Free Waking Up in the Land of Glitter by Kathy Cano-Murillo Page B

nightstand.
    Dori leaned over Star to inspect the finished piece. “M’ija, it’s lovely. It certainly has the shine.”
    “The shine?” Star asked, rubbing her eyes.
    “Yes. The love shine. When something is full of so much positive energy, it glows—and practically levitates with joy. Like
     a mother who has just given birth, or love at first sight, or making something beautiful with your two hands.”
    “You don’t think it looks too crafty?” Star asked.
    “Love it. It’s fantastic.”
    “Thanks, Mom,” Star said before she yawned, faced her mother, and took the cup. The sun would be out soon. The thought made
     her giddy. It meant her plan for Theo was only sixteen hours away.
    “M’ija,” Dori said. “I want to give you something to go with your cajita. It’s a poem your father wrote for me on the night
     of our first date. We spent a summer at the Omega Institute and went to this tiny vegan café for a poetry night all about
     apartheid. That was before it was abolished of course. Ah… it was such a romantic night.”
    Star smiled. She had never heard the story of her parents’ first date. “The Omega Institute? Isn’t that like a holistic hippie
     retreat back East or something?”
    “Yes. In the grassy woods of Rhinebeck, New York,” Dori said, gazing dreamily at the ceiling as if there were beautiful butterflies
     floating about. “Next month is our twenty-fifth anniversary. Maybe I’ll surprise your father and take him back there…”
    “Tell me about this poem,” Star said after taking a sip and resting her chin on her mom’s shoulder. Dori kissed her cheek
     and slipped away. When she came back, she put on her geek-chic granny glasses and reached in her hemp terry-cloth bathrobe
     pocket. She unfolded an aged piece of stationery and read the verses slow and soft. It was the most enchanting prose ever
     to grace Star’s multipierced ears.
    “Wow. Daddy sure had a way with words. I’m going to write that poem on the back of my shrine.”
    Dori grasped Star’s dark-skinned hands and lowered her head in prayer. Star made a quizzical face and didn’t budge.
    “Dear goddesses of the universe, Aztec Warrior Angels and Lord almighty—hear my call. Please watch over my happy star. Protect
     her, guide her, let this warm summer night be remarkable, amazing, and fantastical. Let the beautiful shrine bring power to
     all who admire it. Let it bring respect, truth, and above all, eternal love.”
    It was too much for Star. She threw her arms around her mom’s body. “I love you. Thank you.”
    “Many blessings with Theo, it will all go well,” Dori said as she approached the doorway to leave. She stopped, raised her
     fist in the air, which caused her stack of Guatemalan friendship bracelets to slide down her thin arm. “If not, your father
     and I will kick his ass.”

8
    A nother stupid craft fair down the drain,” Ofie whined, loading her rejected, misunderstood crafts in the van. She calculated
     the investment: a fifty-dollar entry fee, one hundred and fifty dollars for the eight-week ceramics course, and another forty
     dollars in supplies—all for a bunch of bird-brained shoppers to mistake her terra-cotta luminarias for pineapple paperweights.
     One guy had the nerve to ask if preschoolers made them!
    Ofie sat up straight and recited one of her favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes to lift her spirits. “What lies behind us,
     and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
    There. Now she felt all better.
    She started the ignition and accepted her next mission: to spend her last fifty dollars on groceries, and somehow make it
     look like one hundred dollars’ worth.
    “It’ll be fine,” Ofie rationalized in her minivan, which she affectionately called the Craftmobile. With the faded hula girl
     air freshener as her witness, Ofie reasoned aloud while driving to the store. Her life would improve once the craft group
     formed. Being around