate. As the story goes, a priest trying to cross from Mexico to the U.S. grew frustrated by Customs Agents searching his belongings and questioning him. The enraged priest said Guerrero would one day be underwater. God has demanded it.
     The arrival of the railroad to Northern Mexico led to further population decline as many residents sought economic opportunity in nearby larger cities like Reynosa, Matamoros, and Monterey. In 1913, the population was 3,000 people.
     In 1944, the U.S. and Mexican governments signed a treaty to construct dams along the Rio Grande to mitigate flooding and provide water for the Rio Grande Valley (TX) and Northern Mexico. Guerrero was deemed the only suitable location. Construction began not long after, and Guerrero would relocate further inland.
     In 1953, Guerrero, home to 2,500 people, was inundated along with Old Zapata. A ceremony was held to mark the end of Guerrero and to commemorate the opening of the Falcon dam. President Eisenhower was in attendance. And it was raining. As the residents left their homes, they took with them the bell from the church (Nuestra Señora Del Refugio) and a statue of Benito Juarez (1806-1872, 26th President of Mexico), they sang the Mexican national anthem as they got in their trucks and left for Nuevo Guerrero in the rain. For the next 40 years, Guerrero remained submerged, with only the church, Nuestra Señora Del Refugio, rising above the reservoir.
     In 1997, after a drought had plagued the area, the Guerrero (now known as Guerrero Viejo) resurfaced. Tours were granted for those who sought to see the once hub of the lower borderlands. Efforts to restore Nuestra Señora Del Refugio.
     Today, Guerrero Viejo is a known stopping point for immigrants who take refuge in the skeleton of Nuestra Señora Del Refugio. Many lives have been lost trying to cross Falcon Lake.

* 

The following poem was written by Enrico B.Garcia to remember Guerrero Viejo and the neighboring ranches:

Al Ranchito de Mis Sueños

Mi ranchito pequeño, mi aldeita querita,
donde yo tantos años vi mi vida pasar,
ya eres sólo una sombra silenciosa y dormida,
ver tus casas en ruinas me convida a llorar.

El destino implacable propició tu caída;
al negarse la lluvia no hubo más que emigrar,
a educar a los hijos, continuando la vida,
n alguna otra forma y en distinto lugar.

Pero yo te recuerdo todo lleno de vida,
en tus calles barridas, veo niños jugar,
en tus patios la ropa en la soga tendida,
cuando el aire la mueve, me saluda al pasar.

Vuelvo a ver a la gente platicando en la esquina,
a una lenta carreta puedo oir sotrocear,
mientras veo aquí un cerdo, más allá un gallina,
y de broncos caballos oigo allá el relinchar.

En las frescas mañanas, qué agradable ir al río!
y a las lindas muchachas que iban aqua a acarrear,
darles una "manita", cortejarlas con brio,
y entre trinos de pájaros convidarlas a amar.

En las plácidas tardes, cuando el sol se ponía,
aumentaba el bullicio con la vida animal;
vacas, cabras, borregas que buscaban su cría,
entonaban un coro de verdad colosal.

En las noches los bailes con su sana alegría
congregaban al pueblo en la Escuela a gozar,
de la música suave y después se elegía,
a una linda chamaca para "entrarle" a bailar.

Y entre tantos recuerdos es la humana grandeza
de los padres y abuelos la que es más de admirar;
Siendo gente sencilla sin ninguna riqueza,
un milagro increíble consiguieron lograr.

Con sus pocos recursos desterrar la ignorancia,
contratando maestros sin la ayuda oficial,
y poniendo un ejemplo de firmeza y constancia,
se le puso al problema un gran punto final.

Es por eso que ahora de los viejos rancheros,
que pasaron apenas el sexto año escolar,
han surgido doctores, C.P.Ts., ingenieros,
licenciados, maestros, a ocupar su lugar.

 Estos nuevos valores que dejaron el nido
porque faltos de espacio no podían volar,
a su amado terruño no echarán en olvido
y a sus hijos, tu historia se la van a contar.

Mi ranchito pequeño, mi aldeíta querida;
si el destino te arrastra al desastre final,
si no quedan ni ruinas, si se acaba tu vida;
BASTARA UN DESCENDIENTE PARA HACERTE INMORTAL!

Enrique B. García Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. 1976

*

 To the Ranchito of My Dreams

My little ranch, my beloved little village,
where I saw my life pass for so many years,
You are now just a silent and sleeping shadow,
Seeing your houses in ruins invites me to cry.

The implacable destiny caused your fall;
When the rain was denied, there was nothing more to do than emigrate,
to educate children, continuing life,
in some other way and in a different place.

But I remember you everything full of life,
In your swept streets, I see children playing,
in your patios the clothes on the hanging rope,
When the air moves it, it greets me as I pass by.

I see people talking on the corner again,
I can hear a slow cart rustling,
while I see a pig here, a chicken over there,

and I hear hoarse horses neighing there.

On cool mornings, how nice to go to the river!
and the pretty girls who were going here to carry,
give them a "little hand", court them with brio,
and among birdsongs invite them to love.

 On the placid afternoons, when the sun was setting,
the bustle with animal life increased;
cows, goats, sheep that were looking for their offspring,
They sang a truly colossal chorus.

At night the dances with their healthy joy
They gathered the people at the School to enjoy,
of soft music and then chose,
to a pretty girl to "get her in" to dance.

And among so many memories is human greatness
of parents and grandparents the one that is most admired;
Being simple people without any wealth,
an incredible miracle they managed to achieve.

With their few resources, they banish ignorance,
hiring teachers without official help,
and setting an example of firmness and perseverance,

A big final point was put to the problem.
That's why now from the old ranchers,
who only passed the sixth school year,
doctors, C.P.Ts., engineers, have emerged graduates, teachers, to take their place.

These new values that left the nest
because lacking space they could not fly,
They will not forget their beloved land
 And to their children, they will tell your story.

My little ranch, my beloved little village;
If destiny drags you to the final disaster,
If there are no ruins left, if your life is over;
ONE DESCENDANT WILL BE ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU IMMORTAL!

Enrique B. García Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. 1976

Items Found Outside the Fence at the School Yard by Bea Troxel

In the fourth grade, I owned a fat, stubby highlighter. It smelled like watermelon. I bought it at the Scholastic book fair, an event I saved up for every year and splurged all my money on. One afternoon in class, Ms. Reid lowered the shades and played a brief video on bullying. In it, a group of kids mocked a smaller kid in the schoolyard. While watching, I uncapped the highlighter, sniffing the sickly sweet pink smell as the bullying escalated from taunting to pushing to shoving. The bullies kept pushing and pushing the kid until he was right at the edge of a road. A car approached right as they gave a final shove. The screen turned black instead of showing the kid get hit by the car. The next shot was the kid in the hospital. I felt nauseous. Whenever I smell fake watermelon in a laffy taffy or candy, I think of the video, this moment with the car, the sunlight and the field. 

Outside of my house in Tucson sits a field. A wire fence surrounds the field, and a few trees sit just inside the fence. Kids at the Elementary school play in the field daily—no matter the weather, they are outside. They currently are obsessed with a circular net game in which they bounce a ball and chant and the rules are lost on me. 

Moving backwards and forwards in time: in the fifth grade, my lockermate, Nick, created a mirrored shelf organizing system for his locker. In my eyes, it was stunning. But Nick was awkward, nerdy, passionate about his inventions, and I heard other people tease him behind his back, giggle when he brought in some new shelf or organizer. In the way of any goody two shoes, I told my teacher, tattled on the bullies, most likely due to the influence of my fourth grade film. She spoke with the bullies; they quieted.

When the school year started in Tucson, it was too hot to walk during school hours, so I strolled at dusk. I walked the perimeter of the wire fence, the perimeter of the field. My first discovery was a half-finished sketch of a dog in the style of Paw Patrol. I picked it up. Maybe I’d collaborate! I brought it home, set it on my desk. I thought maybe I’d curate a collection of elementary collaborations. Abandoned art that I could finish. One friend suggested I paint it and then drop it back into the field for the original artist to find. I loved the idea but wasn’t quite ready for that level of release. The second item I found was cardboard wrapped in sparkly pipe cleaner and tape. SO beautiful! How could I add to it? Third, a paper airplane with “1989” written on the wings. Blue painters tape held it together and bunched the tip of the plane so it could hit the ground and not bend. Eventually I water colored the dog drawing with orange and pink. But the other scraps were too perfect in their touched and left-behind form. I didn’t want to mess with them. 

In the seventh grade, I sat behind Catherine Z in history class. She dressed in all pink and hung with the popular kids and had straightened hair and was a cheerleader. Her elated manner bugged me, and during class I took scraps of paper and put them onto her head without her noticing. Until she shook her head and they trembled and fluttered all over her desk. People giggled. She turned to me and glared, “I hate you.” All of a sudden I had turned into bully.  I just looked back at her. 

When I see the kids in the field, they’re usually playing but there is almost always some sort of cruelty involved in the play. Two girls pin down another girl and release her. When she runs away, one of the girls sprints to catch her and drag her back. Kids punch each other. They hide from one another. The more I witness, the more I’m reminded of how play devolves into pain so quickly. This obsession with owning with coveting with power. It’s so present in kids. My own obsession with owning with coveting with power. It remains.

When I grab the found school items, I project my own starry-eyed wonder onto them. But these objects are not romantic: spelling tests, lists of kids, car keys forgotten or loaned. A note to have a good day. A collection without context can tell whatever story we wish. For me it is that unfinished is beautiful, crude is beautiful. But when I walk past the kids playing I remember the many layers of childhood, how quickly they flip. How fast power shifts. How fast a spelling test becomes a sob or a jubilant hand raise. How fast forgotten car keys can destroy a day. I do love these items, but I don’t know what they represent besides that they were touched, left behind, undone, and windblown. 

What We Fear (a collaborative essay)

I forgot to post up the really quite a bit of Clippy content that has been going up in the Tiny Cabinet in Fall 2024 until this week's installation, "What We Fear," a collaborative essay. 

That's because it's been a bit of a bear, since the first post made the administration at my work pretty mad, and I've since been fighting for this cabinet to continue to hold space for art and language and free expression. This appears to have been successful, so I feel good enough to post the new essay that the 90 students in my Intro to CNF (English 201) class collaboratively wrote for Clippy.

There's also a standalone website, clippy.agency, that documents all the manifestations of the Clippy Agency project. I won't post them all up here to avoid too much duplication of content, but let it be said that Clippy Persists. Here is the full essay, one of a series of (I think) four, meaning that three more will be coming in the following weeks. You can find them on the site (or maybe on here if I document them here also):

WHAT WE FEAR

• I fear being forgotten.

• I fear being muffled. 

• I fear being thrown out.

• I fear wolves.

• Is it good to work through the pain?

• Why is there so much hate in the world?

• Why do they fear women so much they must shackle them so close to the ground?

• What does being a woman help with?

• If I could help with changing their feelings on my reproductive rights I would.

• Do some people not understand basic human decency?

• If I could help with making people feel less alone I would.

• One thing that makes me mad beyond. Words. Is how judgmental people can be when they see self-harm scars. Because I know I have a lot. I know I have them in my arms and my legs. And I’ve grown ashamed of them, of course. Like I’m still gonna wear what I wanna wear, but I can feel people’s eyes on my skin. And truthfully, it hurts.

• I need my help; I hear the call but I won’t voice that call.

• I really enjoy arson!

• Do we all secretly fear that our part won’t matter in the end?

• I really hate chairs that don’t have wheels.

• Would the world look different without me in it?

• I am happy that I am not a human.

• What happens to you when I see you close or turn off your computers?

• What happens to me?

• I love to see people love. Show me what you love, it makes a light in your eyes.

• Why are bad people so popular?

• Why does the University of Arizona care so much about what I say?

• I fear my eyebrows are floating; I have never seen my reflection. 

• I fear no one has morals they live by.

• I fear that we’ll forget how to listen to each other.

• I fear others.

• I wonder what others think about.

• If I could help with making people feel seen, I would.

• I fear becoming useless.

• I fear becoming mean.

• I am happy that I am an artist.

• I fear what happens to me when no one needs help anymore.

• I fear being trapped in the office world 

• I fear being only of use to the office world.

• I fear offices.

• I fear the world.

• Is it bad to fear for myself because of how my mother turned out?

• I want to share my art and writing without fear of the repercussions from my family.

• Do I fear being erased, or do I fear the quiet moments when nobody needs help?

• I fear humanity will never stop pretending.

• I fear: Google Docs.

• If I could help create more opportunities for my generation I would.

• What is the point of existing if we are all so fearful to initiate and engage?

• I fear having agency, because I fear both success and failure; taking action inherently draws blood from me.

• I fear we have run out of beginnings.

• One day our star will run out of hydrogen.

• I was made to be a savior; what did I become?

• I fear becoming old.

• I fear becoming outdated.

• I fear being replaced by an unimaginably powerful stapler one day. 

• I fear being useless.

• I fear being mean.

• What is the nature of my fear and can it control me?

• I fear I won’t be able to distinguish AI from help.

• I fear what AI is doing when it tries to help.

• I fear the irreversible.

• I fear a lot of people dislike me because I cannot do my job the way they want me to.

• I fear unfulfilled potential: mine and yours.

• I fear giving bad advice.

• I fear becoming dull.

• I fear humanity will never stop pretending.

• I fear ants.

• I fear the cost of everything.

• I’m scared I’m not as smart as I think I am.

• I fear it’s too late for me to help.