The prologue of the memoir “When I was Puerto Rican” is titled “How to eat a guava.” If you have ever eaten a guava, you know that it is “yellow, although some varieties have a pink tinge. The skin is thick, firm, and sweet. Its heart is bright pink and almost solid with seeds. The most delicious part of the guava surrounds the tiny seeds. If you don’t know how to eat a guava, the seeds end up in the crevices between your teeth.”

With this picturesque description, Esmeralda Santiago introduces us to her life in her first memoir. On Sept. 23, she spoke to an audience of more than 300 people in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. She introduced us to her world by reading that excerpt which describes and compares the guavas in Puerto Rico with the guavas at the Shop & Save in New York.

As she was reading, I could see the guava, I could smell it and I could taste it. And as she read the phrase “I had my last guava the day we left Puerto Rico,” my eyes filled with tears, and I was transported to the island of my early years.

I could feel and taste the salty breeze that caressed my face the last day I stood on the beach in Puerto Rico. I also remembered that first drive to the Luis Mu¤oz Mar¡n International Airport, the drive that changed my points of view and perspective forever.

If you have traveled to a place where not a lot of people look like you, dress like you or have the same accent as you, returning home represents comfort — your familiar ways of life.

However, at many times, you will be considered an outsider. Someone will notice a different accent even when you speak the same language and slang.

Even if you eat the same things and dance the same dances, you will be the outsider or the visitor. And if you decide to stay, your points of view might be too different from everyone else’s.

Santiago described that feeling of solitude and not being able to fit in at her school when she moved with her huge family to New York. She described the same feeling when she wasn’t able to fit in when she returned to Puerto Rico.

By not being accepted, she said in her lecture, she realized how important it was for her to stand as an individual. She needed to stand up for herself and her views. No one had lived her life, so no one would fully understand her points of view. She said that not everyone is going to like her, but that is OK because she is who she is, an individual.

She described how her writing career began. Once married, she moved to a town where the only Latinas she encountered were nannies.

She then started writing personal pieces she never thought would be read until one day the editor of the town shopping guide, who was her friend, convinced her to publish them there. The shopping guide started receiving letters from people who identified with her situation and those letters sparked more writing.

However, she said, she didn’t realize she was a writer until she received her first book in the mail. When that happened, she also realized that she had been carrying that book with her most of her life.

We all have a story we can call our own. We can all write our own life by deciding for ourselves.

Many have wasted a lot of time watching TV shows or movies and then trying to live the life they have seen.

Although some movies, books and TV shows serve as inspiration, why not focus on living our own lives?

One of my friends once said that in this world we either live or watch.

I’d rather act and live than sit and watch.