糖心

As prepared for delivery at the 2025 Commencement of Franklin & Marshall College

A story. I was invited on a trip to Mexico with my parents to see the Mayan ruins.

At 21, I was too old to be traveling with my parents, I thought. But because my six brothers weren鈥檛 coming, I said yes.

We flew first to M茅rida where we rented a Volkswagen Bug the color of the sky and set out through jungles so solitary only the occasional tarantula skittered across the road. At a coastal hamlet called Akumal, we stopped to rest. My parents ran off for bottled water and left me alone.

I鈥檓 deeply afraid of the ocean, but Akumal鈥檚 lagoon was shallow and calm. I lay down on the lip where land met water, the waves barely lapping my ears, the sea gently snoring.

Then, as if the gears in a car shifted, I was no longer . . . me. I had turned into everything鈥攖ree, water, sand, sky, cloud. And everything was me. I was a thread woven into an infinite cloth. I had no fear, not even of death. I was suspended in joyous awareness. Until my father shouted, 鈥淪andra, ya v谩monos.鈥� Then I whooshed back inside my body.

In the car, I said nothing about what had just happened. I couldn鈥檛 explain to my parents what I hardly understood myself. I would keep it a secret but promised myself to go back someday to investigate.

As a girl, I had always been sensitive to things of the spirit. In the sixth grade, I translated these experiences into poems I showed no one. That same year, I had an epiphany during a visit to the public library. I visualized a book with my name on the spine.

My mother gave me some good advice. 鈥淓arn your own money.鈥� I started working at 15 to pay my high school tuition and by the time I graduated in 1972, there were grants and loans available for underprivileged students like me who wanted to go to college thanks to the Civil Rights Movement and marches for the poor.

When I visited the Pettus Bridge in Selma recently to leave flowers, I felt a sweet energy descend, a blanket of tranquility and love. If I had been raised in Mexico, I would have answers for these encounters of the spirit. On the other hand, being raised in Chicago allowed me to get an education and have access to libraries and world-class museums. It also gave me an opportunity to imagine 鈥渁nother way of being鈥� a girl.

I鈥檓 convinced we are all on a sacred camino. Providence only illuminates the path one step at a time. After graduating with a MFA, I still had no self-confidence, and I took the first job offer I knew I could do; teaching high school students who had dropped out and were returning to finish their GED.

What seemed a detour, turned out to be my destino. My students taught me more than I taught them. Their life stories lodged in my heart. Little by little, the memoir I was writing transmogrified into a novel, 鈥淭he House on Mango Street,鈥� with my students appearing in a neighborhood I had been ashamed of. Writing took away the shame and became a way to transform my demons before they transformed me. 鈥淗ouse鈥� taught me that work done with puro amor y amor puro on behalf of those I love is the most powerful work I can do.

With time, I also learned the lesson from the clouds. Wait, everything changes.

Too many people quit before their dream comes true. A new small business takes 10 years to take off. If you鈥檙e an artist, it may take 20 years if you鈥檙e lucky, or a lifetime, or you might not see success if you鈥檙e expecting it as money or fame. But, if you work for joy and illumination, you will have lived a wonderful life.

There are no mistakes, no wrong choices. Every exploding cigar landed me where I am today. My successes impress others. My failures, on the other hand, impress me, reminding me what I鈥檝e had to overcome.

My father鈥檚 big dream was that I would marry and give him grandkids. I wasn鈥檛 opposed to his plan. But I had other priorities. My six brothers could bring home grandkids. I eventually decided I was going to mother books. Later in life I would mother hundreds of writers, and whenever one of them births a book, I鈥檓 as proud as any grandmother. I have been lucky to live during an era when I could make this choice. If you are not allowed to control your own body, how are you going to control your life?

When I first taught at a university at age 33, I slid into a near suicide because I thought I had to be the expert on everything. I would not have survived if I hadn鈥檛 seen a therapist. And, later, an intuitive. Why didn鈥檛 anyone tell me there is no shame in seeking help to heal the heart? Why didn鈥檛 anyone tell me everyone goes through a dark night of the soul?

A wise sufi said, God breaks the heart again and again until it stays open. When my father died, I graduated in spiritual awareness. My mother鈥檚 death was even more dramatic, because I witnessed her spirit leave her body. Heartbreak leaves us in a state of sacred sensitivity. We are living in a time in history of the open heart. This is our moment to feel things deeply, contemplate, strategize, step up.

Who will tell the story of our age? I believe we are obligated to tell the stories we witness. Especially when our history is being erased, omitted, denied, interpolated. We must do it for the people we love. If we don鈥檛 write it down, it never happened.

The wise man Babajhi Singh asked, 鈥淲hat is the opposite of love?鈥� It is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. Beware when fear is being sown to throw you off your game.

Each one of us sees the universe in a unique way. That鈥檚 why it is not only wise but absolutely necessary to gather with people from across generations and geographies, genders and professions, across every border, from a multitude of differences and share what we know. This is necessary to widen our vision.

Thank the universe when you are alone, this is time granted for you to discover yourself. But to survive your sacred path, you will need to find your community, your chosen family. They will sustain you.

Forty-three years after my first visit, I finally returned to Akumal fully expecting another mystical reawakening. Instead, I found the Akumal of 2019 congested with civilization; cheesy condos, raucous restaurants, tacky tourists. Nothing magical happened during my stay except for the appearance of the full moon. I left dismayed.

Until I got home. A dream told me this: The door is not in Akumal, the door is inside you.

I believe we each have a channel to a higher state of consciousness. If you flood it with fear, or anger, or vengeance, or any petty emotion, it will be as clogged as if you鈥檇 poured tar through your plumbing. If you want to roto-rooter your route to your highest self, do work on behalf of others. Ask your ancestors for courage, and, in return, promise to do work that honors them. To do away with your small self, work from your highest self. Work from puro amor y amor puro 鈥� pure love and only love 鈥� on behalf of those you love. The door is inside you.