Stories from the Stage

LISA ABELAR: I'd look at him and I'd look at the water, and then I'd look at him and I'd look at the water, and at some point, he said, "You know, the story's better if you jump."

DANIEL GONZALEZ: Their Spanish sounds perfect.

They're rolling their Rs like they were born with special tongues.

I am so envious.

SHARE HURTS: From the front of the room to the back of the room, I can see myself reflected everywhere.

It was just breathtaking.

THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Flourishing in the Desert."

ANNOUNCER: This episode of Stories from the Stage was recorded at Arizona PBS.

- The deserts of the American Southwest can be harsh and unforgiving.

But with the small amount of rain that the desert gets, there's, like, life that flourishes there.

And after each rain, there's all these bright and beautiful flowers that color the desert.

And just like the flowers that bloom there, there is human life there, as well.

Tonight's storytellers are visitors and residents of the American Southwest who are telling their stories about thriving in this landscape.

ABELAR: My name is Lisa Abelar.

I am a born and raised Michigan girl that transplanted to Arizona.

By day, I'm a writer, and try to find adventure or be outside as much as possible.

And I understand that you share quite a bit about being a mom and an adventurer on your Instagram?

- My personal Instagram, for sure, but then also we have an outdoor Instagram called Raising Outdoor Kids, where we just share our outdoor adventures as a way to try to inspire other people to do things that may seem difficult, but really, like, you can do it.

And with kids, you know, because they might think that kids aren't able to do certain things yet, but we're doing it, so if we're doing it, others can do it.

So tonight's theme is "Flourishing in the Desert."

What does that theme mean for you?

To flourish and to be given the opportunity or the chance to kind of have the doors of the world open up when they had been closed for so long, that's what it means for me.

I mean, to be able to find out who you are, what you like, where you want to go, and then just to be able to do it without any interference is magic to me, and I can't stop.

Six years ago, I walked out of an R.E.I.

store with my arms full of gear I had no idea how to use.

I had a fresh receipt for a water bladder, which the sales guy told me would hold my water for me on my back and gave me a little straw to drink it from as I hiked.

And I ran home, and I overpacked my rented backpack with everything I thought I would need for my first-ever backpacking trip, which was going to be a four-day excursion to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and over to Havasupai Falls, this magical oasis of waterfalls that almost impossibly just pop up out of the desert in this remote corner of the canyon, and they run with this water that is just a perfect crystal-blue.

And I didn't really know what I was doing as a backpacker, obviously, but I knew in that moment that I really needed this adventure.

So I just reminded myself of that as I looked down at my beat-up Adidas sneakers and I started down the switchbacks that would take me to this pretty grueling ten-mile hike across the canyon floor and over to my campground.

And as I settled into the hike, and I knew it was going to take a few hours, so I really didn't want to start thinking about getting hungry or getting tired or getting sore.

So I put all my energy behind thinking about, like, big think topics, you know, like, "Where have you been, Lise?"

And, "What have you been through "and what have you learned, and where do you want to go, and what do you want?"

And I just, I was, like, determined to Eat, Pray, Love my way through this hike, so... (audience chuckling) After a bit of hiking, I just said, "I want someone who is captivated by me," just out loud, to the Grand Canyon.

Nobody around, just said it to a rock.

And I don't normally, like, make a habit of talking to rocks, but in that moment, I felt like the universe really needed to hear me say that, because at that time in my life, I was in the process of leaving an abusive marriage, and I was going through, like, a really terrifying divorce.

To be down in the Grand Canyon and be surrounded with these rock walls that were thousands of feet tall, I just...

It almost felt like this odd, freeing fortress of some kind.

Like, on the one hand, I was completely untouchable by and protected from this one person, and on the other hand, I was in this big new world that had suddenly opened for me, and I could say yes-- even to that trip, saying yes was a huge deal.

And I could be in a space that was free of chaos and full of peace and gave me the space to actually hear my own thoughts for the first time in years.

And I think that those two ingredients together really fueled my spirit of adventure on that trip, because I did everything.

Like, I, you know, hiked across these tiny little footbridges with rushing water under them, and I crawled through these caves to get to these waterfalls, and some of the waterfalls were 100 feet tall.

And shimmied down these rickety ladders and used these slippery chains to get to where I needed to be.

And I think that's how I found myself, on the very last day, standing on a very small ledge overlooking a waterfall, wondering if I should jump.

And this waterfall was the first jumpable waterfall we had come to.

All the other ones were, like, certain death.

They were way too tall.

This one was maybe 20 or 30 feet, but, looking over the edge, felt a lot taller than that.

And as I'm looking at that water underneath my feet and just thinking about my kids and copays and deductibles and all the bad things that could happen, I looked to my right for a moment and I locked eyes with this guy Ron, who was part of the hiking group, and he was just, he was waiting for his turn to jump.

And when I looked back at the water, I thought, how in the world had I not noticed until now how all-consuming his big, brown eyes were?

(audience chuckling) Like, I hadn't noticed them the day before, when we were at Beaver Falls, and I was writing all of my life's chaos in my journal, and he leaned over and asked what I was writing.

And I didn't notice them the first night-- I sat right next to him at a restaurant.

But now, on the edge of this waterfall, his eyes seemed to be everything I needed.

So my eyes struck up this silent conversation with his eyes and just kept asking them if I should stay or if I should jump.

And so I'd look at him and I'd look at the water, and then I'd look at him, and I'd look at the water.

And at some point, he broke the silence and said, "You know, the story is better if you jump."

(audience laughs) And before I could think of anything witty to say, he was standing directly in front of me, facing me on this very small ledge, and he looked down at me and he just said, "Hi."

And I looked up and I was, like... (voice shakes): "Hi."

And a couple of seconds later, he bent his knees and jumped backwards off that ledge into the water.

And about a minute or two later, I followed him forward in, you know, off the ledge into the water, in this gigantic physical leap of faith on my part, which turned into this unexpected emotional leap of faith for both of us.

Because after we hiked out of that canyon, both Ron and I recognized, like, there was some energy exchanged on the top of that waterfall.

And, you know, even though we both had our own things going on-- I had my own personal tornado on the sidelines, and I had kids, and he had kids, and he was going through a separation and the whole thing-- we decided we needed to know about each other, and so we just dove in and we just continued that conversation that our eyeballs started on the edge of that waterfall.

And we formed and built this relationship built on adventure and just going for it.

We did everything.

We went to races, we took all of our kids hiking through a bunch of national parks.

We paddled and kayaked down the Colorado at Horseshoe Bend.

And a couple of years ago, we found the perfect deserted beach in Kauai, and we got married and made our adventurous life official.

And I think the coolest part about the whole experience for me is that right when we started dating, Ron had sent me a text message, and it said something about, "I'm just captivated by you."

And it still takes my breath away to this day, because I only told that to the Grand Canyon.

Like, no one heard me say that.

But I just think that it really supports Ron's theory that the story is better if you jump.

And I'm so glad I did.

Thank you.

(audience applauds and cheers) GONZALEZ: My name is Daniel Gonzalez, and I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, went to school in Iowa, and I'm also a journalist.

I've been a journalist now for going on close to four decades.

And I understand you currently write about race, diversity, opportunity, equity for The Arizona Republic.

Can you talk about how that specific focus has impacted the work that you do?

It's a beat that's very, very challenging.

I feel like every story that I work on requires a lot of research and understanding, because there are so many different kind of nuances and different communities to write about.

Arizona is a very diverse state.

If anything, I always say to myself, "This is a job that I could spend a lifetime doing and never write about all the stories that are out there."

What is it like for you to be sharing your own story tonight?

GONZALEZ: Being a journalist, it almost becomes like a shield, because you're always asking other people questions, and you never really have to bare your own soul.

Mm-hmm.

So it's, it's good to have this opportunity to kind of be on the other side.

I'm sitting in a classroom with my wife, Liz, in an old building somewhere in Syracuse, New York.

Liz has signed us up to learn Spanish, and it's the first day of class.

Now, I haven't sat in a classroom for ten years, since I was in college.

Liz is really excited.

She lived in Mexico for a year when she was in high school, but she attended an American school, and she didn't really learn Spanish, so she sees this as her shot.

I'm also really excited.

I've been talking about learning Spanish for years.

Now, I'm looking around the classroom at some of the other students, and they're all older adults, like us.

Actually, they're a lot older.

There's the dentist who wants to learn Spanish because he loves to travel in Mexico.

There's the nurse who does volunteer work in Central America, and then there's me.

I'm looking around, and I realize I'm the only Latino in the class.

(audience laughs) I'm the only one with a Spanish last name, Gonzalez.

Not even the teacher is Hispanic.

She's a retired high school teacher with gray hair, and her name is Mrs. Shoudy, but she wants to be called Seora Shoudy.

(audience laughing) Now, she is super-sweet.

Not like that high school teacher I had who flunked me my junior year.

Boy, was my mom mad.

I remember coming home from school and seeing that F on my report card, and my mom saying, "I'm a Spanish teacher and my own son is flunking Spanish?"

Well, there's a reason why I don't speak Spanish.

I'm one of three kids, and we grew up in Chicago.

And when we were little, my Mexican American mom and my Cuban immigrant dad spoke to us mostly in Spanish at home.

But when my older brother got to school, a teacher told my parents, "Stop speaking to them in Spanish.

You're doing them a disservice."

See, back then, the attitude was, "This is America, where we only speak English."

Well, Seora Shoudy starts the class, and I'm hearing the, her Spanish words, and they're sounding really familiar.

A lot of the Spanish that I learned growing up starts to come back, and it's bringing back a lot of feelings.

And I'm thinking to myself, the Spanish-speaking population in the United States is really growing.

And as a Latino, being able to speak Spanish, that could really help my career.

But it's also kind of stirring up a lot of really painful memories that I've had of discrimination and racism that I experienced growing up.

Like when they used to call us spics and gang members when we moved from Chicago to the mostly white suburbs, or when they nicknamed my twin brother and I Spic and Span.

They thought it was funny, but we didn't.

Now, those experiences, those were a real blow to my self-esteem.

They made me actually feel ashamed to be Latino, and it made me not want to speak Spanish.

I just wanted to fit in.

Well, a couple of years later, and now I'm sitting in another classroom, this time on the campus of Syracuse University.

I've just come back from spending three whole months studying Spanish in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

And my Spanish has gotten a lot better, and I'm determined not to lose what I've learned.

So I decide to start taking college courses in Spanish.

And it's the first day of class.

And I'm looking around at the students around me, and they're all way younger than me now.

I'm the only kind of adult professionals in the class.

They're all full-time students.

And I'm also noticing that a lot of them are Latinos and Latinas.

And whenever the professor calls on them, I notice that their Spanish sounds perfect.

They're rolling their Rs like they were born with special tongues.

And their accents are really singsongy and beautiful.

I am so envious.

And it also makes me feel kind of embarrassed that they're going to hear my monotone gringo accent.

But I keep raising my hand every chance that I get.

One day, I'm rushing back to work after class, and I see a bunch of students standing in the hallway, and I recognize that some of them are the Latinas from my class.

And then, right then, I hear one of them say really loud, "I hate the way he speaks Spanish."

And then her friend says, "Who?"

And she points a finger right in my face, and she hisses, "Him."

Well, needless to say, I am mortified.

I'm thinking that they would be really proud to have, see a Latino in their class trying to learn Spanish, but instead, they're making fun of me.

And in some ways, their comments are more painful than the racial slurs that I heard growing up.

But I don't give up.

If anything, it makes me more determined than ever to learn Spanish.

Well, it's been more than 20 years since I sat in those classrooms in, in Syracuse, and I now work as a journalist in Phoenix, Arizona, and writing about immigration and the state's huge Latino population gives me the chance to speak Spanish almost every day.

My Spanish has gotten a lot better.

I'm not fluent like those Latino students at Syracuse who grew up speaking Spanish and English, but I can speak pretty well.

Puedo hablar bastante bien.

And, but you know what?

I've realized that you don't have to speak Spanish to be Latino, and it's not your fault if you don't.

I've met a lot of Latinos who don't speak Spanish, but I've also learned that speaking another language, that is power.

That is power that that teacher in Chicago tried to rob, and that is also power that's given me the ability as a bilingual journalist to interview people and tell stories that others can't.

Now, some of those stories were part of a big journalism project that won the Pulitzer in 2018.

And standing on that stage at Columbia University, New York, to help accept the Pulitzer on behalf of our team, that was like a dream come true.

But really, for me, the biggest prize, the biggest reward, was the language and the identity that I reclaimed.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) HURTS: My name is Share Hurts.

I'm originally from the Bay Area in California, living here in Phoenix now.

I work in community affairs with lots of different local nonprofits.

I also teach as an adjunct faculty member at South Mountain Community College, and I'm a full-time mom of two very busy teenagers.

And how did you find your way into storytelling?

My brother took a class in storytelling and told me that he thought it was amazing, recommended that I do it.

And so I took a personal storytelling class, where all the stories, they were about you, and found my voice through that, and just also found storytelling, and I haven't stopped since.

Why do you think that it's important to share stories?

I love storytelling because it allows you to connect with another person.

- Mm-hmm.

My favorite thing is, you can go into a room with 100 people who don't know each other.

Once one person tells that story, after the story, there's at least ten people who want to talk to them.

(chuckles) - (gasps): "That same thing happened to me," or "I know exactly where you're talking about."

That level of connection, it just, to me, is why we're going through the human experience together and we can learn from one another with those connections.

There I was, standing in front of my '92 Nissan Stanza with all of my belongings packed inside of my car.

My grandmother, she wanted to take one last photo before we hit the road.

So she asked us to come in the back of the car because if you looked in the rear view mirror, you could see all my things smooshed up against that rear view mirror.

We took the photo, I said my goodbyes to my grandmother, and then we hit the road.

I started to get a little sad after a while, and my boyfriend said, "It was really cool "how your grandma said she wanted to get one last photo of us before we left."

I knew my grandmother did not have but one reason for that photo, and that was she was getting the car, the license plate... (audience laughing) ...and a physical description of the man I was leaving with in case something happened to me.

(audience laughs) I knew I was going to be missed.

When I first told my family I was moving to Arizona, they didn't quite understand.

To them, Phoenix was this hot, dry desert with no Black people in it.

And there was some truth to that.

But when I came out to visit, I just noticed how beautiful the mountains were.

And there was a peace, and a quiet, and a calm, that I really thought, I could create a life for myself where I could be independent and I can flourish.

However, leaving Oakland, California, a place steeped in Black culture and community, to come to Phoenix in the '90s required some sacrifice on my part.

I think I had been out here not long, and my mother came to see me for a visit.

After a few days, my mother asked me, "Where are all the Black people?"

(audience chuckles) And I told her that she would see them on Sunday, when we went to church.

After my mother caught her flight back home, her question stayed with me, because Monday through Saturday, there was a gap.

And if I'm being honest, I felt the loneliness of that gap finding my way on my own.

See, I had never lived more than 30 miles from the high school I graduated from.

I was friends with people that I had known since I was this big.

I was from a big family who were always doing things together.

I had a sense of belonging.

I knew every place I could go to get my hair done, no matter how I wanted it done.

I knew all the places that I could go for the best barbecue.

I know exactly where the spot was to get the catfish or some wonderful peach cobbler.

And I also knew where to go to meet people and mix it up and mingle.

All those things that the locals take for granted.

In Phoenix, I had to seek those things out.

And I had friends that I met through school or from work, but it was very different.

And I always still felt like there was a little something missing.

And so sometimes I would just fly back home, go back to California, or I would go visit some friends in Chicago or Atlanta, and I would get there, and I would soak in that culture, where people look like me and talk like me, and understood what I was saying and where I was coming from.

And then I would get on a plane and go back to Phoenix, and keep building the bricks of my life in Arizona.

And there were times where I wished that it didn't take all that.

I wished that I wasn't the only person who was at my job on my floor who looked like me.

I remember one time, I was riding around town with a coworker who was white, and we were in a golf cart, no less, in downtown Phoenix.

We were heading over to another facility of our job, getting some materials, when we see this Black man who was standing on the street in a suit.

And he sees us, and he stops, and he looks.

And he smiles.

And I smile and I wave.

And my coworker said, "Do you know him?

That guy looked at you like he knew you."

And I said, "No, I actually don't know him personally.

"But he's acknowledging that he sees me.

"He's acknowledging my presence, "because he knows that it's probably been days "since one of us have seen someone who looks like us.

"And we're not taking for granted "that you're just going to bump into somebody "who's like you or looks like you "or understands where you're coming from "every single day on the streets of downtown Phoenix.

So, no, I don't know him personally."

There were times where I didn't feel that, where I was, like, "When was the last time when I felt like I had been seen?"

And there was a struggle there, where sometimes it was just me at home with the popcorn and a glass of red wine.

Missing home, missing family, missing belonging.

One year, I decided to go to a Juneteenth festival, and I got really excited, because I knew I was going to be seeing new people and get a chance to meet new people.

And I was really surprised at the turnout.

And I wondered to myself, "Where is everyone?"

Like, "Is this normal?"

In the Bay Area, an event like that, the crowd would be so thick, you wouldn't even be able to see through it.

After that, I decided I needed to be more intentional.

So I joined the employee resource group at work.

I got on the planning committee for our Black heritage celebration, which was this big event they did every single year.

And I started to meet people.

I met people from different parts of the organization, people from different generations, people who started to teach me and educate me on the Black history that actually did exist in Phoenix.

And I started to meet different people and learn about nonprofit organizations and I started to volunteer with them.

I started to make friends with community organizers.

I started to get mentored by community leaders.

I started to find myself giving back to students who were coming behind me.

And I even became a regular every Saturday morning at Eastlake Park, taking African dance classes from Kawambe.

Pieces of the community that I belonged to started to surface and become clear to me.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine invited me to a women's prayer breakfast.

This was hosted by the same church I had taken my mother to 20 years ago.

The color was purple, and the theme was sisterhood.

I get to the hotel, and everywhere I'm starting to see women in different shades of purple, and they are dressed to the nines, the older women with their hats.

All of the outfits were fierce.

And as I'm going up into the elevator, getting to that ballroom, there are this huge display of letters that spell out "sisters."

It's lit with light from the bottom.

Women are taking pictures.

It's like a fashion show.

It is amazing.

I am seeing women that I haven't seen in a long time.

I'm greeting people, people are greeting me.

Strangers are hugging me like they know me with this familiar warmth.

From the front of the room to the back of the room, I can see myself reflected everywhere.

And I'm reveling in this diversity, because the beauty of it, it was just breathtaking.

After the prayer breakfast, I'm walking back to my car and I'm just soaking in all that Black girl magic, all that joy that I had just seen.

And I know that come Monday, mm, I may only see a handful of them.

But I do know at this point that we will be walking in community together.

Thank you.

(applauding)