I DESERVE IT ALL: A MANIFESTO FROM THE GARDEN

An essay by Mariana Cid De Leon Ovalle
with lyrics by Kendrick Lamar

Manifestation isn’t a paycheck, a promotion, or a metric. I remind myself of this because some days it feels like everything I do is being scored. The work I do, the life I lead, the spaces I create exist — I think — outside capitalism’s lens. Even saying that makes me wonder if I’m naive. That lens is restrictive by design, yes, but how much of it is also in my head? 

Cars, vacation spots, houses, 401(k)s, being debt - free — all promise stability, hinging on the willingness to sacrifice everything. Maybe the sacri fice is what keeps it appealing. Maybe I’m just noticing that now. 

A decade ago, a friend changed my perspective with one sentence: “If I waited to be debt - free to have a vacation, I’d never go.” At first, I bristled. Fun wasn’t supposed to be unearned. Th en it hit me: we had been taught that fun always had to be earned. 

I’m still carrying debt, still navigating the stress it brings, but letting go of the pressure to manifest a debt - free life has changed something in me. Manifestation is messy, unpredictable, and not always explainable. Maybe that’s enough. It’s lineage, creativity, community, self - actualization, and... I don’t know, maybe trusting life to unfold without constantly measuring outcomes. Sometimes it’s bending skies, oceans, and stars to your rhy thm; sometimes it’s just trying not to collapse under expectations 

(I am building doors I can walk through without waiting for the world to provide me one.) 

I manifested my dream job without realizing I was aiming for it — not because it pays a fat check, but because it nourishes me. I have never felt more alive or at ease than I do now as a teaching artist. Manifestation isn’t measured by wealth or accumulation. It shows up in joy, presence, and creation. I don’t hold those perfectly (joy slips, presence wavers) but the knowing grounds me, even when I wonder if it’s enough. 

My parents’ histories shaped my understanding of manifestation. My father sold gum on the streets of Ciudad Victoria at five, yet found ways to stay in school. My mother grew up in blue - collar poverty in Monterrey, leaving middle school to work 

full - time, yet persisted in forging her own path. They created a life in this country, and the manifestation I am today is inseparable from their resilience, sacrifice, and ingenuity. Some days, I w onder if I carry it well enough. 

“A better life for my daughter. Made my son take it further than his father. Yeah, he deserves it all.” 

For me, manifestation is also about partnership and community; it is collaborative, generative, and cyclical. We do not own a home, we do not have a giant savings account, and for over a decade we had only one car in a city where cars are essential. Yet we manifested experiences, adventures, and shared joy, for ourselves and our children — even before we finally got th at second car. Still I catch myself on Zillow, scrolling, feeling like I’ll never afford them. 

“One hundred murals out in Compton. Remember me? I kept my promise." 

When I have access, safety, or resources, I feel a responsibility to pour that abundance back. I’m still figuring out what that actually looks like. Lately, I sit with the possibility that sometimes all I’m doing is planting a seed, and I don’t get to decide if (or when) I ever see it bloom. 

“A sound body and tranquility, I deserve it all.” 

It also inhabits the body, and mine carries invisible disabilities, yet it’s the container of all I am. Body neutrality — honoring it as a vessel for experience, expression, resistance — is radical, hard, frustrating, and imperfect. Still, it manifests me as a woman who knows she deserves it all, regardless of societal expectations. Yes, some days I feel frustrated with my body’s limits, but I remind myself that my worth does not come from perfection. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy music, make art, dance, or feel the sun. 

Creative practice is the most tangible way I live this principle. Essays, poems, mood boards, music, lyrics, watercolors, dancing — rituals where imagination manifests into the material. Manifestation, outside capitalism, looks less like accumulation and more like lineage, creativity, community, and self - actualization. It shows up in ancestors’ work, in nurturing children, in honoring my body, and in slowly constructing worlds never built with me in mind. It’s learning to recognize myself and making that visible, even when uncomfortable. 

A cushy job or a fancy car can come from manifestation, sure, but they aren’t proof. It feels bigger than that. Like the universe itself, it doesn’t stay inside the confines we build. 

Manifestation is about releasing the pressure capitalism presses into every corner of life and making space for something else to move through. It’s about trying to be in relationship with the tides of life, learning when to move with them, and when to brace as they push back. 

I am here. I am claiming space, sometimes clumsily, sometimes with conviction. I am creating worlds, even when I’m not sure what they’ll become. I am trying not to wait for permission from the universe or anyone else. 

“I deserve it all.” Even while still l earning what “all” really means.