200. Beans

Leticia Ochoa Adams grew up watching her female family members sort beans when preparing for a big, family meal. She always hated this chore, but lately, she’s been seeing the beauty in carefully preparing beans for the people she loves.

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Leticia: Last weekend I found myself standing over a sink sorting pinto beans for my daughter in law’s birthday party the next day. Sorting beans is something that women in my family have been doing for at least a hundred years that I know of. most of my memories of my Tias and grandmother’s sorting beans almost always involved them laughing while doing this really stupid chore. 

I hated cleaning beans for most of my life. I thought it was this thing that poor women did. Some chore given to us by the patriarchy who for some reason loved to eat beans at parties.. I used to swear that it would never be me. Nope. I do not know what I thought I would be doing for parties because I could not see past this very demeaning chore. And then I found myself cleaning beans, making sure there were no broken ones or rocks, which does not to be the kind of issue that it was once upon a time. 

Beans are a staple of any Hispanic party. Now as matriarchy slowly makes its way towards me, it is me who is standing up at midnight when my back hurts and I am so tired from working and planning cleaning these little beans so that we can celebrate a life in the family. How many times did a woman with an aching back sort beans for me? For sure my wedding, the birth of my first child and at least one birthday. Not to mention all the millions of times my mother did it so that I would have something to eat on an ordinary day that was not a party. I for sure have taken those ordinary times for granted. How many times was love for me shown over a sink with a bag of pinto beans? More than I can count. I used to wish that I could have proof that my mother loved me all while I looked over the way that she did love me by all kinds of things she did for me but for sure the many many nights that she stood in the kitchen after a 12 hours shift at the nursing home to clean a pot of beans for me.  All  of her hopes and dreams that I would be ok poured into that task. And here I am, ok and pouring my own hopes and dreams into a pot of beans. That is just it, it is the little things that lead us to the okay. The love of a mother, grandmother, mother in law, that help us get to where we are when we are sure that we will never move forward and be stuck in the awful forever, but we wont be. We will move forward. It will be ok. As ok as a clean pot of beans ready to be put in the pot to cook. A chore handed down by women who love me, not the patriarchy trying to control me. It is in that knowledge that I can rest in my ok.