My mother’s obsession wasn’t without reason. It was hurricane season, and the ubiquitously named Maria had been looming over the Caribbean, picking a route that could either follow meteorologist predictions or show everyone what a capricious personality she possessed. Just the day before, this powerful storm had become the first Category 5 hurricane to make landfall on the island nation of Dominica in the Lesser Antilles. Before the storm hit land, its windspeed rose from 85 mph to 165 mph. This Maria was not suffering from tropical depression. No, she was a pulverizer, a wild and wicked spirit out for revenge. Everyone I knew who lived on the island of Puerto Rico or who were among the immense diaspora had been playing a game of ducking and peeking, as they told themselves, “Hurricanes always lose strength before they hit the island,” before tuning back into the weather reports which showed models of the storm forging a straight path towards the Southern shore of the island. Should my mother and I feel relieved because our family hails from the Western coast of the island, where the hurricane isn’t headed? I didn’t think so.
Surprisingly, when I arrived upstairs, the CNN report wasn’t about the hurricane. The being shown was of Mexico City. This was the anniversary of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which had killed approximately 10,000 people. In 2017, Mexico City was far more prepared for a devastating quake, as its new early warning system had just been successfully tested in a drill. I watched the television screen as people walked across a parking lot, while the reporter explained that Mexico City is in such a seismically active zone that it averages about 40 earthquakes per day. Most of them are probably imperceptible. Then something strange happened, the people who had been casually walking moments before stopped, and wavered, and toppled, and screamed. Was this another drill? No, no, drills don’t make the ground shake. The terror in the citizens’ eyes radiated through the screen, while the reporters both in the United States and in Mexico City jammed into high gear. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake hitting on the 32nd anniversary of the infamous earthquake that measured 8.1 was incomprehensible, but like gold if you happen to be a TV news reporter.
I was numb but emotionally okay watching the destruction from a distance as the reports cut back and forth between the drill that happened earlier in the day and the current situation. I knew that my significant other was in Mexico City, somewhere, but the city is large and there are so many people there. Why would God or fate have chosen him to be injured? I became transfixed, glued to CNN just like my mother, as cameras pushed deeper and farther into the rubble. The reports were stating that the two hardest hit areas were the trendy, upscale La Condesa, and the neighboring Roma, the hipster mecca of the city. A guilty thought crossed my mind. His family doesn’t come from that kind of background. I could see his mouth moving in my mind’s eye as I remembered a night when he confessed that his father had left for the United States when he was just a few years old, and there were times when his mother and siblings didn’t sleep with a roof over their heads. That’s how he became fascinated with looking at stars.
I was numb but fine until the reports began to tell that most of the well-to-do residents leave the area during the day, so if there were casualties, it was most likely the hired help. Why does it seem to always be that way? Then I saw an image of an office block that had collapsed, and my heart began to beat faster. I breathed deep and purposefully slow. I was numb, but I began to feel the moment the camera flashed on a pancaked apartment house where a mattress was dangling from a window. I searched my soul and that thing they call a woman’s intuition to find the thread connecting me to him, him to me, but it was slack. Maybe that meant that nothing was wrong. I know I was wasting God’s time when I began to pray for the CNN camera to flash upon his face.
The plantains remained on the counter that night. I don’t know if I ate dinner.
September 20th
I woke up and checked my cell phone hoping there was a missed call, a text, something, but there wasn’t. Instead, there was a video sent on Facebook Messenger of some young cousins in Mayagüez who had dressed their dog up as a reporter and taken him to the balcony window to give his take on the rain and wind. I felt my face form a smile, and it gave me strength to face the news of the day. Then I realized that the video had been recorded the day before. Maria had hit land near Yabucoa, on the Southern shore of the island. One of my coworkers and I had been talking about Yabucoa on the last day that I went into the office. Had that been Friday or Monday? My coworker’s husband is Puerto Rican, and his parents still lived on the island, in Yabucoa, in a small house that probably wouldn’t withstand the hurricane’s brutality. It was her worst fear that Maria would touch down there, and she did. I called her.
Her voice sounded sad, broken. They had been calling and calling, but there was no power. No answer. Nobody answered. No relatives. No friends. Just like I had no word from Mexico. Sometimes silence can be so much louder than words.
Footage from Mexico City have taken over CNN. A school, Enrique Rebsamen School, collapsed during the quake. The body count is two-dozen, mostly children. Fear that more children are trapped in the ruins keeps rescue efforts focused there. Countries across the globe are sending generous amounts of relief to the areas hardest hit by the earthquake. President Trump promised to send search and rescue units after he met for a grand photo op with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. To me, his response seemed small and late, as Mexico had just suffered an 8.1 earthquake on September 7th which killed 100 people.
I retreated to my bedroom, closed my eyes, and focused on the thread that connected me to my significant other. I felt nothing.
September 21
My grandmother once told me something when I was having trouble falling asleep. She said that if we tied ribbons together and cast it out into the ocean, the loose end would wash up on the shore of Mayagüez, and our loved ones would be connected to us. Since then, casting ribbons into the sea has been a recurring theme that shows up in the poetry I write.
I sat down to write two poems, one for Mexico and one for Puerto Rico. The first poem flowed as if it was divined by the universe, but when I started to write about Puerto Rico, my intuitive thread led me to pick up my phone and check my Facebook notifications. On a local Puerto Rican page I belonged to, it seemed that everyone was looking for someone. The island was drowning in tears that only added to the floodwaters Maria left behind. We were all trying to find a way to reach the island, not physically, but with our voices, or even our hearts. My coworker called to see if I’d heard anything. Her in-laws were still missing. I realized that in California, there probably weren’t enough people of Puerto Rican descent to stand arm to arm to reach Arizona, no less across the ocean. I notice that on the Facebook page, people were beginning to post the names of towns where their loved ones live… or lived. I suddenly though of my grandmother’s knotted pieces of ribbon, like links in a chain. Funny, I didn’t even know how to say chain in Spanish. Cadena. The word “cadena” was what I needed to find flow in my poem. I began to write.
September 22
My mom started to tell me about a missing girl, Frida, who was buried alive under the collapsed school in Mexico City. No longer able to stand the suspense, I showered and dressed and put makeup on, and went to the grocery store. It wasn’t really that we needed food. Who could have an appetite on a week like we had experienced? I was on a mission for information.
At the store, I started up a conversation with an employee who happened to also be my beloved’s best friend. “Have you heard from him?” He shakes his head side to side, “I guess you haven’t either.” There went that silence again. Deafening. Then, my partner’s brother, who happened to not take the trip with the rest of his family, walks by us. “Hey!” the store employee wavesdmy significant other’s brother down. “Have you heard from him?”
“No,” the brother said. “He’s in Mexico City, but not near that area. I think he’s fine, or I would have heard.” That’s the irony about silence. It’s that cliched idea that no news is good news.
Back at home on Facebook, I suggested that people post the names of their missing along with the city. We created lists, each one a link in a chain. We partnered with another Puerto Rican Facebook group from Chicago, and then with one from Florida and New York City. Our chain grew so long that it probably could have reached across the ocean. That idea became the name of my poem, “Cadenas de Amor.”
September 23
CNN reported that at least 3,000 buildings were damaged in Tuesday’s quake. Supplies have started to reach Mexico City and citizens joined together to help feed each other, clean the rubble from the streets, and bravely do search and rescue work alongside the official teal that was deployed from Los Angeles, California. I noticed that some of the young people who were going into the damaged buildings had their names and vitals written on their forearms in Sharpie marker, along with their blood type.
Two days before, it had been revealed that there was no 12-year-old girl named Frida Sophia trapped underneath the ruins of the school. My mom had to inform me of this because I had given up watching CNN so I could help the Facebook group network the chain of names through the channel of connections we created. The search continued, but for an older woman.
I got a notification that a video from Puerto Rico had been posted. It was my cousins in Mayagüez and their newshound dog. Again, they made me laugh. I send them the chain of names via Facebook Messenger. They respond that they can share it to Cabo Rojo and Carolina and possibly Vieques. My heart began to feel warmer.
September 24
Facebook became my job, my life, the host of the lifeline chain we had created when we were at the lowest point. Daily, people began to get word that someone they loved had been located. Names were crossed off our list. Most storied ended positively if not happily. How can there be happiness with no electricity grid or drinking water in the interior? How can there be normalcy when ships bringing relief to Puerto Rico are unable to dock because of the Jones Act?
My mom lets me know what’s been going on in Mexico. Someone yelled at Pena Nieto to roll up his sleeves and grab a shovel. Clearly, Trump would for a rich photo op and a self-gratifying tweet. I still watched Mexico on breaks and in snippets, but I am streaming CBS now.
On CBS, there’s this reporter named David Begnaud. He was wading through the streets of Humacao, talking about the real conditions on the island. Ninety-one percent of people are without power. Governor Ricardo Rossello has been saying it may take a year to restore power to all parts of Puerto Rico. There’s something about the guy, Begnaud. I heard it in his voice. He cared. Genuinely. Really. People have even been asking if he’s Boriquen. He’s a reporter from Louisiana who had never set foot on the island, but I could tell that there was something about the idea that the submerged land he was standing on belonging to the United States that was breaking his heart. He came right out and said it, “Most people don’t realize that the people on this island are American citizens. Many are fluent in English. This isn’t a foreign country. Where’s the help from our government?” He said it on camera and he still had his job. I could tell he was going to follow Puerto Rico’s journey back to light and health until the end.
September 25
My significant other changed his profile picture on Facebook to a very dark photo of his profile. It looked like he was riding on a bus. His brother was right. There’s proof, verification. Maybe the bus was headed North. I feel our thread connect again. I wonder if sometimes people must let go of their end of the thread because they feel overwhelmed.
October 3
I have forgotten to record what has happened daily, but so many people have now made contact with their loved ones that our “cadena de amor” is now half as long as it used to be. My coworker made contact with her husband’s cousins who confirmed that her in-laws survived, though the roof came off their house.
Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, has been on camera, up to her waist in water, criticizing Governor Rossello and President Trump for the slow response to the disaster. Of course, Trump has been calling her several choice names. She’s been tough enough to take it. Some people feel her actions were self-serving, but I’ve always liked her.
President Trump finally made it to the island. Standing in front of a crowd of people, he threw paper towels to the people this morning. Rolls of paper towel. Let me clarify, Bounty is not that good of a quicker picker upper. How have the Puerto Rican people come to mean so little? It felt humiliating to watch him. It made me nauseous. I wanted to turn it off, but I realized the clip would be playing for days, maybe weeks.
One day, the U.S. political situation may change, and Puerto Rico will become a strategic possession again. One day, when it’s dry and beautiful again. La Isla del Encanto. One day, David Begnaud will have his cameraman film the residents of the island helping each other get access to water and rig up the power, just as CNN showed the citizens of Mexico helping each other. One day…
Downstairs, I thought about the day that all of this started. I was debating whether to make tostones or arañitas, both side dishes that have fallen out of favor because they represent the island’s African roots. On the counter, the plantains remained forgotten. They rotted. I threw them away and decided to start over. I’d make sancocho, the stew that Puerto Ricans historically made when times get tough. It seemed like the appropriate meal for the situation now that I could breathe again.
On The Edge 
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