On My Love Letter to Eva, La Malentendida...

One day I will post on all the reasons why I write about women who are misunderstood, but this blog post will focus on my performance last night.

I am part of a group of female writers who form the collective, Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme. We are based out of Boyle Heights, California, and housed in the beautiful CASA 0101 Theater. In its 8th year of production, Latinas from the area come together to write stories, our stories, so that others (like Jeanine Cummins) don't do it for us. Once the plays have been written, we cast local actors, produce, direct, promote, and fundraise ourselves. To say we are a group of mujeres who do it all is an understatement!

Speaking of fundraisers, we had an event last night called Love, Lust, and Locuras. I participated in it last year and wrote "Food is my Love Language" while driving to the event. This year I signed up to perform a piece and I wanted to make sure to write a piece that would give a little bit of context as to why I wrote about Biblical Eve for this year's new works festival. I told Claudia, Elvia, and Mariana that I would be reading aloud a love letter to Eve--what I should have specified was that I still HAD TO WRITE this piece and it was already Monday night!

On Tuesday night I still didn't have anything written.

On Wednesday night I said to my husband, "I don't think I am going to follow-through on my performance this year. I feel like I'm under this cloud of grief and I can't get motivated to write it. But I will still take the potluck food and support the writers. Plus, there will be other opportunities for me to write to Eve." I was half-expecting him to push me to write and perform, but he said, "Ok, babe, you've had so many great opportunities to perform your work in other spaces. It's ok if you can't do it this week." Those words were magic to my ears: the pressure to write a piece and perform it, all while balancing life and grief, was removed from my shoulders instantly. I told him that when we got home I would send a message to the producers of the fundraiser that I was giving my spot up.

I obviously never got around to sending out the e-mail...

Fast forward to yesterday morning when I'm sitting in a conference room in Escondido. I was early to a work meeting and was thinking about how I was going to arrive to the fundraiser with my famous vegan chili and a steaming pot of jasmine rice. That feeling of confidence that it would be enough started to wane very quickly. I looked over at my colleague's daily planner and noticed he had a lined pad that still had some blank pages in it, so I asked him if I could have a sheet of paper. It was 9:57 am and our meeting wasn't scheduled to begin until 10:30.

I began writing "A Love Letter to Biblical Eve" while waiting for more of my colleagues to arrive for our meeting. And I kept going until the meeting began and I felt I was in a good place to stop.

When the meeting was over and we were going to begin the drive back to Fountain Valley, I asked my colleague (he was driving) if he would mind if I kept writing. I had written a page and a half and still had many more things I needed to write to Eve. As he didn't mind, I kept writing and writing, and after running out of space on the lined paper, I turned over the agenda from the meeting and began writing on the back of that...

It felt like we flew back to our office and I didn't have the slightest idea how to finish Eve's letter. All I knew was that I had to hurry to my computer so I could get it typed up in time to perform at Love, Lust, and Locuras.

I didn't really have an ending thought out yet, and I had 11 minutes before I had to leave to grab a change of clothes and the food for the event, so I wrote what felt the most natural: invite Eva, La Malentendida, to come watch the play I had written about her.

I printed it...gave it a final blessing...and packed it up in my Happy Planner.

This is the result:

A Love Letter to Biblical Eve

I don't know if you have ever performed in a theater full of allies and accomplices, but I received so much positive energy and love from everyone in the theater. In the interest of full disclosure, I black/blank out when I perform: I do not like the anticipation of performing, but somehow manage to thrive when sharing my voice with the world.

I hope you enjoyed my love letter, and I hope to see you in the theater! "Di que si, di que si, DI QUE SI!"

Until next time...

-LorenaMorena, una Malentendida