12 Comments

Dude this is great. I wish I could take my kids to Puerto Rico. I'm only 34 but I feel that want to go back to what I had and take my children with me. To see the purity of it. But that purity was in my heart and soul as a child. I wonder if I could ever find a place as pure as what I perceived. Sometimes I'm reminded that they will only have the things I struggled with to love as if it was perfect.

Nothin like grabbing that cooking stew. MMMMM.

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Thanks for reading Mario! I think once we emigrate we have to make our own magic for our children it’s be part Puerto Rico and part wherever you are now but they’ll look back on it with the same romanticism as we look back on our past.

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“It has the heavy thickness of hard work, onions, and no more empty bellies to it”—gosh what a description! I feel that so much, when you just smell food even from a room away and you KNOW it’s gonna be good! Some wonderful prose here!

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Thank you so much for reading Bethel! I am cooking right now and lots of onions are involved needless to say my belly is rumbling 🤣

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Stealing meat from a pot is a life skill that deserves space on a resume.

I loved every word of this.

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Thank you! I will have to finish writing the novel fr fr

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I’d def read it!

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Cooking a pot of broth by the river is my favorite past time. My favorite line is “It is easier to taste the soul of the earth when hands are dug deep into plate of provisions like yam and cassava and salt fish and memories of a place that she called home.” Food is often the quickest way to home. My monies are ready to buy this book would love to see it at Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival.

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Thank you so much! They have a competition that I recently submitted to so fingers crossed!!

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I really like this, and I hope you post more of it; it’s dreamy, lyrical and this is one of my favorite lines: It is easier to taste the soul of the earth when hands are dug deep into plate of provisions….. because its true.

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Eek! Thank you so much. I’ve found that most of my writing had a lyrical-ness to it because I write prose like poems. 😭 sometimes when it’s being edited ppl try to make it more prose like so I often find myself going back and forth. I love the dreamy lyrical ness to it though. I feel like it’s closer to how we speak especially Caribbean people.

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☺️, you are welcome. Yes, agree -the dialect is authentic and it richly pulls the reader into the scene (I could literally see you sneaking into the pot, tongue burning because you needed to gobble the one bite down and slide the lid back, quietly, because you hear her walking in your direction….).

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