'Like two tongues at one time.'

'Can you tell us the place where
The Elders chew the sky soft
The place where love is like
A perfect knee-quilled arrow
Flown from bows of pure willow
And under the thundering roll of ghost buffalo
Oh, can’t you hear the world’s heart breaking'

Two tongues at one time - Mariee Sioux

What is this nostalgic quest for home? This roaring loneliness rupturing like overflowing ventricles? This undying stretch for something intangible? For twenty years I've pulled my neck muscles reaching for Mexico. Esa tierra tan lejana y adorada that I never get to see or feel or breath. Why am I so distraught for aluminum bars over big windows and burgundy bricks covering streets? Why do my eyes water at the idea of crystallized stars hanging in purple skies or unnaturally blinding sunlight beaming in through white bedroom curtains? Why do I feel so irrevocably angry at my displacement? And is this home I so longingly search for a notion that can be quenched by living in Mexico?

Me pregunto, porque estoy tan nostalgica? And at the base of things it's the answer I gave my grandmother when she asked me why I wanted to live in Mexico, 'Because I want feel closer to my roots.' and she gave me that look that typical Mexicanos give 'and what are your roots?' the same patronizing tone like I don't know what I'm talking about. 'My roots are my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents, my ancestors. I need to live in a place where I feel connected and that isn't here. I need to live in a place where I can actually look up and see flickering lights, where there are more than two trees outside.' How many times and how many years have I spent thinking and writing till my temples pulsed and fingers bled. What is home, what is home, what is home? I'm beginning to realize that home es mas que Mejico. It's an established center of soul and self. A soul and self woven into the fibers of mis antepasados that knew that home was Earth, and sky, and love, and hope. Home is the scent of roses that smell like strawberries. the feeling of fullness when you've laughed so hard your stomach throbs and your eyeballs sting. Home is holding something in your palm that came from the grandfathers you never had the chance to know. Home are the mountains your mother talks about and the white snow that fell like powder on gigantic impenetrable rocks. Home are the pet rabbits and roosters and goats that float around in the genetic history of your family.

If this is home then why do I feel so smothered. so contained. so close to exploding I'm afraid the sunlight will set me off? And I've realized that I've always been inextricably connected to my Native ancestors and that this desperation for home, is the mounting pressure of having lived my entire life in tiny apartments and small lots of grass. Of always feeling rusted gates and scathing cement, of having had speeding cars and booming stereos for lullabies instead of chirping and rushing water. For as long as I can remember even before I was aware of it, I've been trying to connect myself to those noble walkers of Earth. Those that examined the skyline and mapped the years with expert precision. I've been trying to swallow their ways into the pit of soul and self. Eating their legends and savoring their language. I'm decaying in this land of glass and metal, waiting for soil between my toes and wind that catches the whispers of leaves on its breath. Saving myself with snapshots of petals draped in raindrops and drowning myself in books of Aztec poets and Maya creation stories, of myths that invaded the plains long before skyscrapers did.
Discovering that home is 'the place where Elders chew the sky soft.'