amelia pontes

this little one came over for brunch.

2013-05-19T12:04:00.003-04:00

...you'll come to appreciate the woman who always answers

2013-05-12T11:53:00.001-04:00

mothers have the daunting task of protecting their young in a hurtful world, and yet they do it without anyone ever seeing their tears.

Mothers

2013-05-12T11:16:00.002-04:00

At the foot of her bed, I sat with my curls released from a tight bun spilling onto her knees. She stroked my hair and asked if I had a good time at the party with my father's side of the family. It had been one of those rare times when I made an exception to see them (one of the six times had been Kevin's wedding two years ago). It was my cousin's one year birthday party, and I had been told that it would be mostly children.

I hoped for pizza and prayed for kindness. I told my mother about the yummy cake, about the hugs and kisses I gave to my little cousins, and about all of the people who had been there. Only one of them had been a stranger, a younger woman with light eyes and a baby bump. Not wanting to make a scene and wanting to present myself well, I told her my name and gave her a standard Cape Verdean greeting with a kiss on her cheek. I attributed her shyness to her inability to speak English. My cousin told me, "she knows your father very well." I exchanged polite conversation with her and exited the tiny kitchen and its cheap linoleum floors to sit with the other children.

I told my mother about the thin woman with straggly hair and she asked without a trace of anger in her voice, "what was her name?" I told her. My mother brushed my hair out of my face and said, "Melinda, do you know who that was?" My mother then began to wipe the tears aware from my face and all of the pieces had come together.

She knew my father very well. My cousin had said it to light a bulb in my thirteen year old brain, but the joy of being reunited with the family allowed me to dodge that bite of venom.

I cried and cursed. My mother asked me what I wanted to do. I wanted to yell at my father. She handed me the phone without counsel, nor objection.

The phone rang and rang. For twenty minutes I pressed the redial button, until the anger tuckered me out and I fell asleep on my mother's hips. My father returned my thirty eight phone calls in the morning with defensiveness and "I told them not to go to the party." I refused to speak to him (the start date of five years of muteness in the presence of my father) and so my mother took on my wrath and let him have it.

Beyond the mistress and the unborn baby in the belly, my mother was infuriated that my father took so long to call back. I remember her saying this over and over again: "When your daughter calls you, you answer the phone. NO MATTER WHAT, YOU ANSWER THE PHONE."

My mother is not a superhero, nor can she turn water into wine. She isn't a miracle worker (unless you're talking about her cooking). She is a woman with bones that ache and skin that wrinkles. Yet she has always found a way to be my voice, my tears, and the courage when they had escaped me. She has always told me the truth, even when it would hurt.

Every little girl needs just one woman who will answer and listen when the world has suffocated and squeezed the love out of our tiny hearts. And for those who have been blessed enough to have that woman be their mother, well, lucky us.

...you'll slow down.

2013-05-09T10:38:00.005-04:00

medium boiled egg on white toast with arugula tossed in avocado oil

Maybe it's because you left the pep in your step on the nightstand or that you can't recover from that ~~third~~ glass of red wine like you used to, but you'll be slower in the morning. You'll bury your face in the pillow a few times and then sprint to the shower. Even one more snooze button in the warm folds of your sheets will send you back into another cycle of sleep. You'll turn the knob all the way up, your toes will be cold against the clean white tiles and you'll jump in, burning off a layer of skin on your chest and the bottom of your feet. It'll feel good. You'll feel alive. Or better yet, awake.

You'll wash all over, just the way your mother taught you so many years ago. Ten minutes later, you'll stare in the mirror with black smudges beneath your eyelids. That expensive mascara just won't come off, no matter how hard you scrub. You'll turn on Morning Joe in the background and deeper in the background Rihanna will be playing. You'll moisturize, throw on a pair of jeans and t-shirt you won't leave the house with, and put two eggs to boil on the stove. You'll do this strange thing called ironing to smooth out the creases that will be back in your clothes once you sit down at your desk.

The eggs will be hard to peel, but you'll be smashing them. You'll sit at the kitchen table. You will eat. It will be silent. You won't miss anyone. You won't need anything. You won't check your emails, facebook, twitter, instagram, tumblr, etc. There will be no guilt. There will be no rush. There will be no shoulda, coulda, woulda's.

You maybe slower than you were before, but you will be as you are; as you were meant to be: slow.

...you'll love your feet.

2013-05-06T21:03:00.002-04:00

I used to hide them beneath socks and Adidas Shelltoes even on the hottest of days in the New England summer where the humidity made sweat drip down the middle of your back. Size 10's and too wide to fit into strappy sandals, I deemed my feet too ugly for public consumption.

With a big toe and little piglets standing by its side; they were too fat, too white, and too scary. They finally came out to play around the same time that I stopped wearing a thick t-shirt underneath my basketball jersey. If my fat arms could be seen in public, so could my toes.

In high school, they televised our basketball games on local access television. During my freshman year, I avoided watching myself. In the sea of lanky white bodies, my yellow skin, dark bushy hair with matching eyebrows and shorts riding up my crotch felt like I was watching National Geographic and I was a one woman stampede. Even if I felt good about my body in real life and in real time, there was something that made me very uncomfortable to see it on a tv screen.

There has always been this sense of acceptance that let me know that my body was good enough to be used in a public space. I didn't mind running down the street or riding my bike around the block. Yet, there was always something unnerving about my body being on display as a sign of beauty or attraction.

When I chose to become a blogger, it was for the sole purpose of sharing my story (read: long ramblings about important moments in my past). However, in an image conscious society, in that, we love pictures of people doing even the simplest of things (i.e. the phenomena of instagram), folks weren't interested in only words. Writing wasn't enough. If I was writing about eating oatmeal and blueberries, I had to attach a picture of myself eating the goop. And then the comments were usually about what I looked like (I love your hair! So cute!).

Through my body's work (awkward picture poses AND shooting bricks), I have found that there is a place for my physical self as more than just a vehicle towards something. My body, in itself, has the unearned right to exist.

In my second year of high school and varsity basketball, I stopped caring so much about what I looked like when playing basketball and redirected my energy in comfort. Wearing sandals did not come from the yearning to be pretty or fashionable, but realizing that no one cared what your toes looked like after two hours of running. Your toes were supposed to be ugly. At that time, I thought I had earned the right to spread out my stinky toes in a pair of Nike flip-flops.

More than ten years later, I'm sitting on my couch with my feet pressed against my thighs, still too fat, too white, and too wide, and think about how much I have come to love them. I love the way they hurt after a long day of walking. I love the way they callus. I love that they look like Fred Flintsone feet.

My feet exist. They still aren't beautiful to me, but their purpose is functionality. Yet, I still can't believe that I have to come a place where I can take a picture of my toes and post them in a public forum. My feet have the right to just be and that is something that I love and cherish more than anything.

Q.U.E.E.N.

2013-05-02T19:38:00.002-04:00

The song isn't blowing me away yet, but the visuals and Miss Erykah Badu is totally worth the tripped out feeling you'll get from the lyrics.

The May (Be) To Do List

2013-05-01T11:30:00.000-04:00

1. Make your own lunch May--maybe it's those darn lunch tickets I got in elementary school that trained me to not plan out what I was going to eat. As an adult with a grown-up job, I still leave the house in the morning, belly full with breakfast, without a thought in my mind about lunch. Secretly, I'm still hoping that my boss will hand me a lunch ticket. I usually end up at Chipotle or gazing into the contents of the hot bar at Whole Foods.

This month I'm trying to build up a new habit. I am taking responsibility for my lunch break, packing my own lunch, and staying away from the quick fix of take-out.

2. Eat real deep dish pizza in Chicago. Some people have said I will probably hate it, but I just can't imagine not enjoying something with so much cheese and sauce.

3. Keep the indoor plants alive. I am not one to garden or get dirt underneath my fingernails, but the addition of plants in my living room makes me feel like less of a degenerate. A

4. Read Melissa V. Harry-Perris' book. I'm in love with this woman, her courage, and her intelligence.

5. Get another tattoo. Not sure what I want yet, but something is brewing.

6. Lunch in the Commons. It can't be on a weekend though, it has to be on a day when I play hooky and take some time for myself.

7. Paint over that yellow wall in my bedroom. Yellow walls really can drive a woman into hysteria. It's driving me mad. I even repositioned my bed because I couldn't stand to wake up in the morning looking at it.

8. Make This. Poached eggs in tomato sauce has to be a win.

Smitten with Breakfast

2013-05-01T11:08:00.000-04:00

Stolen and adapted from Smitten Kitchen.

Today

2013-04-30T20:11:00.003-04:00

Gobbled up a bacon, egg, and brie crepe for breakfast.

Snatched up froyo for lunch.

Sipped on red wine for dinner.

Ended my evening on the floor writing.

...you'll get creative about how to cover up dirty hair.

2013-04-29T19:39:00.000-04:00

Happy Monday.

...you'll stop thinking about how your body looks.

2013-04-26T07:42:00.001-04:00

And you'll be more concerned about whether your body works. From the early morning aches when you get out of bed to the fear that maybe your eggs won't ever be fertilized, the non-existent gap in between your thighs just doesn't seem to make it on the things to worry about list. And you'll wonder why everyone else isn't doing the same.

Earlier this week, I saw the tweets about the new Dove Real Beauty videos and decided to skip out on the conversation. I can't believe we're still putting so much of our collective energy into convincing women that they are beautiful, as if it matters. One of my team members thought it'd be a good idea to show our students the latest video. They're trying to send a positive message: "you're not as ugly as you think." But I want to know, does it matter?

You'd imagine that middle schoolers think about their looks all day, and maybe some of them do, but from what I have seen they only care about what they think adults care about. Maybe little girls are so obsessed with being beautiful because we say things like, "YOU NEED TO KNOW YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!"

And when they don't feel it (still not sure of what It is), they go searching down the endless rabbit hole for beauty products, push-up bras, and unsolicited (but still loved) negative attention from boys. We, adults, have allowed (physical) beauty to hang around on our list of societal values. We allow it to be relative. For the young people who want to do nothing but grow up a little bit faster, they focus all of their attention on it because it seems so important. I wonder what would happen if we stopped talking about it? If we erased it from our daily conversations (i.e. She has the perfect nose! She is just so stunning! Her body is to die for!), what would happen? What could happen?

What if being beautiful didn't matter? What if we spent our time talking to our girls about the good and cool things they do, by the company they choose to keep, and the positive impact they have on their tiny world?

I'd rather tell (my) girls that they're kind and smart. Or that I love how they take the time to get the math problem right even when it's hard. Or that I like the way they wrote their name in chalk on the sidewalk in bubble letters. Or listen to them talk about the social studies teacher that they just can't stand and then encourage them to still get their homework done. I'd rather talk to (my) girls about how brave they were when they had the courage to tell an adult that their BFF was self-harming. I'd rather show them that girls can feel, think, and do so much more than to feel, think about, or do something about their doggone beauty.

And yet, before they leave everyday, I like to give them a hug and call them Angel Face. There is nothing more heaven sent than a little girl with the big dreams, the kindness, and the power to make the world better. This is what I want them to know, feel, and do something about.

too blue

2013-04-21T18:51:00.001-04:00

...you'll want to hang out with a six month old.

2013-04-20T17:59:00.000-04:00

and now she's asleep. snoring like her daddy.

it's over

2013-04-19T22:24:00.000-04:00

2013-04-19T15:39:00.002-04:00

the day the city went into lockdown.

hold the ketchup.

2013-04-17T19:25:00.001-04:00

washington dc: day three

2013-04-17T18:00:00.002-04:00

washington dc: day two

2013-04-15T10:05:00.001-04:00

Cherry Blossoms and Jefferson

dear tessa:six months ago

2013-04-14T10:11:00.004-04:00

Dear Tessa,

Thank you for reminding me about everything that is right with the world. Thank you for teaching me that growth and progress happens slowly over time and step by step. Thank you for listening to me sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" over and over again because I can't figure out any other way to make you happy. Thank you for recognizing my face, even though we only see each other once a week. Thank you for the joy you have brought back into our family. Thank you for six months of anticipation, of love, and of healing that happens only through (re)birth, leading to the reconciliation and the forgiveness of nature's trespasses against us. You have given us a new hope in life, more than just a reminder, but a purpose.

And most of all, thank you for being so darn cute and letting me nibble on your cheeks.

Love always,
Tia.

washington dc: day one

2013-04-14T09:46:00.002-04:00

shhh. this is a library.

2013-04-08T14:46:00.004-04:00

what i'm reading...

2013-04-07T19:22:00.000-04:00

Plato's Symposium.

Just searching for more definitions of love.

2013-04-07T19:14:00.001-04:00

eggs on the sunny side of the room

2013-04-06T08:28:00.002-04:00

protein pack: hardboiled eggs, bacon, and avocado

2013-04-03T19:27:00.003-04:00

in your late 20's...

You'll look nothing like the characters on Melrose Place. You won't wear belly shirts to work or live in a hip condominium with scandalous neighbors who have fancy drug addictions or split personalities . You'll be just another girl with a job and a whole lot of big dreams and a bigger size pants than you had expected. You will have no idea how to hold it all together, drink lots of coffee that is beginning to stain your bottom row of teeth, and have a small tattoo on your ankle that turns you bright pink whenever you see it. You'll think about happiness and it'll make you sad to think that it only comes in waves and isn't a constant. You'll crave quiet nights on your couch more than getting crunk in the club. You'll eat brussel sprouts for dinner and enjoy it because actually you were craving them. Your late 20's will be nothing you had expected, but you'll just stick them out.

In fact, you'll try to do more than that. Unlike your younger days when you'd roll up into a ball and hibernate for days alone in a room, you'll still wake up and fulfill your responsibilities. You'll still fight for a better day and for your dreams. Constructive criticism will only hurt for a day or so. You'll try to stop being so intense/passionate/insane/intimidating* and know that changing yourself doesn't mean that you were a bad person before. You'll honor the good. And you'll brush off the bad.

*Remind me to write about this later.