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  • Anhelos, and: I am Lactating
  • Angelina Sáenz (bio)

Anhelos

I don’t recognize my life.I don’t recognize the men,whose life I am committed to.I don’t recognize this wooden bungalow,that I’ve occupied for 8 years.I don’t recognize the work that I am wholeheartedly committed to.I don’t recognize the stack of billsthat I pay every monthor the ones that come once or twice a yearand ask me for thousands.I don’t recognize the routine.The mediocrity.The predictability.The standing-still.The same faces.The same time of yearthat keeps coming aroundand finding me in the same place.“I feel trapped,”I tell Leo.“We are. But only temporarily,”the tone of his voice matching the gentle rain outside.I want to runHard and fast.Want to look at a mapand plan my get-away.Too connected to my daily life.Too, too connected.Longing for noveltyand unfamiliarity.I’m 38and when I was 28,I was on the roadwith a backpack, a map andon foreign soil.TodayI am at homewith my feet on the groundand my obligationspecking at my feet,and I want to be flying,high in the sky. [End Page 173]

I am Lactating

You wouldn’t know,unless you knewthat I had a baby,and that I am breastfeeding that baby,that in every spherethat I walkmy breasts,are full of milk.While perusing DVDs on sale at the grocery storeduring a lesson to my kindergarten classwalking across the sand in my black bathing suitat your wedding receptionwhile chaperoning 5 year-olds during a cultural festivalas I present at a conference workshopor when speaking at a Buddhist meeting,my breasts swell with milk.It is strangehow intimate my breasts and I are now.The infinite topic of conversationbetween myself and other lacting women.I only saw a woman nurse her childtwicein my lifetime,before I nursed my own.I was embarrassed to see the flash of her nipple.Iliterallyhad no clue.It is 7 years later,I am nursing my second.I am at the store,feeling full.And I am gauging,always gauging,when it is timeto let my milk flow. [End Page 174]

Angelina Sáenz
U.S. - Chicana
Angelina Sáenz

Sáenz, Angelina is an elementary school educator who believes that we must write the stories that we want to read. Devoting her life to improving the quality of education for the children of Los Angeles, she is active in shaping educational policy, working on professional development for teachers and promoting the benefits of bilingual education in a diverse society. Writing is what has sustained her through all of her developmental transitions from childhood through motherhood. She lives in Highland Park, a sweet, diverse neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles, with her husband and two sons.

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