I have never stopped leaving; I will never fully arrive

My writing obsession: "Ni de aquí ni de allá"

Writer in-training, circa early 1990s. Grunge phase in full effect.

I’ve realized, I haven’t been completely honest with you here. A straight lie of omission. For that, I am sorry. My parents did not raise a liar, so I will correct this immediately.

There is an important part of my life that I have not yet opened up about on this platform. You see, I have included no where on this page that I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. English is not my first language (so you will se a lot of misused prepositions here… “at”s where there should be “in”s). I came to the States for college X many years ago (a lady never tells).

Ok Ale, why are you brining this up now?

Well, two reasons:

1) We have to create some intimacy here, reader. I think after I told you about my love of emo music and how I’m getting over my burnout, I owe you some more defining features of who I am and what made me this way. It’s like learning about someone’s secret and not knowing their name. It makes for a riveting meet-up in a bar bathroom, but not an intimate relationship.

2) I am using this space as an experiment and a place to practice my writing. You know, like a friendly tennis match. But I have not posted my “core” work here. But it’s time to reveal that core, my writing “obsession” as they call it. The tennis tournament I’m working towards.

I am working on dissecting and metabolizing my experience of migrating from Venezuela to the US. In a way, I have been trying to do that since before I left. I had a short lived blog trying to chronicle this transition that started before I left for college. There have been other attempts to “think on the page” about this experience, but they’ve never really coagulated. I don’t even know where I can find them. I am now convinced that I needed the space, distance, and the time to weave that experience with words. To be able to look at it and commit to it. But I still haven’t felt ready to share it here. This work is precious. It needs to be handled with extra care. I hope you can forgive me for being guarded as we get acquainted.

I have been operating from the “things happen for a reason” principle as of late, and letting go of my a need to control. It has been work. Part of the amorphous nature of this endeavor of writing has left me wondering if there is any there there. Are my words just the ramblings of someone who has paid too much for therapy? Is this all a little foolish, self-centered? Sometimes you do need something to nod in your direction to keep you going: call it external validation, call it a sign.

And I got one. I got accepted to the Winter 2024 Tin House Workshop.

I want to start by thanking all the spaces that have helped me cultivate and explore this curiosity of writing. I wouldn’t be fed without them. That includes the spaces that have held me over the last months, that I mention at the end of this post. That includes my friends and my family, who have had to deal with revisiting past moments and answering strange questions. That includes you, readers here, that have interacted with my work in any way. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

When I read the acceptance email I was floored (after I reread it a bunch of times and jumped up and down on the sidewalk, like a full on romcom). I had applied because if there’s something I’ve learned while job searching is that you can’t get accepted if you don’t apply. La esperanza es lo último que se pierde¹. I thought applying would be good practice at least. I am not a classically or academically trained writer. Does publishing in The Journal of Neuroscience count as a publication? I am trained as an engineer and a scientist. I used to work in software. My personal writing is driven by intuition and gut, not any subject matter expertise in craft. It feels like I’ve been trained to do the opposite of creative non-fiction. Heck, this isn’t even my first language.

But maybe there is some there there, reader.

I will leave you with pieces of my artist statement: why me and why this. I cannot dictate what there there is for you, but I hope you read into it the sincerity and seriousness I am approaching my work with:

“I write to make sense, and with that sense bring peace. My writing is an exploration of what it means to leave the place where you have been born and raised and to become of some new, other place. I am of Venezuela, where I was born, but every day become more of the United States, where I went. I have never stopped leaving and I will never fully arrive. Ni de aquí ni de allá, we say in Spanish. My experience feels unique, but I am not alone. I want to communicate that immigrants are not a binary: from here or from elsewhere, but a spectrum of experiences across us and within us. We break quantum physics by being in more than two places at once. We are the ghosts of our ancestors and the hope of our children.

I see my work as part of a wave of artists exploring and making sense of our experience as part of the ever-growing Venezuelan migrant diaspora. I hope that sharing my stories will make those going through something similar feel like they have made a friend in their journey, and those who view my life as a completely foreign existence feel less afraid of those of us leaving our homes to find peace.”

I am excited to share more of my main project here soon as it takes shape and becomes its own life form. I hope you’ll join me.

1. Hope is the last thing you lose