Words cannot summarize the depth of my regard for my grandmother. She epitomized a matriarch. Nearly all my interests and musical knowledge rest on her foundation. Tata lived a life. As an unruly teenager, she snuck off to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. She and her siblings loved anything in Berry Gordy’s catalog. She witnessed salsa’s rise in the city and lived in the Bronx during hip-hop’s birth. Her radio played continuously.
Tata had a flexible ear and welcomed any genre her grandchildren introduced. She was always first on the dance floor and an amazing storyteller. If I had inherited her extroversion, it might have been entirely too much. Lol. The world could seldom contain her, but I admired that she held no punches. Being her sidekick was fun. She shaped my moral compass by honestly sharing her unpleasant chapters in hopes I would choose differently. Tata was trustworthy.
As an elder, she became an activist in her community, supporting Virginia Beach families seeking documentation and the means to live with dignity stateside. She habitually extended herself to her 50-11 grandchildren’s friends and learned our individual tastes. Her example made me attentive and open-handed. Tata was fair. What she could not do for one grandchild, she would not do for the other. She expected us to share amongst one another, think beyond ourselves, and consider how our actions impacted the world around us.
I could not imagine becoming a grandmother by thirty-three, but she handled her role with grace. I have more good memories with Tata than difficult ones. The sheer will of her was fascinating. She existed to keep a joke in her back pocket and never looked like what she navigated medically.
I would choose my grandmother in every life. She was a force. We were blessed to have her for as long as we did. Loving Tata was the privilege of a lifetime.
(P.S. This Mother’s Day, I have compiled some of her and her babies’ favorites in my bio.)
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Miscellaneous #PhotoDump
#NYFW
#Showcases
#CreativelyDriven
Someone telling the truth about what you did is not them bashing you. Learn to take accountability for your actions, and maybe God will permit you to make peace with more than mediocrity.
#CreativelyDriven
Thank you to the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) and the International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival for hosting my tití and I. The new East Harlem installation is beautiful, and your insight into the future of Puerto Rican representation in film and television was timely. (I met Sonia Manzano is a sentence I never thought I’d type.) Yet another event to affirm that I hope to be a Bronx-born Bori in every lifetime. Lol
#CreativelyDriven
I moved back to Kingsbridge in 2012 with the dream to somehow find a way to tell cultural stories in the city. Every so often, God places me in a room that affirms he heard me praying.
#CreativelyDriven
