Finding a Community: Las Doctoras and Latina Mothers Collaborative

It's hard to believe that a year has gone by since I joined the Latina Mothers Collaborative (LMC).  Invited by my dear friend Carolina Adame, which I know from our Spanish-based unschoooling group La Manada.  In my first meeting with LMC, I found in this intimate group of muxeres like minded friends.  One of these muxers, Dr. Renee Lemus, I knew before the collaborative; our children attended Maple Village together.  We had talked at length, watching our children play unstructured and safe, about our doctorates, our gender and ethnic studies classes, and our identities as latinas.  I found a sister this year for sure. And together, we are embarking on a dream journey: Las Doctoras, an online class outside the university with our social media presence on IG as @las.doctoras   We are even working on Las Doctoras, a podcast to explore the topics at hand.  Really there is so much to be grateful for this season of  holidays and joy.

A Sense of Freedom

Sometimes you just want to get out. Out of the daily grind. Out of the mother’s circles. Out of the weekly commitments. Out of whatever routine you’ve developed for yourself. Yourself, that is, and your family. Sometimes you just want to get out of the family life that is now your life.  This life may be some of choosing; however, at the end of the day, this life feels like it has been chosen for you. I mean: do you really want two cars and a commute to work and a closet full of clothes that you continually have to give away and get new ones? Do you really want to read books on parenting and simplicity and consciousness, and do you really want to have late fines from the library and a calendar starting to brim with holiday plans for the next few months? All these things could be so normal and so beautiful, but sometimes don’t you just want to be free of it all?  And not just sometimes but all the time?

Perhaps it’s how I hold it? How I hold these life doings. Too heavy. Too significant. Perhaps it is how my parents held them? How I saw them carried out in my family? How my parents saw my grandparents carry on with life.

Freedom

This sculpture is about the struggle for achievement of freedom through the creative process. Zenos Frudakis