Tag: conversation

  • Mirror, Mirror on My Desk…

    We spend a lot of time looking outward. At expectations. At what other people are doing, saying, or thinking. We compare, we react, we adjust. Most of our day is shaped by everything happening around us. But we rarely stop and look inward. There aren’t many moments in the day where it’s just you and…

  • Mariachi Me… Same Traje, Different Mileage

    Mariachi Me… Same Traje, Different Mileage

    Being a Mariachi isn’t just about the music. It’s about what you carry before you ever play a note. The traje—sharp, tailored, unmistakable—has a way of teaching you that.  At first, it feels like a costume. Something you put on to look the part. The shine, the stitching, the silver botonadura, the way it commands…

  • Meandering Toward Sense

    I got distracted and lost my chain of thought. Which is fitting. I was thinking about paradoxes… and somehow got derailed by one. I was about to create a list about things that are paradoxical, ironically ironic, awkwardly unawkward. And then I lost the list. Somewhere between “Port of Entry” and “Why do we drive…

  • Why I Create…

    Sitting with myself this morning, coffee in hand, I asked, “Why do you create?” …and the reflection in the mug stared back, quiet, like it already knew the answer before I did. “Why do you create?” I asked again, slower this time, letting the words curl in the warmth of the coffee steam. And the…

  • Somewhere Between a Label and a Memory

    I was asked a curious question recently. It came without warning. No drumroll. No academic panel. Just a simple, almost casual inquiry that landed like a stone in still water: “Do you consider your book a piece of Chicano literature?” I smiled. I stalled. I probably said something halfway intelligent. But the truth? I didn’t…

  • Got a Minute?

    Conversations can be a source of great entertainment.And sometimes great discomfort. I’ve had the dubious distinction of experiencing both — sometimes in the same day, often back to back, and once — memorably — in the very same conversation. That part still fascinates me. How can something begin as amusement, drift into awkwardness, and somehow…

  • On Writing, Remembering, and Talking Too Long

    There’s a particular kind of conversation that only seems to happen after you’ve written a book. Not during interviews. Not in those polite, well-lit moments where someone asks, “So what’s it about?” and you give the version you’ve rehearsed in the mirror. I’m talking about the real conversations—the ones that happen over sips of coffee…