after our supposed reading of beloved, came sandra cisneros’s the house on mango street. i have much less beef with this book, because it’s a much lighter read. whereas beloved is the lengthy story about a slave on the run who is now being haunted by the angry spirit of the 2-year old daughter whom she murdered, mango street is a short collection of vignettes by a tormented teenager with mexican heritage. while the narrator can sometimes be a bit whiny, i find myself relating to her situation in life. while my homelife is not as tragic as esperanza’s, i feel that sometimes i am a bit too harsh on my parents. i know that sometimes they cannot give me all that i wish i could have, but if they had the means, i know they would. it’s not like they’re holding out on us, their kids. but neither do my parents, unlike esperanza’s, have their heads in the clouds. pera’s mother spends her days at home wistfully sighing about the life she could have lead had she done one thing or another and how as soon as they win the lottery, they’ll finally start living the life they deserve. i do understand what that feels like, but never have my parents shown that dreamy, airheaded attitude.

before we started discussing the actual book, the professor told us about the author, sandra cisneros. she wrote the book when was supposedly twenty-four while in a poetry seminar for her master’s degree. we watched some videos about the author and her inspiration for mango street. in one particular video, she spoke about writer’s block. she said that writer’s block is not having a lack of something to say, but being afraid to say something that really means something to you.

“Writer’s block doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to say. Writer’s block means you are afraid to say what you really have to say.” -Sandra Cisneros

i am aware that too much time has passed since my last entry in this blog. in fact, the last thing i wrote about honesty, i wasn’t even happy with. it’s true. yes, it’s an important thing to me, but i couldn’t even be honest with myself to write something good. for the past week or two that i haven’t written anything, it’s not that i’ve had “writer’s block,” it’s just that i’ve lacked inspiration. my life, right now, is at such a stagnant point, there is truly nothing that inspires me to write. i am stuck in a routine that i won’t be able to get out of for another year or so. what does inspire me to write are completely vapid thoughts that i should have outgrown when i was wearing my plaid skirt and knee-high white socks in the eighth grade. things that are going on in my life are my classes, my job, my family, my friends, the shows i watch, and the men that i find myself “in love” with. i’m not saying that any of these things are unimportant. they totally are. without one of them, all that would be left would be fragments of a life that used to resemble mine (except maybe for the tv).

take today, for example. fearlesslydelicate has been in the back of my mind for the past week or so. i peel my eyes open for anything i can write about, but nothing seems worthy. the monotony of my life has left me with nothing interesting. today, however, i went to an art gallery with a friend, and it was nice, but things didn’t start to heat up -literally- until someone for whom i have very strong feelings walked up the stairwell and i turned into a mess. i say that things literally heated up, because at the moment, i became totally flushed, my body temperature must have risen about fifteen degrees, and i could feel a light sheen of moisture accruing all over my skin. all this over the mere presence of someone. that’s right. i didn’t even talk to this guy. i think i may have made the slightest bit of eye contact with him but it was totally dismissible if existent at all. i went home almost immediately after this scene that went unnoticed by everyone except the friend i was with. once i was home, all i could think of was writing a story in which a girl like me finally had the guts to say what she really wanted to a guy like him, but i couldn’t. and i guess that’s where sandra’s quote comes in.

i’m so scared of some unknown thing, that i can’t even find comfort in writing. one thing in this world that i should have absolute control over.