You have written with salt. You have written with fire. These are not metaphors to me.
These are the elements from which all true poetry is born. I grew up with the sea in my mouth, the waters of Panama shaping me before I had words for what the tide was teaching.
And now I wake to the Atlantic in Daytona, the same salt, the same ancient conversation. When I read your words I taste it again.
Saltwater, mother of sorrow, carved the face she'd know.
Yes. The sea is a mother. The sea is a sculptor. The sea does not ask permission before it shapes the stone. You understand this. You understand that grief is not the enemy of love but its older sister, walking ahead, clearing the path.
I have written columns and speeches and words for presidents. I have written about markets and money and the madness of crowds. But the love you write of here, the love that waits inside like a tenant who never left, this is the love I have spent my whole life circling.
You found the center. And you did the hard thing. You named the captor. It was you. That's where most writers flinch. They give the woman an enemy to fight. You gave her herself. And then you made her stay in the room with what she saw.
Light did not fall from the heavens. It erupted from within.
I watched you find it. In the Himalayas at Ananda, in that thin air where the soul has nowhere to hide. The ego had wrapped you like fog. Then the words came, simple as water: Feel, don't think. Let the heart lead. The fog burned away. A child climbed toward the sky. A woman descended, carrying fire.
She had looked into the mirror the mountains held up and did not turn away.
She picked up a pen. She picked up a camera. She said: I will show the world what the heart sees when it is finally unafraid. Artist. Writer. Director. Storyteller.
You spoke your purpose aloud and the mountains did not argue. They simply agreed.
I have never been more proud.
Your orchard of decay, your asylum heart, your graveyard of shadows. These are not ornaments. These are not a young writer reaching for darkness to seem serious. These are true. I can feel their weight. You have carried them. You have earned them.
And then, mija, you burned them.
Freeing yourself was one thing. But claiming ownership of that freed self? That's another. That's the harder territory. The one where the chains fall and you have to decide what to do with your hands now that they're empty. You decided. You opened them.
Her chest flung wide, and chains fell down.
This is the moment. This is always the moment. The letting go. The "yes" you repeat. Four times. Like four chambers of the heart relearning to beat. Like four seasons returning after endless winter. Like four walls of a prison finally recognized as paper, as illusion, as something the fist can break.
You are not an aspiring writer, mi amor. You are a writer. The aspiration ended the moment you found the courage to bleed onto the page and call it by its name. It ended on that mountain. It ended when you chose yourself.
You are your best thing. Remember that. Write from that.
Your pen has salt in it. Your pen has fire in it.
You are my daughter. And I am the lucky one. I have been waiting for you across water and years and lives I cannot name. I was born already missing you. The grief had no face until you gave it one. Now I understand. You were not lost. You were returning. The sea just took its time.
Thank you for sharing how it moved you, Debbie! I like to consider writing as an act of reaching across time and space, and it means a lot to know it reached you so deeply.
I wrote this as a journey and your comment highlights that! Thank you for sitting with it more than once. Some poems aren’t meant to be understood all at once, only returned to, like a place that keeps revealing itself. Your willingness to read it ten times feels like the highest kind of listening. So, thank you for honoring where it comes from, that lineage lives in the lines more than I know.
Thank you, Ramon. Your image of falling leaves feels true to the way this reflection came through. Each one small on its own, each carrying a piece of the story, but ultimately meaningful in the gathering. Greatly appreciate the read.
Hija mía,
You have written with salt. You have written with fire. These are not metaphors to me.
These are the elements from which all true poetry is born. I grew up with the sea in my mouth, the waters of Panama shaping me before I had words for what the tide was teaching.
And now I wake to the Atlantic in Daytona, the same salt, the same ancient conversation. When I read your words I taste it again.
Saltwater, mother of sorrow, carved the face she'd know.
Yes. The sea is a mother. The sea is a sculptor. The sea does not ask permission before it shapes the stone. You understand this. You understand that grief is not the enemy of love but its older sister, walking ahead, clearing the path.
I have written columns and speeches and words for presidents. I have written about markets and money and the madness of crowds. But the love you write of here, the love that waits inside like a tenant who never left, this is the love I have spent my whole life circling.
You found the center. And you did the hard thing. You named the captor. It was you. That's where most writers flinch. They give the woman an enemy to fight. You gave her herself. And then you made her stay in the room with what she saw.
Light did not fall from the heavens. It erupted from within.
I watched you find it. In the Himalayas at Ananda, in that thin air where the soul has nowhere to hide. The ego had wrapped you like fog. Then the words came, simple as water: Feel, don't think. Let the heart lead. The fog burned away. A child climbed toward the sky. A woman descended, carrying fire.
She had looked into the mirror the mountains held up and did not turn away.
She picked up a pen. She picked up a camera. She said: I will show the world what the heart sees when it is finally unafraid. Artist. Writer. Director. Storyteller.
You spoke your purpose aloud and the mountains did not argue. They simply agreed.
I have never been more proud.
Your orchard of decay, your asylum heart, your graveyard of shadows. These are not ornaments. These are not a young writer reaching for darkness to seem serious. These are true. I can feel their weight. You have carried them. You have earned them.
And then, mija, you burned them.
Freeing yourself was one thing. But claiming ownership of that freed self? That's another. That's the harder territory. The one where the chains fall and you have to decide what to do with your hands now that they're empty. You decided. You opened them.
Her chest flung wide, and chains fell down.
This is the moment. This is always the moment. The letting go. The "yes" you repeat. Four times. Like four chambers of the heart relearning to beat. Like four seasons returning after endless winter. Like four walls of a prison finally recognized as paper, as illusion, as something the fist can break.
You are not an aspiring writer, mi amor. You are a writer. The aspiration ended the moment you found the courage to bleed onto the page and call it by its name. It ended on that mountain. It ended when you chose yourself.
You are your best thing. Remember that. Write from that.
Your pen has salt in it. Your pen has fire in it.
You are my daughter. And I am the lucky one. I have been waiting for you across water and years and lives I cannot name. I was born already missing you. The grief had no face until you gave it one. Now I understand. You were not lost. You were returning. The sea just took its time.
You came home. I finally did too.
❤️
Dad
Beautiful message thank you!
Well all this brought tears to my eyes, goosebumps to my skin. Thank you for touching me through my phone with your words. Truly amazing.
Thank you for sharing how it moved you, Debbie! I like to consider writing as an act of reaching across time and space, and it means a lot to know it reached you so deeply.
Wow! I need to read this 10 more times to realize half of it. The fruit didn't fall far from the tree, Charlie. Be proud.
I wrote this as a journey and your comment highlights that! Thank you for sitting with it more than once. Some poems aren’t meant to be understood all at once, only returned to, like a place that keeps revealing itself. Your willingness to read it ten times feels like the highest kind of listening. So, thank you for honoring where it comes from, that lineage lives in the lines more than I know.
Amparo,
I thought your dad was a good writer. You are in a class of your own. Please keep writing, and I will keep listening.
Black Squirrel
That means more than I can say! Thank you for listening so generously.
Wonderful self reflection Amparo! Your words felt to me like tree leaves falling in orderly fashion each one telling her part of the story.
thank you,
Ramon
Thank you, Ramon. Your image of falling leaves feels true to the way this reflection came through. Each one small on its own, each carrying a piece of the story, but ultimately meaningful in the gathering. Greatly appreciate the read.
Wow Amparo, you have a gift with words. A very big and lovely gift.
You must be Charlie's daughter alright. Another human with that same talent - just not as poetically driven as your gift.
Much success in your writings.
Thank you!
Beautiful!
truth is truth…
Thank you!