InkedCurls

To the man of few words,but a thousand actions.

Before the kids even know they need you,you’re already there.Always prepared…your special bag of tools in hand,ready to fix, build, carry, protect.

Our son may roll his eyes now,but one day he’ll realize what a gift it was to have a father who never missed a moment to show up.

And our little girl she absolutely adores her big guy.

Thank you for loving them in the quiet ways, the steady ways,the forever ways.

Happy Father’s Day ❤️

This weekend I wore Red, White and Blue but in a Latina Way 🇵🇷💃🏽🥳💅🏽
🏀 #

There is something no one warns you about
the quiet shift,
the internal rearranging
that makes no sound
but echoes everywhere.

It doesn’t announce itself.
No grand entrance, no visible proof.
Just a feeling
deep, immense
like something inside you has moved
and forgot to ask permission.

You thought change would arrive
dressed in new things,
in fuller hands,
in proof you could point to.
You thought it would live outside of you
something you could hold,
something you could show.

But instead,
it settled within.

A subtle unraveling
of who you thought you were.
A quiet becoming
of someone you don’t fully recognize.

Was this always you
waiting beneath the surface?
Or someone entirely new,
shaped by unseen moments
and unspoken desires?

You don’t quite know.
And maybe you’re not supposed to.

Because this change
it isn’t for them.
It was never meant to be.

It is yours.
Fully, deeply, entirely yours.

And if others grow alongside you,
if they meet you here,
if they stay

then maybe that’s just
a second kind of miracle.

Something I’ve been working on… I’m not a writer but when my heart thumps I need to let her speak….

She Was Born an Island

My mother was born where the ocean
knows everyone’s name.
Puerto Rico shaped her first breath
salt in her lungs,
sun stitched into her spine,
Spanish lullabies rocking her before sleep.

I was born where buildings touch the sky,
where winter teaches you how to miss warmth,
where my accent learned to code-switch
before I learned how to pray.

But my mother
my mother is the bridge.

She carries the island in her hands
even when they’re tired,
even when they’re working,
even when they’re holding me
between two worlds.

Her voice is a passport.
When she speaks,
the coquí answers from somewhere deep in my chest.
When she cooks,
the kitchen turns into a coastline
sofrito rising like incense,
ancestors pulling up chairs uninvited.

She is not just Puerto Rican.
She is Puerto Rico remembering itself
inside an apartment far from home.

I didn’t learn the island by geography.
I learned it by watching her.
By the way she believes in spirits and signs,
by the way she trusts intuition more than directions,
by the way she knows when something is wrong
before it’s ever said out loud.

She is my spiritual bridge
a woman who crossed water
so I wouldn’t have to drown.

Through her, I touch land
I wasn’t born on
but still recognize as mine.
Through her prayers,
the island finds me
even in New York concrete,
even in English sentences,
even in moments I feel split.

She teaches me that roots don’t disappear
just because they grow elsewhere.
They stretch.
They adapt.
They survive.

My mother stands between past and future,
between island and city,
between what was sacrificed
and what was dreamed.

And when I feel lost
when I wonder where I belong
I remember

I am not far from Puerto Rico.
I am one heartbeat away.
I am her child.
And she is the bridge
that brought the island to me.