I was born in El Paso. I grew up there. Mesita Elementary School. El Paso High School. Then four years of college at what was known first as Texas Western College when I started, and then University of Texas at El Paso when I graduated. I met Susan Simon, my wife now of almost 53 years (August 23rd) at Texas Western. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins are all buried there. Our trips back are often to visit them.
We have lived in the Washington DC area since 1970. I often joke that after you live somewhere longer than where you grew-up, your “native status” changes. Not today.
Today I am a proud El Paso native. I am #ElPasoStrong My El Paso is beautiful. Growing up there I went everywhere. Often with other kids into Juarez, especially us high school guys. Our classmates and friends often Hispanic. An hispanic woman from Juarez stayed in our home during the week as a housekeeper and nanny. She helped raise us. Most people in our neighborhood had live-in help from Juarez. In grade school, 4th grade, they started teaching us Spanish. It was mandatory.
El Paso did not then and does not now have a “problem” with migrants or Hispanics. It’s clear today we as a nation have a different problem. Racist hate. It comes from outside of El Paso.
My passion now these years later is the play I wrote and perform, “The Actual Dance.” It is the story of getting ready to hold the person I love most in the world, Susan, as she takes her last breath. It is what I anticipated I was going to have to do because of her advance breast cancer in the year 2000.
My story has a happy ending. Susan today is an unlikely survivor. Families of 22 people in El Paso (and Juarez) do not have a happy ending.
I want to share today two poems. First is the one called “Hollow” written in recognition of the horror of sudden and unexpected loss. The second is about the Gun. The Gun as a killer that needs to be stopped. The existential purpose of a Gun, it argues, is simply to kill.
I cry along with my fellow El Paso neighbors who have suffered such great tragedy. I hope we as a nation can find the courage to end the hate and stop the carnage.
We have lived in the Washington DC area since 1970. I often joke that after you live somewhere longer than where you grew-up, your “native status” changes. Not today.
Today I am a proud El Paso native. I am #ElPasoStrong My El Paso is beautiful. Growing up there I went everywhere. Often with other kids into Juarez, especially us high school guys. Our classmates and friends often Hispanic. An hispanic woman from Juarez stayed in our home during the week as a housekeeper and nanny. She helped raise us. Most people in our neighborhood had live-in help from Juarez. In grade school, 4th grade, they started teaching us Spanish. It was mandatory.
El Paso did not then and does not now have a “problem” with migrants or Hispanics. It’s clear today we as a nation have a different problem. Racist hate. It comes from outside of El Paso.
My passion now these years later is the play I wrote and perform, “The Actual Dance.” It is the story of getting ready to hold the person I love most in the world, Susan, as she takes her last breath. It is what I anticipated I was going to have to do because of her advance breast cancer in the year 2000.
My story has a happy ending. Susan today is an unlikely survivor. Families of 22 people in El Paso (and Juarez) do not have a happy ending.
I want to share today two poems. First is the one called “Hollow” written in recognition of the horror of sudden and unexpected loss. The second is about the Gun. The Gun as a killer that needs to be stopped. The existential purpose of a Gun, it argues, is simply to kill.
I cry along with my fellow El Paso neighbors who have suffered such great tragedy. I hope we as a nation can find the courage to end the hate and stop the carnage.
Hollow
12/17/2012
The dance that one day each-and-every one of us will dance.
The orchestra that forms and plays only when it is needed.
A wonderful, and intimate and beautiful goodbye.
Instead the music stops, suddenly without warning.
This dance takes only an instant.
A lifetime in the Universe.
The ballroom sits achingly, intolerable empty, silent.
Almost in black and white.
Hollow
12/17/2012
The dance that one day each-and-every one of us will dance.
The orchestra that forms and plays only when it is needed.
A wonderful, and intimate and beautiful goodbye.
Instead the music stops, suddenly without warning.
This dance takes only an instant.
A lifetime in the Universe.
The ballroom sits achingly, intolerable empty, silent.
Almost in black and white.
Hollow
GUN
3/23/2018
Why Am I?
Cold metal with moveable parts
Places for bullets to be propelled into hearts
To be shot
At a target on the mark
Stop a robber who isn’t smart
Kill the enemy who wants my heart
Redeem my honor
Show them who I am
Make them see me now
Why Am I?
Cold metal with moveable parts
Places for bullets to be propelled into hearts
To kill and nothing more
A destroyer of life and worlds
In hands of soldiers & police
Racists and robbers and thieves
Moms and dads
Students
Cold metal with moveable parts
Places for bullets to be propelled into hearts
Destroyer of lives – ender of worlds
Gun
© The Actual Dance, LLC, Samuel A Simon 2019
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