Well, it looks like our friendly borderland academic is crossing a new frontera and entering the so called real world.
I am escaping from the ivory tower into an amazing job with an office overlooking the bay and a chance to work for change and diversity and justice. I will be working with the California Conference for Justice and Equality as the Building Bridges Program Coordinator.
My exodus from academia is painful as much as it is refreshing.
I anticipate I will return someday. Perhaps not. Who knows las vueltas que da la vida.
Por ahora, I’ll be exploring my new borderland. I’ll be looking for adventures. I’ll be building a new life. Building new bridges, new connections, new relationships, new beaches, new dreams, new horizons, new landscapes. I feel simultaneously grounded and lost. I am anchored in a place where I feel a deep resonance, a familiarity, comfort, and excitement. And yet, I am crushed by the weight of uncertainty, the heavy preguntas, who will I meet? where will I hang out? who will my peeps be? where will I make connections?
All the same, I am escaping the snow, the ice, the cold, the white, the loneliness of walking these caminos where I don’t find myself, where my feet don’t find purchase.
When I was debating the decision to accept the job my one friend in CA spoke to me about my walk. He said he’d seen how I walk in his homeland, he’s seen how my steps grow lighter, he’s seen how my head is held high, how my body seems so fluid and comfortable. Mis pasos reconocen los caminos. Mi corazon reconoce the beat. And so, I am jumping, again. Soaring into the unknown with myself.
It is going to be an amazing adventure. Who know what I’ll find out there? Comunidad? Raices? Suenos I had forgotten I had? Exito? Futuro.
I am crossing over yet again, cyclical migration weaving in and out of my own fronteras.
Bochinche Bilingüe: Borderlands Writing 
MMR Said:
on December 14, 2007 at 12:40 am
Good luck. I wish you nothing but the best.
scott Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 1:20 am
omg, processing.
thealeticia Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 1:23 am
Scott, I think it’s time we talked about our relationship.
scott Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 1:44 am
First, let’s set some ground rules for our conversation about boundaries…
thealeticia Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 1:48 am
Okay. rule number one: no txt messages of your ass. That does not constitute a fair illustration of what I mean to you.
scott Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 1:54 am
rule number two (huh huh, i said “number two”): when making ground rules about boundary-setting that relate to the corporeal (my ass), said rules must be limited to the ephemeral (txt messages).
rule number three (you can tag this one “performance”): the last rule – or by extension, this rule – should be the last ground rule for the ground rules for the boundaries of our relationship. we don’t want to experience burn out.
thealeticia Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 1:59 am
I don’t agree to those ground rules.
I feel that the number three is too reductionistic and our relationship is too complex to be encompassed by a mere trinity.
Furthermore I find you to be way too phallogocentric and your limiting ground rules to be way too judeochristian in focus.
And, finally, I feel the need to process our miscommunication regarding ground rules. Where is the talking stick?
scott Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 2:08 am
I want to come clean. When I read that you want to use the talking stick, I want to say “bitch, I’m about to hit you with the talking stick. On the face.” I am just trying to keep myself honest here, I don’t want to sound threatening, and I would like to affirm that I would never allow violent impulses to materialize in our conversation. Not only because our conversation is limited to the internet, but because I respect your body, and I will always limit any bodily contact to that for which we have thoroughly laid the groundwork.
As for the reductionistic nature of my proposed third rule, I only meant to benefit our process of ground rule setting by refocusing our dialogue to that which started the conversation. I do not want our complexities to get lost in some sort of endless discursive trap.
But perhaps you are right. Maybe we should take a short break, collect ourselves and then regroup to discuss the possibility of a collective challenge to my phallogocentrism. I would never want to limit our conversation to a thoroughly western heteropatriarchal, judeochristian, decontextualized, ahistorical presumptive account of my own making.
Please understand this note as an olive branch, Thea. I never (especially in the immediate e-past) meant to hurt you.
thealeticia Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 2:10 am
I love you man.
That moved me. BRB
thealeticia Said:
on December 17, 2007 at 2:10 am
PS have my babies