Uncovering my roots.

In a sense you could say I am the chosen one because as the dance continues the music being played requires me to be very attentive to the rhythm so I can follow the steps into the light and uncover my roots. I believe I am the one willing to heal the past and unload the weight of it. Is it my calling? Is that what I came to Austin to do? It is and this week it became clear. I have been helping my sister out at her flower shop but I haven't really been working here. Yes and no, which is something that could only make sense to me. Just like miyagi's wax on wax off proved a great fighting skill for when the time arrived so shall this. It has been made clear to me the depth of the work I came to do here and out of respect for those I love I will not disclose details. All I will say is there is mending that has to take place with two young women who were raised to compete. Unwillingly. Never wanted to. There are severe consequences to constantly being compared to someone, which caused a distance greater than the states that used to separate us. The mending has just begun and a long journey lies ahead but love will prevail. This I sensed as I drove across state lines and could feel the weight slowly start to dissapate and continued to do so as I wax on and wax off to the rhythm of the music orchestrated by God and the universe. ;-) What I never knew was that I was coming to Austin to discover where I come from. I know the facts. I was born in Brownsville, never been, as we left to Monterrey Mexico where my birth father is from shortly after and then was raised in El Paso. On my own I left to study fine arts at fifteen in Monterrey, at seventeen in Mexico City and finally spread my wings wide and headed out west far from it all when I was nineteen. I had been raised in the arts with an uncle who always ran cultural institues in different cities which allowed me to grow up around writes like Carlos Fuentes and painters like Jose Luis Cuevas. My uncle himself is a published poet. My mom was a ballet dancer at Bellas Artes in Mexico City but as the oldest of her siblings was forced to leave her passion to raise them. As life unfolded she became a florist and interior decorator following in her mother's footsteps. Her sister was a model who had traveled the world and an actor whose time acting was mostly spent in Mexico City in the same place I would study years later and make my television debut. By all acounts this would help me understand why poetry steals my heart and longs to be written, why acting felt like I had been doing it my whole life the first time I performed as Snow White in my elemetary classroom play and why I have kicked my leg to the top of my head as far as I can remember while always being drawn to move when music comes on. Any kind of music. It is in my blood would always be my response. My mother's side. By all acoounts I could never imagined it was something I longed to do, all of it, consistently whether paid or not because not only did it speak to my soul, but suprisingly because it's in father's family as well. I don't know my grandparents or aunts and uncles etc. Barely knew my father so how could I know them. Till this day I am the only one in my family who acknowledges him as my father and acknowledges his passing. I have my reasons for doing so and my family has their reasons for doing as they wish. Neither one of us right or wrong just on different journeys. A journey which led me home to Austin as I mentioned earlier to heal a very damaged, strained relationship and unbeknownst to me to discover where I came from. Here I met friends of the family and found out one of them was my father's nephew. I remember thinking my birth father? I felt an instant connection and a desire to know more from people who actually knew him. It turns out him and his wife were as drawn to me as I was to them. Last week we sat and chatted for four hours straight and clarity hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't just come home to heal one relationship. I came to heal so many. It is said in certain traditions that one family member is chosen to heal the past of the family so that love can enter and replace the weight of all that is being carried. As we spoke about that it made complete sense to me but something that made a lot of sense as well was my longing to continue to folow my heART no matter where life guides me to. To never stop dancing, literally. Or acting or producing or being out spoken about my connection to God and the universe no matter who that disspells from my life. As it turns out I come from a long line of artists on my dad's side too! They spoke of the bohemian cousin who was a lawyer by day, one of the most respected in Monterrey, but by a night an afficionado of the guitar, which led him to playing for days straight. Then came the story that shed light on why I continue to dance. Why without dance I feel like mother nature without rain or seasons or air. A man by the name of Xavier Garza Galindo.
I knew of my mother and her passion for it which led to me starting classes at three years old. I am so beyond grateful for that. However it was amazing to discover that the beat goes on because of a man who danced in NY and Chicago, LA and had his own dance academy in Monterrey for nine years where my dad's nephew's wife was his student. The beauty undfolded before my eyes and I can tell this is just the beginning and that this will not only help me, whoever in my family is open to it but most of all me and my future family. My husband and children and the fanmily we create together on God's time will indeed greatly benefit from all this healing as well and it is in tha knowledge that I came to understand the profoundness of these words, "Hold on to me as we go as we roll down this unfamiliar road. And although this wave is stringing us along. Just know you’re not alone cause I’m going to make this place your home. Settle down, it'll all be clear. Don't pay no mind to the demons. They fill you with fear. The trouble it might drag you down. If you get lost, you can always be found." HOME! I AM FOUND! I AM HOME! I AM YOU! Lets let the weight that may sometimes string us along be the waters that carry us home. ;-)