Tag: Writing

good enough

~ cdelacuadra ~ 1 Comment

This is a painful topic to visit, but I think perhaps it is time to bring it out into the open.  For as long as I can remember, I have never felt “good enough.”  Perfectionism.  Impostor syndrome.  Depression.  Anxiety.  Overachiever.  That wound by any other name still hurts.  A lot. I’ve thought wryly that I’m even an overachiever at feeling not good enough — the mantra “I am good enough,” for example, is not at all soothing or affirming for me.  In truth, it grates on me.  I don’t want to be just good enough, I want to be the best.  At everything.  To everyone.  The favorite.  The winner.  Perfect.

Introspection and a couple really excellent therapists have made me wonder if I actually want to be those things, or if I feel like I need to be them.  It is, of course, the latter.  And yet, how do I let this need go? We could start with logic, perhaps:

  • Perfection is impossible. 
  • I cannot be the best at everything. 
  • I cannot be everyone’s favorite person.

And to try to be or do any of these is not only impossible, it is exhausting.  I have set myself up to fail (which is somehow also one of my greatest fears — failure. Being a perfectionist is hard, y’all!). Not everyone will even like me. And that’s okay. 

Unfortunately, though, logic is rarely as helpful as we want it to be when confronting one’s demons. I don’t yet have all the answers to healing this core wound, but bringing it into the light is a good first step. I am lucky enough to have wonderful, loving people in my life to reassure me when I need it, and sometimes when I don’t, which is so beautiful. Cognizance and kindness are two things buoying me as well: awareness of these woundings, and the gentleness I can offer myself when they arise. And while I walk this road to healing, the immortal words of Mary Oliver are ever a comfort. I hope they can be for you as well.

WILD GEESE
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

surface tension

~ cdelacuadra ~ 1 Comment


what is the difference between
spilling over and
spilling
open?

is the glass half full?
no, it’s full — to the very brim,
a rim that somehow holds me together and pulls me to the brink,
a ledge to cling to or leap from

somehow too much and yet still not enough
to break through
or break down

a bountiful overflowing of emotion and self
that some(one) can’t wait to sop off the table

whisk it away
blot it up
hide the mess
out of sight, out of mind

but you can still see the stain —
see how it spreads and changes?
see how the blood/wine crimson looks like flowers?

bear witness
watch me (them) bloom

— Charla M. DelaCuadra

You Could Make This Place Beautiful

~ cdelacuadra ~ 1 Comment

I had the privilege of attending a book talk and signing for Maggie Smith’s memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena recently, with the discussion led by fellow poet Jennifer Pastiloff. I was struck by an overwhelming sense of female camaraderie in the room that evening that was so beautiful, it made me ache. (In no small part it was also thanks to my dear friend Molly who accompanied me.)

Guided by Pastiloff’s excellent questions, Smith touched on several topics, starting with being “bored with genre.” “I don’t need to classify something to make it,” she stated, setting her memoir free from genre in that quietly confident way of hers. It is a memoir, yes, but also a meditation of sorts. An unspooling. And always, always poetry.

On boundaries: “I built it my way and then I needed to be able to shepherd it into the world my way as well, in a way I could make livable.” Smith was touchingly open about her struggles with being seen as her memoir debuted. It chronicles a difficult period in her life that included — but certainly was not limited to — her divorce, and the reckoning in it’s unfurling and aftermath. For a poet who is used to the distance afforded by being The Narrator, being herself in all her raw glory was a new and painfully exposed way to be seen. Thank you, Maggie, for your courage and your willingness to be vulnerable. We have this beautiful unspooling corkscrew of musings thanks to your willingness to share, be open, and give us your “tell-mine” of a book.

On being ‘good’: “Part of being good is being liked, so what happens when you do something that makes you unlikeable?” Smith and Pastiloff both posed this question, one the question of being “bad” and the other of being “good,” both asking the same thing in the end. Are we bad people when we try to find our way to something different? What does being “good” mean for us? For women it means being likeable. Pleasant. Pliant. What happens when we choose not to be?

On perspective: “How did I let myself become so small? How did I let my writing become so small?” As women, it is almost as though we need permission to make ourselves and our work — our true creative work, not just our jobs — priorities. It is sinuous and slippery, this insidious expectation that we often don’t realize is there until a sudden shift in perspective allows us to see how small in our own lives we have truly become. It is a reckoning, but also, a light if we let it be. “I was looking for permission to do something a different way,” mused Smith. What if the only one we need permission from is ourselves?

Smith’s memoir is as poetic as you’d expect, lyrical and sharply observed by turns, musing and marvelous. Pick up a copy today, pick up a metaphorical lantern, and walk with her a while. You won’t be sorry you did.

holding it together

~ cdelacuadra ~ 2 Comments

I wrote this poem a few years ago, on a day when my depression seemed to be swallowing me whole. Some days I come back to this feeling for a while, especially when an emotional lifeboat seems difficult to find.

sinking slowly
kicking back to the surface
over and over and over again
until she tires of treading,
ever-treading

gently she sinks,
lips pressed together
in a hard line
until she rests at the bottom
where no one can tell the difference
between errant tears and the waters in which she resides

crumpled and frayed,
perhaps she can learn to
unfurl
to sway
like the graceful kelp
that stretches upwards toward the sun,
but for now, she cannot even open her eyes,
or imagine that somewhere there is light
and warmth
and sunshine

the pressure becomes a comfort —
something to hold her pieces together,
something to keep her from flying apart,
to keep her from dissolving into the aether above —
because it would be so much easier to cease to be,
so much easier for sentience to become scattered stardust

–Charla M. DelaCuadra

Touching spines

~ cdelacuadra ~ Leave a comment

Last night
I read a book
that I could have written.
Lyric and melancholy,
musing, yearning, seeking —
philosophical, if you will.

Today’s book,
the pages are full of you,
have you all over them.
A novel of tight, clipped prose.
Simple. Deceptively so.
Something new for me to touch
that feels all too familiar.

Maybe somewhere these books are on a shelf,
touching in ways that we cannot seem to
no matter how much I ache.

–Charla M. DelaCuadra

seasons

~ cdelacuadra ~ Leave a comment
Pomegranate, La Jolla, August 2021


some fruits wither and fall away
so that others can flourish
and ripen
and burst open
when it is their season

do not mourn the harvest that could have been
when a bounty of sweetness
was/is/will be
exploding on your tongue
even now
in this very moment
alive with every possibility



–Charla M. DelaCuadra

I love you, Daddy

~ cdelacuadra ~ 2 Comments
Daddy and me, circa 1983-84

Yesterday my dad passed away. He was 88 years old. I sat there listening to my half-brother cry on the other end of the line as he delivered the news, stunned and numb for what felt like an eternity. Then I burst into tears.

My dad had the most fascinating, full life anyone could imagine, from growing up in Trinidad and a youthful sojourn in the merchant marines, working as a psychiatric nurse and a double decker bus driver in Scotland, and then emigrating to the U.S. even though he was barred entry here for years due to his Chinese heritage. He worked as a self-employed mechanic, raised two families, and loved his children fiercely. He was generous, loved going to the horse races (where I spent many a happy summer in the infield), was an excellent cook, and entertained us with Charlie-isms like “throosers” for trousers, “DOHg” for dog, and the very British “alumEEnium.” To this day I don’t know how much these quirks of speech were a result of 3 continents’ worth of accents, or how much they were his own little idiosyncrasies. We loved it either way. Most summers he spent a little time “up north” mining for gold with friends, he was a great bowler and miniature golfer, and he left this world on his own terms – independent, living on his own, and old enough see his oldest grandchild start high school, just like he wanted.

I wrote this poem a few years ago for him, when he was having one of his many health scares. I didn’t share it with him at the time, though. He was so very afraid of dying, and I thought the allusions to it in my poem would be troubling for him as he convalesced. I finally gave him a framed copy of it for Father’s Day this year, and I think it may have been his favorite gift I ever gave him. To say he loved it would be an understatement — he held it and read it over and over, mouthing the words and cradling the frame gently in his arthritic hands. He marveled that I had written it “all on my own,” and said I had “brought a tear to his eye,” — but I already knew. I could see the tears shining there. He told me almost shyly that he wanted to try to memorize it, even though his memory had gotten so much worse over the years. I was honored and so, so humbled. That was our last visit, and I am so grateful I was able to convey to him just how loved he was before he died.

father/time

so passes
the golden autumn
of this world
into a dark/light place
made of lengthening shadows
and warm tender moments alike.
poignant relief marks the passing
of each second and season,
pearls on a string slipping away
through fingers
roughened by time,
all the more cherished
for that which has gnarled them.
fear not,
though a shadow passes over your eyes
at the thought
of things unknown.
in the end,
you are loved.

— Charla M. DelaCuadra

I love you, Daddy, and I miss you already. I’ll always be grateful for your love. I know you were proud of me. I share your name, and you’ll always be in my heart. Thank you — for everything.

(never) yours

~ cdelacuadra ~ Leave a comment

 

She’ll fly away one day.  A speck against the sun. 

Glorious and free.

But will she miss the ache of her chest, the yearning in her breast?  
The way his stubble might have felt on her throat? 
His lips on her pulse?
  
Oh, yes.

If only.  Wrong time.  Wrong place.
Missing him.  Pretending not to.

He was never yours.


— Charla M. DelaCuadra

vigil

~ cdelacuadra ~ Leave a comment


how can we find power amidst enforced oppression?
we can grow between the cracks,
force things apart with our growing.
grow wide and tall, cracking apart
that which binds, blinds, brings us to our knees.

our expanse will stop them.

hatred cannot stand before our twisting, growing roots
sinuous and deep, love-strong, defiant, and true.

go forth and grow.
blind them.

they cannot comprehend our joy.



-Charla M. DelaCuadra