Mi Chicana Garden

June 23, 2022

mi Chicana Garden Southern Colorado 2022

Dear Reader,

It is officially summer, and I spent the solstice riding on a quad runner with mi esposo in the Sangre de Cristos near the cell phone towers at 10,000 feet (about twice the elevation of Denver, Colorado). The air felt thin and caused me to get short of breath. But the oxygen was thick and smelled like wildflowers and mountain meadows and forests. Just what the doctor ordered. I am working on being a better human being and it begins with me and my happiness. A friend suggested I try MACA powder for my low energy and depression during the pandemic and damned if he was not right in his diagnosis and prescription. He is my friend of thirty-two years and my acupuncturist. He is a keeper. He goes ice fishing and hiking with mi esposo. They are like minded. Nature lovers and animal lovers.

I am planning a birthday party for a few relatives and celebrating the fourth of July, Independence Day. Whose independence you ask? Some people are saying we are free, but I say until we are all different but equal, until we are undocumented not illegal human beings, until the LGBTQ community and people of color are no longer afraid to walk with pride down main street, I say we are not free. We are all slaves. Slaves of greed, power, sex, drugs, rock, and roll. Lol.

That was my Independence Day rant. Every year I suffer through the holidays. Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Winter Wonderland, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. When is my holiday? I am going to celebrate this fourth of July as a sacred ceremony honoring my ancestors’ who lived and died on this soil in Southern Colorado, New Mexico, the New Mexico Territory, Mexico, los genizaros. The indigenous slaves. My ancestors were not free they were herded into missionaries and pueblos and became indentured servants and laborers. The truth hurts because it is the truth. Deal with it. If you do not want to learn this country’s history, you will never know the people who live here and what they have endured just to survive in a world of colonialism. You heard me. Decolonize your diet. Beans, rice, green chile, tortillas. But what do I know. I know after sixty-five years and a life of hard knocks and abundant blessings, that dying is easy; it is the living that is hard.

Lynette Aragon Patrick and Juliana Aragon Fatula at family home Southern Colorado