March 2022 Peace and Love by Juliana Aragon Fatula

2022 Cornmother Celebration Denver History Center Oct. 6th save the date.

2021 Peace Rose from mi Chicana Garden Southern Colorado

Dear Reader,

It's officially springtime in the Rockies and it came in like a lion. The wind hurled the little old ladies into the trash dumpsters head first with their feet dangling out of the top: the eighty-year-old woman who weighs 90 lbs was picked up and tossed about like a lamb chop. Remember the stuffed animal that looked like a lamb and the woman who had her for a puppet called her lambchop? I do. That's how old I am. I remember a different time and world when I wasn't afraid. Today I'm terribly frightened of where we as a human race are running towards. The outlook for us remains suspicious. So I write my murder mystery romance and poetry and pray for world peace. 

My heart was recently broken. I mourn the loss of loved ones who lived fast and died young. I miss my parents and siblings and my friends from the neighborhood. I've managed to hang on to a couple of friends for 50 years. We rarely see one another but when we do it's magical. They get me and my idiosyncrasies. They know I'm crazy and don't give a hoot. They love me for who I am and who I am is The Crazy Chicana in Catholic City. 

I wrote the first book of poetry when I was in college and continued after I graduated with my second collection of poetry, Red Canyon Falling on Churches. You'd think that I'm religious based on the titles of my works; however, you'd be wrong. I'm deeply spiritual and more of a hippy-dippy Mother Earth and nature lover than a Christian. But many of my friends are both Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Rastafarian, LGBTQ. You get the picture, right. I'm a liberal feminist, a chingona, and a Corn Mother. I represent my people by recording my ancestors' history and telling my story to all who will listen to me speak. 

I'm a performance artist, a poet, an educator, a Shakespearean actor, a comedienne, a master gardener, a curendera, a wife, a mother, and a pet mama. I'm all that and more. What I am not: a chauvinist, a homophobe, a conservative, a hypocrite, a liar. I'm me. Some don't care for me or my philosophy on life. And some people meet me, fall in love, become lifetime friends or fans, and save me in big and little ways every day. My friends today and for the last 32 years have been social workers, doctors, lawyers, writers, journalists, hard-working honest Americans who believe in civil rights and diversity in our communities. 

I probably shouldn't tell you this, but, I've become one of those women who gets her panties in a wadd whenever another woman stands and praises Putin or worse, Trump. I walk away without saying a word or slapping anyone but when I get home I scream into my pillow like a maniac and pray for forgiveness for thinking of slapping the woman in the grocery store for daring to invade my space, unmasked, unvaccinated, and unhappy. I just dream of slapping the shit out of her face, really hard and repeatedly. Forgive me, Lord, for I have had evil thoughts, but she deserves to be slapped. Remember when Cher slapped Nicolas Cage in the movie Moonstruck? Hard like that. I'm joking. Not that hard, exactly. But hard enough to make her wake up and come to her senses. 

I've been in therapy for my slapping compulsion and advised not to admit to slapping anyone but I'm trying to be funny and make a point. I can't save the world, or the country, or my state, or my county. But I could slap the shit out of some Qanon Trumplikin maskless, unvaxed, lady in the corner grocery store and I think it would feel very satisfying and like I saved my sanity. Just kidding.  

I'm watching the world news as Putin terrorizes the Ukrainian people. I pray for world peace and love for all mankind but my heart is heavy knowing that as long as greedy, cruel, evil men rule we will never have the kind of world I've always dreamt of. A world where humans are kind and loving to each other and accept their differences. We are all different but equal. 

My parents never imagined a world where their children and grandchildren would be put in cages, detention centers, separated from loved ones by a Trump Wall. They taught us that we were all equal and to treat our neighbors as friends not enemies. Today my neighbors wave their U.S.A. flag upside down at half-mast because the country is not the same as when my parents were alive. The world has changed and we have changed. 

I want to love my neighbors. I want to forgive their actions and hatred for the "others".  I don't understand how they can claim to be Christians while burning books and turning in their children's teachers for saying the word, "GAY" in classrooms. What has become of us? Why are we at war with each other? When will we learn? 

I'm a proud U.S. citizen. I'm proud to be a liberal feminist. I'm proud to support the LGBTQ community and even those who disagree with me on my ideas of gender and equality. But I will continue to teach love and peace and understanding to those students who are open to learning about history and how we became this nation. The truth will set us free. Lies, alternative facts, hate of "others" will only bring our demise and destruction. I can't fix the world, so I'll focus on myself and fix what I can about my biases, prejudices, and hatred. I'll continue to pray for world peace and those who prey on innocence.