Tacos de Sal Al Lado Del Mar

tacos de sal (salt tacos) are a food my mother would eat growing up as a child, since she didn't grow up with a lot of money and she had a big family.

she rolls a tortilla in her hands,
salt sprinkled inside like the dust of her past,

a humble offering,
a bridge between her world and mine

who could have known
I would find comfort
in the simplicity of it all

a burden carried by her spine
a different life she lived when she was nine
not enough money for food
but just enough for some tortillas and salt 

her aging hands shaped by labor,
the callouses and arthritis as evidence
while mine stayed soft, full of perceived elegance,
but it would be negligence
to not see that her struggles are mine

as she rolls up la tortilla,
she does it with a smile
she finds humor in reliving 
and teaching me her past lifestyle

I listen to her tell the stories of her past,
knowing I will never carry her hunger,
never wear her sacrifices,
or ever feel her grief 

I’ll only taste test them
in each bite she feeds me

in those rolled up tortillas con sal
she passes pieces of herself
to her daughter that was born by the sea
raised to never experience hunger 
but still aching to understand 
what her mother’s life was like 
when she was younger

to her, the pain of hunger
was like the scrape of the knee
to me, it’s something i’ll never know equivocally
 
she was much wiser at my age
than I am today
when she left brown San Pablo mountains
for the blue Monterey Bay

leaving behind everything she knew
for something she wasn’t sure she’d get
security, money, a house with a roof

my mother’s childhood foods 
tell stories of struggle, poverty, just barely getting by
i’ll never forget her background
for what’s hers is mine 

although her struggle meals
were my favorite childhood snacks,
she fed my soul with her storytelling 
and my listening fed her right back

her past is my inheritance, 
a taste of what I never knew
(and there is both comfort and desperation in knowing i’ll never live that life)

pero que rico se siente,
comiendo tacitos de sal
al lado del mar,
todo gracias a mi mama <3