Hi readers, I’ve been drafting three different books simultaneously. Don’t ask me why; I know that it keeps my mind occupied when I become stuck in what is known as “writer’s block.” Call it ADHD or ADD or whatever, but I kind of like it…

So, my latest novel, A Tale of Many Worlds One Love, is coming along well. I spent months researching my ancestors and believe I’m where I need to be. Let me share a snippet, and tell me what you think, okay?

One day, experiencing terrible writer’s block, Sadie takes out her old journals and starts leafing through them. Perhaps this will give her the inspiration needed. Just as she is about to put them up, an old decrepit page falls next to her feet, and bending down to get it, a gush of excitement overtakes her as she reads:

¿Qué es la realidad y qué es la ficción? ¿Y si lo que estoy viviendo ahora ya ha pasado? ¿Y si todo esto es un sueño?  ¿Y si ese tatuaje en forma de corazón con alas que tiene Jose Diego ha volado hasta allí por sí solo? ¿Qué pasa con ese tatuaje del signo del infinito en su cuello que no está realmente allí y es solo mi anhelo? El pasado, el presente, y el future es solo una illusion, no?

At that very moment, Sadie knew that her writer’s block (at least for that day) was undone! She, too, had many times wondered if her life today was but a dream.     It was as if all her blurred reality had suddenly jumped at her from that crumpled page to become reality, and or had it?

“Wait a minute, I saw that same heart my GG wrote about in one of my lucid dreams,” exclaims Sadie. Running downstairs to check her dream journal, she reads:

I received an epiphany in an heirloom being passed down from generation to generation:  a sparkling amethyst pendant shaped like a heart with angel wings, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. It even flew across the ocean, weaving in and about the mountains and valleys, reaching different parts of the world. From Spain to Portugal, Wales, the Andes, and Mexico.   I sometimes saw the tall, majestic mountains covered in snow. I saw people trekking these mountains. Some are in donkeys, some are on horses, and some are walking tirelessly along the narrow, steep path. Some shivering during the harsh and brutal winters atop the peaks. It was as if this amethyst pendant protected them from stress, guilt, fear, tensions, and harsh, bitter brutalities.

Didn’t Jacob, the prophet, have a dream about angels coming up and down to earth and performing miracles?

“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.“

(Genesis 28:12-14)

You see, during a maternal family reunion years back, she had inherited that page from a journal that belonged to her 5^th GG, Maria Salinas.   Gracie, her cousin, knowing Sadie was a writer, lovingly gave it to her since her middle name, “Isabel,” had been passed down from her 6^th GG mother, Maria Isabel.

That morning, she woke up from her dream and reached into her chest, looking for this pendant.

“Hmmmmmmm.”

Yes, Sadie must find out about this heirloom. Is she traveling back in her dreams or the future as she awakens? Should she even try to figure it all out? Don’t the dead talk to us through others? To understand what we are, we must understand what we were. What was their world like? What did they believe? It’s as if when I write, I’m being transported from the world of the living to the world of the dead, but are they really dead? She will continue writing so she won’t forget the memories, and the people she writes about will never die. She is aware that memories aren’t in a specific place.   They are in our hearts forever.

Reading further down into the story, follow me:

Antonio and Maria Seberina’s Love Story:

Last night, Sadie dreamed of a baby boy being raised to the heavens by his father, Joseph Manuel.    The year was believed to be around 1746. Then, a few houses down, she saw a baby girl being born that same day. Her father (Vicente Vasquez) had also raised it in the heavens, proclaiming that his child belonged to God. 

“We commit this child to you, Jesus,” Sadie hears in her dream—so loudly that she suddenly gets up from her bed.

It is a beautiful quaint town close to the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Cordillera Neo-Volcanica rising above the Mesa Central.   Years later, Antonio and Maria Seberiana, the same children born that fateful day, strike up a bond. Together, they go to school and are as different as night and day, but regularly, they meet in church. Antonio tends to look away every time their eyes meet. Maria smiles coyly at her crush.    

Maria loves to write, and Antonio loves politics and the military; his father, Joseph, used to share many stories with him that his father, Gregorio Mascorro Ruys, used to tell him about their complex indigenous origins.   (Many years later, Mexico would gain independence from the French and Spanish conquests.)

One fantastic summer evening, on a cool evening, Antonio walks past Maria’s home. Looking up at her bedroom window, he notices a flicker of the candle still burning and sees her silhouette on the balcony.

“Hola Maria, why are you still up tonight?” he asks.

“Antonio, you know how I love to write and how I heal myself with my own stories, right? I have realized through my writing that love is giving love.”

“Yes, I do. So, are you writing a love story about us?” smiling, he hollers softly. 

“Hmmmm, perhaps,” she smiles back.

“Do you believe, Maria, that our dreams shape our destiny? Lately, I’ve been dreaming a lot about us,” he softly shouts at her as she looks out the veranda.

“Sometimes,” she smiles lovingly at him.

You see, Antonio is a soft-spoken man who has few close friends. Most of his friends are from work, and he relates how his father was in the military when he was growing up, which sometimes strained their relationship. Still, he loved his father and visited his gravesite regularly.   (Joseph Manuel Mascorro Zapata was his father. )

You see, Maria Seberina Vasquez is an outspoken woman who loves to write. She enjoys discussing philosophy, the stars, and the reason for things and does not take no for an answer unless it’s the last option.

It isn’t easy to verify their origin due to the 270-plus years that have passed. They and their parents were believed to have been born in Mexico. Antonio is known to have originated from a “Mulato Libre.”

A mulato was born from a Spanish parent and a Black parent (usually a Moor, as they had invaded Spain several times). Mulatos could be born as free individuals (mulatos libres) or enslaved people. Spanish law at the time stated that 5 or 6 generations would carry the title of Mulato (this explains why many crackpot scholars list Antonio as a Mulato -which he was not) – his grandfather was a Mulato Libre, and his parents. Both were Mulato Libres] What this means is that both of Antonio’s great-grandparents were descendants of a Spanish/Moorish coupling that led to the creation of enslaved individuals whose descendants would become Free Mulatos and subsequently intermarry.

Few accounts of their story are found, but records exist that in 1816, Antonio and Maria Seberina married at El Sagrario, Aguascalientes, Mexico.   The way in which their love story emerged and their legacy continues is what novels are made of.

“For love creates like itself and is forever one with what’s created.”

(A Course of Love by Mari Perron)

For her novel’s purposes, Sadie knows that writing a love story of every one of her ancestors is impossible; therefore, she will honor them all by including the family tree and feels a sense of peace as she continues. She has healed herself with her stories and realized love is giving love. She will not judge herself by her ancestors’ sins and not be rewarded by their virtues. She will continue to make her way and use the burdens and blessings as the key to living a calm and fulfilling life.