To Learn is to Question- Which answer is right?
by Arantxa Villa
To Learn is to Question- Which answer is right?
by second year Ostara Maharaj
At six-years-old, I learn through watching the world. At six-years old, when playing rough makes me a force but makes my boy cousins normal, I learn that when I grow up I will be different than a man.
In my grandparents' house, the steps of aunts and cousins and mothers echo off the laminate tiles. Some older, but not wiser; others, younger but burdened with the experience of a woman of twice their age. Who will I be in all this?
I feel an urgency to learn what it is to grow into womanhood within these walls.
Is it my grandmother’s hands, calloused, yet delicate, shaping the corners of pastry to enclose the toasty feeling of a first bite?
My eyes move upwards.
Is it the wisdom of gray hair, or the masquerade of it being dyed a deep brown?
In the living room, the most recent of a 17-season soap-opera flickers red and white across the sofa.
Is it ornate jewelry and big lips and seams that hug in all the right places?
Back to the kitchen.
Is it aunts and cousins and mothers rushing to make the pots and pans and plates sparkle after bellies are full?
Back to the living room, the soccer’s on now.
Is it being okay with the men sitting, turning up the volume to drown out the sounds of clanging dishes?
On the wall, the clock chimes three times; it’s eight-o-clock.
Each hour is embellished with photos of the sons and daughters of my grandmother’s children. At eight-o-clock, it’s my picture. I wonder if she thinks of me every day at eight-o-clock when I’m not there.
Is it unwavering, unrelenting, and unconditional love across a bloodline?
At 20 years old, I learn that femininity is simultaneously all and neither of these things.
It is smelling the flowers and basking in the sun
It is being pushed and pulled by the deep, surging waters of a
thought, only to find yourself washed onto shore again
It is the chaos of makeup and mirrors and music and seams
unhemmed
It is the space between TMI and “tell us everything!”
To be a woman, in your skin, is anything you want and more.