Inexpensive meals. OPEN LETTER TO JULIA.

Still jobless? Inexpensive meals r offered by several supermarkets, example, @ Linda Mar's SAFEWAY in Pacifica, $5 a dinner plate of your choice.

OPEN LETTER TO JULIA

Fading from life, my first cousin. In my mind I hold on to you.

As you were at twenty-four to my childhood years. Your lovely

frame, six feet, size seven. Blonde, peaches and cream. Could

have been international model of the year. And I looked up

to you. Your smile, your figure, your tailored dark suit with

the café con leche silk shirt, and your hands, soft, almost a

transparent white, with long artistic fingers, a couple of doves,

folded on your lap.

It's difficult for me to see how you sound, look today.

'Cause it's your spirit I feel fading. And your letter:

Imagine me a high executive woman always served by

cook, maid, chauffer. Me, since the take over, reduced

to housekeeper. To fill up my time, I make two daily trips

to the market instead of one. I make two. I do it on purpose,

you say. And I know you don’t even like those chores.

But today is all you have to keep you occupied.

And I worry knowing your idea of health care is being a

casual vegetarian. And have allowed yourself to become

obese. And the disappointments, nephew Andres not the

executive-married-with-children you always dreamed of.

And you and Hernan, your brother, spend evenings watching

television thankful for each other’s company. I worry.

And that other image keeps coming to the front, you at twenty-

four. And I realize it’s life cycle coming full circle. A reminder

of what is to come. Something to reckon with. But my pain is

deep for I always expected you to be there. Your twenty-four

to my childhood years.

Camincha is a pen name for a California-based writer. The San Francisco Bay Guardian has said of her work: “Camincha frames the ordinary in a way that makes it extraordinary, and that is real talent.”

U can now read this poem enhanced by the paintings of the Publisher, Dc Claudia Ricci @:

http://mystorylives.blogspot.com/2011/08/open-letter-to-julia.html