Gabby Rivera
Writer. Speaker. Storyteller.
Wow, so many layers of time, place, emotion! “My memories can only explain so much, so I have many questions.” I feel you on that kind of questioning, on the layers of perspective – feeling and questioning with and through memory, experience, perspective, conversations. I keep coming back to this line: “You didn’t raise me, but I still carry your softness and devotion from the before.” It is such deep, sacred work to hold and consider all of these layers in relationship and lineage.
I feel struck by and curious about place, relationships to place, and how place relates to the relationships you’re naming and exploring (partly as someone who also grew up in The Bronx): blooming on the sidewalk cracks on the other side of Soundview; the burning Bronx and the lingering smoke; looking at Manhattan from The Bronx; Nuyorican, Puerto Rican; and the smaller places within that – church, the kitchen table. I love how these details situate your stories, you in them, invite the reader into them with you.