Blisters? What is this?

I think it's time for a new post. I know I have been MIA for a couple of months now. I graduated, have moved back home, and just completed my first on-campus interview, I think it's time. Many in the social justice and multicultural realm would characterize this move as a "re-entry" process. I know I will encounter the phases of the culture shock cycle, but the toughest part about going through this cycle is not having a job or the finances to 'medicate' what I might experience. Culture shock in VT was cured by hanging out with friends in the near by park, or hosting dinner parties, or putting a few hours at the gym, or simply taking up retail-therapy . . . all the luxuries of the privileged life. I have been spoiled. I have been spoiled rotten for almost seven years living in apartments with central air where the most spacious apt was a duplex. Mopping, sweeping, and gardening were no big deal. Just grab a vaccuum for a few minutes and house chores were done.
Today I find myself back in the confines of my home, where reality sits back in to place. I cannot simply ignore the struggles my family has endured and continues to endure in the politics-ridden communities of south Texas, not to mention its like that every where else. Anyhow, I am an individual who experiences anxiety if I am not cleaning, or feel as if something needs to be cleaned but I cannot pin-point what exactly. I have to have something in my hands, television or computer games will not cut it for me. A sense of accomplishment, even if at the smallest sense, is needed for me to avoid this angst. The other day, I woke up with the want to clean the home, thus I began to sweep. With two pups and a cat inside the house, I know what it takes to clean a home after owning two hairy cats in a closed apartment. I began to sweep and quickly felt a sense of accomplishment and looked forward to sitting down to continue the stress-filled job search (which I hope to have one by the end of the summer, fingers crossed). After a few minutes in, I began to experience the pain of what would soon become a blister . . .
I got a blister the first week I came back home to Texas when I was helping my mother with yard work. What is this? I thought. After working in the fields for 16 years, I never thought I would see a blister. Gloria Anzaldua, in her book "Borderlands", calls us valley Latinas the New Mestiza, La Nueva Mestiza. I consider myself, my sisters, and my mother, the new mestiza. We live in a place where we straddle lower/working class and lower middle class. Where we straddle between the use of central air and window units. Where we straddle raising one dog outside and two inside (in the Latino household inside pets are not common). Where we straddle between enjoying a family night out or a family night in with nachos and flammin' hots. Where we straddle between computer, desk, and classroom jobs and outside gardening and inside household work. Where we straddle between the responsibilities of female and male gender roles. Where we straddle between our identities of latina, americana, mexicana, and tejana. We are a houselhold of nueva mestizas.
When I am outside helping my mother with her rose bushes and trees, and everything a green thumb comes with, I think about my grandmas and their powerful and wise cuerpos. My guela Maria, my mom's aunt, came from Mexico with my mom in tow when my mother was only 7 years old (i think it was seven). She never learned to drive and always depended on others for transportation, OR she would just walk. After my grandfather passed away, she continued to fend for their place for 10 more years. During those ten years, she was diagnosed with diabetes, breast cancer, and other health related problems. But never in those ten years did she falter in helping her daughters out when they needed her help. In the fall of 1999, my family decided to head back up north for the winter season to work in the factories, leaving behind my older sister. It was her first year in HS and did not want to lose her marching spot. Instead of staying at our house, my grandma volunteered to walk every mornig to prepare my sister for school and every evening to wait for her when she arrived from band practice. My grandma is all sorts of poderosa.
My guela Ma, in my father's side, is known for raising children right. If you wanted your child to change their attitude, send them to guela Ma who is down the road. For years, when we migrated, she would stay behind and care for all the children. (Mind you we were a handful . . . roughly 12 kids). My grandma worked the fields until she could and until the kids got to be too many. I remember her disciplining us, mainly the boys, through scary story tactics like la llorona y el cu cui, or through feeding us our much needed vegetables, and putting us to clean the house. If our parents worked for our living, we had to work for ours too . . . The mentality of Americans (at least working/lower class American: Pull yourself from your boot straps and then you will achieve the american dream).
Bien poderosas mis abuelas. Now onto my mother. My mother transitioned from the migrant lifestyle to the secretarial lifestyle in the late 90's. But she never forgot who she was and where she came from. She remains true to her roots teaching us the lessons of hard work and dedication, just as she was taught. Although she doesn't know it, she's a nature child at heart. She loves the outdoors, at least the evenings that's for sure. My stress reliever is cleaning, her's is gardening. In knowing all our complications, all our bills, and our heart/head aches, the least I can do is help her out in relieving her stress, and mine at the same time. A clean, weed-free yard is as stress relieving for me as it is for her. But how will I ever continue helping her if I continue to get these so-called blisters? How will my hands, calloused at the wrist from typing, become calloused from working outside? Have my hands become 'middle-class' hands? What does it mean to be the New Mestiza when my hands have smoothed out? Or has my working-class roots been smoothed out?
One hyphenated word: Re-entry.