Category Archives: Blog

by Icess Fernandez Rojas

We can fill the space between us with things we don’t say to each other
Like hello or good bye
Or the complex things like I love you or I need you

And it’s not that I don’t, cause I do… need you, that is
Like sand needs water, flowers need air, or a song needs a melody
Or can it be … the opposite of you needing me

We can fill the space with the voices of grace and gentility, or mute possibility
Or even trail off at the end of a sentence … quietly
As if we were here, in this space, abandoned by one another, with the things we don’t say to each other.

We can move around like orbs, in bubbles filled with clear emptiness
Floating through life against this temptress of emotional irrationality… that deserves to be, isolated for her provocation of the status quo.

I want more, you know?
More of you, you see?
To fill in the place blanketed the by space of…
Insecurity? Fear?

Love. Fill the space with love or lovemaking
Of moans and shouts of ecstasy and more sound than allowed legally
By multiple decibels

The kind of love making that shakes the foundation and makes the walls crumble
With intense vibrations of sensations and, uhm, combinations of positions and transitions not yet published for lovers on a mission of passion and unforgettable desire, which is what unforgettable requires.

The kind of love making that doesn’t make sense but feels so good that this space evaporates
And what’s between us is your space, my space, our space. That’s nothing really but a few centimeters with no room for formalities.

Not hello. But I love you.
Not good-bye. But I need you

No room for lies or pretending or even mentioning that there was a morning or night before.
To go room, to room, Door to door, place to place
To fill this space between us, with all the things we don’t say to each other.

You would think that with a week off of work, the prose would be free flowing. After all, I want to submit somethings to contests and anthologies and things. But no. The past two days have been about vegging out.

With Houston dealing with the destruction of Ike and with strict orders from my mom to stay away, my vacation was derailed and I didn’t give much thought into what I wanted to do instead of. So now it’s the end of day two and I have written, at most, a blog post. Sad.

So now I’m going to sit here and do some writing. Books don’t write themselves. They also don’t sell themselves. Onward and upward.

Walking through a Louisiana state shelter on Friday, I realized that I was in my element as a reporter.

Among the people who have surely lost their homes and now have to shower in trucks that came from as far away as Idaho, there was a kinship there that I just felt. These are my people. We don’t have a lot of money. We work hard. And everything we have worked for could evaporate in a blink of an eye.
Then I snapped this picture:

Stewart Jr.

Don’t know how old he is but he couldn’t be more than 5-years-old. He bugged me to take his picture. And I did. Was glad to do it and happy to see it came out.

This little kid smiled in the face of destruction and giggled.

And that maybe the meaning of life.

Worry and uncertainty swirled around this little boy. Anxiety fell like a curtain on the faces of the grown ups. And this little boy was happy.

He was near his grandmother and drinking out of a cup. When the world he knew had stopped, he had everything he needed and had this great smile on his face.

Familia Fernandez evacuated from Houston to Shreveport and it was all I needed. We were crammed in my small one bedroom apartment. I cooked. Mom cleaned. Sis and friends played PS3.

And it was all I needed.

The meaning of life.

I should have known this a month and a half ago but when you take things for granted, it’s over looked. Ana Menendez left the Miami Herald.

I was, and continue to be, in awe of her. The daughter of exiles, she has traveled the world and has worked in the one newspaper that I hoped I would end up at one day—The Miami Herald.
She’s a novelist and a graduate of the NYU writing program. She was the example I looked up to. You can do it. You can be a journalist and write novels. You can be a columnist. It is possible.

But as the newspaper industry’s turmoil becomes a unpredictable tornado of craziness, she, and other women like her (Mary Sanchez, my Aunt Bobbi, etc) were my silver linings. They were the role models for me.

Now that I could be in the winter of my career, where are my role models? How are they coping with the foolishness of crowned jokers? They aren’t. They are trying to stay a float until the exit plan comes to fruition. Hope is gone and it feels a bit like working on the Titanic.

I miss Ana and the promise to people like her and like me that our voices and experiences are part of the tapestry. I miss the wonder and excitement for the future, how I was going to be a bad ass reporter and that I could have my pick of any type of job I wanted, local editor, columnist, and executive editor. Gone are the hopes that one day I would be able to call the shots and make decisions about what is run on the paper. Now, I’m just hoping to have a job day to day while I think of something else. And I hope that something else is something wonderful. I can’t settle for less than that.

Journalism isn’t for the faint of heart, it takes a certain type of resolve to succeed. Most people think they have it. But few actually have it. The stomach must be strong as should be the will and the mind. But I have weakened. Weakened terribly. Ana’s departure is another blow.
There are still some of us left. And out of those, I know a handful will still have jobs in this industry in three years. The ones that won’t will do something else that’s probably not as interesting but will most likely be less stressful.

And we will all suffer from it just like I am suffering from Ana’s departure.

Love in the Time of Cholera is perhaps one of the greatest love stories ever told. Before Oprah choose it as a Book Club Book (I’m sure Garcia-Marquez shuddered) I read it. Feel in love with the idea of writing a love story.

I suspected that such a thing would be difficult. Afterall, love its self is a difficult concept to master. But I wanted to write one and thought long and hard on what that story would be.

Enter Caridad Henriquez Beltran, Alberto Beltran, and Nathan Fitzgerald. My latest and greatest characters. They are the triangle the full book two.

I don’t want to give out too many plot points but I will say that I wanted to write a book about love, on different levels, that was complex, and thoughtful. I wanted it to have layers. And I wanted it to be pure story.

It’s difficult. It’s kicking my butt. But I love the challenge. I’m taking it slow and working on it in a snail’s pace.

But since this blog is also about reading, I’m dusting off a book from the original list of Project: Finding La Diva.

This one:

Another love story. A long, LONG love story. Rereading this one will be fun.

I now live in Louisiana. That statement is still a bit surreal. I’m half expecting to drive up to the Eagle’s offices, taking the Canal Route and then Kellogg. But I now take a road names Youree and then a parkway call Clyde Fant.

So far my apartment doesn’t have the home feel. THere are still boxes left to be unpacked but I’m not in any hurry to empty them. Don’t know why. A last bit of discovery. One last chance to say “Oh, I was looking for that.”

Writing is going slowly. Very. Slowly. I’m hoping that it will pick up. I’m thinking its because I’m a stranger in a strange land and I haven’t gotten my routine down. I hope that’s it.

I have “read” some books on CD. Have become a big fan of Janet Evonivich (not spelled this way but said like this). More on her later.

Will be reworking the list. The voice is coming. I feel it. But I will not force it because I want it to stay.

More later.

It feels like I’ve been packing since the dawn of time. I’m very nearly done. Soon I will be on the way to Louisiana. But before I get there, just wanted to give an update.

Obviously, Project: Finding La Diva is on hold because, well, the books are in a box in my living room now. We will continue as soon as we are unpacked and happy and rested. But I know it’s working. How do I know? I’m remembering what I used to like and have figured out that what was cool then is cool now. Mysteries are cool. Writing them is a challenge but a fun one.

Could it be that I have found my genre? Probably. Case in point the second book is a mystery novel. Lingering from this past year’s NaNoWriMo, I wanted to try my hand at noir writing. Failed miserably but the result is half a mystery novel. And I kinda like it.

Our voice! She is returning, no? Well see what happens.

Just call me superwoman. I am packing and editing not only the fourth draft of the book but a short story that’s due to an editor by May 1 and am working on an outline for book two.

Yeah I’m busy.

Editing is a … (female dog). After the workshop two weeks ago, I knew I was on the right track with the book. But after the Scene of the Crime conference, I got some additional mojo and now I can’t stop tinkering with it. Eventually, I’m going to have to stop it long enough to pack the living room but it’s whatever.

And the short story has thankfully already been written and edited. I just need to incorporate the edits into the document. But here’s the catch to this one. I’m not sure which story to send. Not sure which story my editor would like to include in the anthology.

And our course we have characters talking to me all the time and are MAJORLY unhappy with me right now because I haven’t been writing anything new about them. Once I get to Shreveport, I’ll have to plug in the computer and start plugging away to get them off my back. Seriously.

But not complaining though. No one said having two careers would be easy. It’s exciting to be in this position and worry about whether a character is snotty enough or how to rewrite a sentence to avoid the use of the annoying semi-colon. (what’s the point of that piece of punctuation anyway. Really? Two separate sentences!). I can do without all the packing and crazy turmoil in my apartment. My poor cat doesn’t understand that the boxes in the living room are not to play with.

Sigh. It’ll all be over soon.

When you leave a place, its not the location that is left behind but the people who have contributed to your experience.

Kansas has taken me to places I never been and probably will never go again.

But I’ve probably have met some people that I would never have met under any other circumstances.

Or some people that have made my time here memorable. They have built me up when the world was tearing me down. With their insight and intelligence, they have taught me and even encouraged me to keep going. It’s about life and the type of person you want to be. This is their lesson to me and for that I will be eternally grateful.

There is no denying that my Kansas experience has changed me in a surprising way. Never in my wildest dream would I ever guess that in the Plains I would meet the best friend I had yet to meet…

Or meet the people who have changed me just with their presence…

Or fall in love with something that meows instead of barks.

I also never thought that this Gulf of Mexico girl would be able to find an ocean in a state without a coast.

As much as I love Houston and the great state of Texas, I saw things in Kansas that I had never seen before. Some were great. Others I could do without. Can you tell which one?

It’s difficult to put my two and a half years together in a series of photographs. I’m sure there are moments that I have forgotten and people that I have to thank. There may be a part two photo essay. Who knows.

One thing is for sure, it’s been interesting.

Maybe it’s the dark overcast day that has conjured my melancholy side. Or maybe its the fact that I’ve filled out my last time card. Or just maybe that today, I will miss my last sorority ceremony.

Today I feel like I’m going home. And I feel like crying.

No worries, it’s joyful tears. Being away from my world, the harsh city that saw me grow up, has been difficult. Even when I lived in Corpus I wanted to run back to Houston, not knowing then that three hours away is nothing.

Houston isn’t for everyone. It’s big, sprawling, humid and has a traffic problem that probably will never be solved but it’s home. It’s massive trees canopying over Polk Street. It’s watching the UH vs Rice game with friends on a Saturday afternoon. It’s poetry readings at Borders and NoTsuOh. It’s concerts at the Toyota Center and the Cynthia Wood Mitchell Pavilion. It’s Spanish, it’s English, it’s Spanglish, it’s Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, African dialects — all in the same place they sell a big Mac with Cheese. It’s sorority sisters, the ones you love and like, getting married, having children, and finally growing into their roles of worldly women.

It’s my mom and my sister – what’s left of my family after Oct. 16, 2002.

It’s home, for good or bad, for heat or flood, it’s home and I love it. Can’t get enough.

A high school classmate of mine who lives an hour and a half from Shreveport said that in all her travels there is not a state as friendly as Texas. I agree with her. Yes, there are states and places that are friendly enough but there is something about The Lone Star State that brings me peace, even if I’m now going to live only a couple of minutes from its border.

Shreveport isn’t home. But it’s home for now and its close enough that I’ll be able to attend weddings and birthday parties and yes, even sorority ceremonies, and not feel guilty about missing those important events in life.

You see, what I’ve learned about life so far is very simple — if you can be yourself around people and they still love you, even after you show your ass, that’s where you need to be. Home is where I need to be. It’s all about the people you keep around you.

I don’t know where life is going to take me after Shreveport. I tend to not what to think that far ahead. But I hope that it keeps me close enough to home to always feel safe and to be myself.