One winter day, in a dumpster in that alley, surrounded by bar trash, spent heroin needles and the cold wide world, a baby rat first opened its eyes. A rainy winter day, not long after, not long enough at all, a baby rat went to sleep, for the last time, next to a tree and a rock, on a patch of dirt.
Is it more tempting to think about what the baby rat experienced on the short time it spent here among us? Or about what the baby rat would have lived through had a dispassionate world not neglected and so cruelly betrayed its most vulnerable? What it would have accomplished? How happy it could’ve been?
You see, the baby rat anxiously scavenged the dumpsters for food. Baby rats have tiny hearts and those must always beat anxiously. The baby rat did not want for acknowledgement, kinship, success, or even love. Baby rat hearts are far too tiny for any of that. No, the baby rat’s happiness, if it can even be called that, came at times where an ever-returning pursuit to pacify its bare necessities ceased for a moment.
There must have been satiety when it could drink from the small puddles that would form between the street and the sidewalk after a thirty minute 4 PM drizzle that would, some ten blocks away, cause some city bus to be delayed, and some hard-working parent would be late picking their kid up from soccer practice, again.
There must have been joy when it bit into a two day old piece of hotdog some drunk college kid dropped on their way between the bars and the after party, where they hoped they’d finally meet someone they liked who liked them back, but they’d just awkwardly hold a drink in their hand on some corner the entire night, go home alone and beat themselves up because they were too sad to even cry.
There must have been warmth when it slept sharing a wet, torn blanket with a homeless person who stopped half a milligram away from an overdose because the world is big and the pain it brings is even bigger, and when you live on the open streets the house you live in is so big the loneliness is ever bigger, and when there is nothing anyone is willing to do to save you, you have to find ways to make it all smaller. And your heart is not small like a baby rat’s so it can beat slower and louder and it does want for acknowledgement, kinship, success, and love and it pains and longs and just can’t understand why it can’t have any of it.
One day it was too cold and the baby rat found a place to sleep. Next to a rock, next to a tree, in a patch of dirt within an ocean of concrete so the rock, and the tree and the rat and the dirt, and the concrete, would not sleep alone. The baby rat was innocent and it deserved to have all of these things to protect it. It deserved to have them show it why something many, many years before any of this came to be moved the way it had to move so the baby rat would eventually take its first breath.
It rained too hard that night. The rat that would’ve woken up unalone and protected instead remained asleep, this time forever, embraced by the water that was supposed to quench its thirst and instead did what water does and drowned its lungs because it could. It could because there was space in them and water will not be denied its space. The baby rat was hurt by the city that was entrusted with its protection, the city which had provided for it puddles to drink from, dropped pieces of hot dog to nibble on, and wet torn blankets to sleep under. The baby rat never had a chance.
The next day my dog found a peacefully resting rat, not a month old, who lived a life spanning two city blocks, lying in a puddle. He tried to say hello. I said, “No buddy, let’s let the baby rat have its rest. She earned it.” And earned it I’m sure she did. She deserved better. Much, much better from this world. My dog and I will keep its vigil while we can, as long as our world does not grow too big and it makes us forget.
One must wonder what a baby rat undrowned, unhurt and unencumbered by the senseless insensibility of the world that birthed it might have done had it been allowed to wake up and scavenge once more. And the day after that, and the day after that.
I guess we’ll never know, and that breaks my heart.
I am going to sleep now, on a bed raised some eight stories, away from the tree, the rock, the patch of dirt, the concrete and the puddles. Tomorrow, once more, I scavenge. And the day after that, and the day after that.
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]]>I have yet to see a broken bone
by means of infection
break another
When hands hold
When legs lock
When arms embrace
Why then has my heart feared
for as long as it has beat broken
that it’s tears and holes
might walk across our chests
jump through heaving breaths
and make yours its home?
Will you hold me responsible?
When our lips touch
If blood rushes
If I let you heal me
And in the process
Your heart breaks too?
It was in a lake of broken glass
That I first learned how to swim
My daddy said “Sink or swim, son”
“Your hands will take you where your heart wants to go”
As he threw me in the deep end
But my hands were new
Not a cut, not a callus
They didn’t yet know
How to follow my heart
In fear I tried to stay still
But bodies always move
And in each small motion
Each shard would make a cut
And so my daddy said
With his hands around his mouth
“It’s cut or be cut, son”
“Neither you nor the glass may choose not to move”
“Only you may choose how to move”
I looked at my hands
They held their own blood
Why would he want this for me?
What did he know?
And I saw the crimson beads pulsate
And my fingers felt it too
I tried to stretch my arm out
But it was my heart that moved
And so my hands paddled
Once for every time my heart beat
Painful strokes at first
Cuts on my palms, my face, my chest
And as I gained speed
The glass began to give way
With time
My strokes learned grace
The sharp glass was made blunt
My cuts became scars
My scars faded, though they never left
And as I passed him
I heard my daddy say
“Now don’t ever stop, son”
“Leave us all in your wake”
If I were to decide
To hike across a dense forest
With a particular destination in mind
And found at some point in my hike
That the color of the earth under my boots
Was as blue as the sky over the trees
I would grab a fistful of that blue
I would put it in my pocket
And I would understand it was time to turn back
And return
Your laughter stopped the autumn in its tracks
Brown leaves, suspended between yesterday and today
I’ll never know if time itself stopped
Or if it was now only you and me running with it
After you I swam in the still vapor on my coffee
I smoked the rays of a motionless neon sun
You vanquished an endless fear in me
In you, forever, solitude
I should’ve understood then
When we lived outside the past and the present
The future I hoped for
Was unlike the one you planned for
Pain then was a new thing
The songs talked about someone else
Pain now is a good friend
The songs I now sing myself
Although my strength is now spent
Although pain boasts its victory every new day
Time and I still running together
Your laughter now frozen with the Fall
Who would’ve known the asphalt would play my mirror?
That in its cracks I would recognize my own scars?
That on its surface I would find the corseness of my tired skin?
I stand over it and I admire it
From a whole “me” away
I can barely help lying face down on it
Intimately looking it in the eyes
Imagining the reflection and I are one and the same
We are not the same
Tomorrow the road crews will patch it
They will heal the cracks on the asphalt
At least for a while
They unrolled the grass over me
They buried me without digging a hole
A shallow grave
Not deep at all
And from there, the world grew over me
From my pain, they grew carnations
They perfume the wind and the spring
From my anxieties they erected cities
Still buzzling to the time my heartbeat set
From my every fear they fed a fountain
It bestows courage upon those who drink from it
From my loneliness they built a fireplace
People gather around it to see eachother’s faces and keep warm
At my feet they rooted the oak trees
They are older now than I ever got to be
A whole world
From a flawed foundation
From an unworthy father
There was light in the world I was born into
It poured into my eyes but also it poured out from my heart
In it I built dreams that held fast in my waking world
With it I strung those dreams over my bed
Like stars they would flicker in the distance
Yet they were right where my hands could reach them
I would watch them dance above me
Resting my hands behind my head
Lying on grass I couldn’t know was overgrown
Because it couldn’t be
They liked to kiss my forehead
I thought that was what rain was
The oceans and lakes drew away wherever I meant to walk
They welled around me when they knew I’d better enjoy to swim
Mountains flocked ‘round what I deemed should be protected
They made themselves scarce where I felt the wind should soar unbroken
And the wind itself would soar at my pleasure
It would fetch me the sweetest scents from all around my world
It went to sleep next to me and became stillness
When stillness was what I would have
I could not fathom the darkness
My world had no room for shade
It didn’t fit you see
How could it?
My world was small in its vastness
Light ran ahead
When I reached a new place
It was waiting there for me
The water and the mountains and the wind
Were already there
And from beyond the limitless finitudes of my own world
She emerged to bestow something upon me
She placed it in my hand
She said it was called “Love”
And I cherished it
Because it would not sink in my oceans
Because it would climb over my mountains
Because it would not bow to my winds
Her actions were not of my design
Her waters, mountains and winds did not answer to my whims
They answered to hers
And she fashioned her whims after my own
I gave my light to her
Of my own volition
Because she didn’t have any
She could not build her own dreams
She didn’t know how
So she just held it in her hand
And I held her Love in mine
She never did understand my light
Her palms reddened when she held it too long
And she sought to escape it at times
So she expanded the borders of my unending world
And planted an orchard in the emerging space
She sat me down next to her
Under an apple tree
And she rested my head on her lap
Ran her fingers through my hair
I closed my eyes
Although my wind slept
My cheeks grew cool
I clutched her love in my fist
I could not understand
The tree had birthed a shadow
And it grew across my world
The light ran ahead still
It seemed out of breath
A feeling nested in my bare chest
That I would soon reach new places
Before my light did
She left my world in search for a better one
To realize her own dreams
She took my light with her
Left her shadows behind
I never saw my light again
There was so much I wanted to do with it
My dreams withered on their vine
My lakes and oceans died of thirst
My mountains sank into the planes
My wind slept without reprieve
In her orchard I lay awake
Under the decaying apple tree
I am only little
A boy still
My hand yet clutching her love
Dimmer every day
“I can smell the food. Give it to me, or I’ll shoot.”
I could only stare ahead at the sliding door of my closet. I lay on my side, with my back against the window into which the raspy voice had poured. I was frozen. A light comforter was the only thing between my back and the shotgun, bar some space and air. I could hear the wind that carried the vinegared air, the quickening beat of my heart, and the interloper’s labored breath.
I’d pretend I was still asleep. Without a confrontation, the threat might miraculously make itself scarce. Like so many other times, I decided inaction was the best choice. I deemed it the safest option. If I died, it could not be argued that it had been because of an unmeasured reaction on my part.
“I can smell the food. I can see you there. Give it to me, or I’ll shoot.”
I remained frozen. I was satisfied my bet had paid off when I heard the interloper’s feet shuffle away as he began to move on. I listened as the backyard grass brushed against what I imagined were the rubber soles of a man’s work boots. He’d reached the end of my backyard, just one in a series of interconnected neighborhood backyards separated only by six-foot wooden fences.
I dropped to my bedroom floor and sighed heavily in relief for the first time since I’d woken up. As my body hit the carpet, I stopped breathing again and hoped to hear the muffled pounding of the interloper’s boots on the next yard’s grass after the six-foot drop. The sound didn’t come.
“I can smell the food. Give it to me, or I’ll shoot.”
The next window over, not quite the next yard. My mother’s bedroom window. I was running before I finished standing up. I threw my bedroom door open.
“I can smell the food…” I heard as I thundered across the hall. “Give it to me, or I’ll––”
BANG!
As the sonorous bang of the shotgun’s blast finished reverberating into my heaving chest, I saw my mother talking on the chorded landline phone as she sipped on a glass of wine, sitting with her back against the open window and the wind-waving translucent curtains closed behind her.
As the adrenaline peaked, I could begin to make out a scene through the curtains and outside the window. My neighbor was sitting on the fence, smoking a cigarette, looking sideways at the man, also sitting on the fence, pointing the smoking shotgun up at the sky.
“I ain’t got no food, man.” my neighbor said as the shotgun smoke merged with the smoke from his cigarette.
As I gestured to my mother to drop to the floor, a frightened expression took over her face.
“I can smell the food. Give it to me, or I’ll––” As I finished lowering my mother to the ground, wine spilling on her bed and carpet, my eyes met the man’s own. I could swear they were gray.
I reached across the window and pulled the man in from the collar as he motioned to point the shotgun at me. I acted so I wouldn’t have to react. He had the high ground, but I had a stable footing and, thus, the advantage. Well, he also had a shotgun. And yet, as his back hit the floor and I pinned him down, the shotgun was no more. I now stared down the barrel of a handgun.
I right-crossed him in the face, my punch landed on and pushed against a steel wool-feeling beard. It was faster than immediately reaching for the gun, and I had better odds trying to disarm a man who had first been stunned by a fist across the face. I punched him one more time for good measure before I thrust both hands at his armed fist. Before I finished taking the gun, he shot it three times into the ceiling as I pushed it away from my face.
The handgun felt light in my hand. For some reason, three bullets were all it ever had loaded into it. I threw it into the hallway, away from us. I never heard it land. I was left to deal with a less threatening man altogether.
As I pulled him out of my mother’s room, he groaned, whimpered, and grumbled unintelligible words. Before he could free himself from my grasp, I pinned him down and got on top of him again. As I tried to flip him face-down, he gnawed, not bit, at my hands. It was gloriously ineffective; significantly sharper teeth had gnawed at my hands before.
I managed to get him face-down, pulling his arms behind his back as to restrain him. “Mom! Get me some rope; We need to tie him up!” I exclaimed as I tried to pull him towards the house entrance. He grunted once more, mumbled something or other, nothing anyone could’ve made out. In the heat of that moment, I couldn’t have told you what the man looked like, except that he was scruffy.
As my mother handed me a pair of police-issue handcuffs she found in the miscellaneous kitchen drawer, I asked her to call the police. As I cuffed the scruffy man’s hands behind his back, I looked up and behind me towards the front door. A large dog was in the house, looking out the open door. The dog looked back at me. I met his gray eyes; I could only make out the brightness behind him. It was daylight.
I didn’t recognize this dog, but he made me think of my dog. “He should be sleeping in his crate. He should be safe.” I thought to myself. As my eyes remained locked on the dog’s eyes, I decided this feral dog must belong to this feral man I had restrained.
My mother handed me the phone, the fucking landline, which I pulled next to my ear, against the tension of the uncoiling chord. Before I could speak, I heard what must have been the most cheerful lady ever to step foot in the world.
“¡Gracias por llamar al servicio de emergencia!” (“Thanks for calling the emergency service.”) “¡Mi nombre es Estafany, es un gusto servirle!” (“My name is Estefany, It’s a pleasure to be of service.”) “¡El gobierno del estado se enorgullece de haber reducido drásticamente el tiempo de respuesta de los servicios de emergencia en tan solo tres años!” (“The state government is proud to have drastically reduced the emergency response time in just three years!”) “Antes de ayudarle con su emergencia, en gustaría presentarle la oferta de nuestros varios servicios.” (“Before I help out with your emergency, I’d like to present to you our offers for our various services”) “Tenemos descuentos en paquetes turísticos, fiestas para niños, rentas por hora de salas tipo ‘lounge’, coaching personal, lecturas de cartas astrales ––” (“We offer discounts on tourist packages, children’s parties, hourly rentals on lounge furniture, personal coaching, astrological readings ––”)
“Mom, what number did you dial?” I asked my mother calmly. “066.” She said, my hometown’s old emergency number. “Mom, please call 911; we’re in the United States.” I begged and gave the phone back to her.
As I looked behind me again, I recognized my own dog. He was lying down, wagging his tail, and looking out the front door. He turned to me, panting. An energetic smile occupied his face.
As she handed me the landline again, I asked my mother to get my sister, who should have been watching my dog. At this point, it was strange she hadn’t already come out of her room with all the commotion. My mother walked calmly back up the stairs to get her as I put the phone back to my face, with the interloper still squirming in handcuffs, mumbling neurotically under me.
“Hi!” Says another excited lady. “911, how can we help today?” I proceeded to explain the situation. “Please send someone immediately; I don’t know how long I can hold him. I’m at––” “Yes, we know where you live. Someone should be there soon.” “Make sure you also send animal control; he brought a dog too.” I said as I looked down at the leashed dog I had captured earlier. The dog was gnawing at the leash, trying haphazardly to escape, but otherwise, he stood calmly at my feet.
Still feeling a sense of urgency, but not quite knowing why, I looked up to see my mother dragging my sister by the hand down the stairs, my sister’s eyes fixed on her tablet, noise-canceling headphones around her ears. Surely, she was watching some Netflix show.
“What the hell?” I asked, “Are you okay?” “Yeah, you?” She says, looking up from her tablet. “Why are you freaking out?” She asks as if I hadn’t just captured a murderous, albeit hungry maniac and his dog.
I was still on the phone, and this emergency operator was gleefully telling me about her day while I fruitlessly tried to impress upon her the importance of sending the police to my house. I scoffed and gazed down to check in on the handcuffed man-turned-leashed dog once more, now recognizing my dog quite clearly, looking up at me, smiling as he does when we go for a walk and a game of “Tug of War”, waiting for me to do something. He seemed hungry. Cute and scruffy-looking, as he’d always been.
(Yes, this is a fictional story.)
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]]>–Puedo oler la comida. Dámela, o disparo.
Sólo pude mirar al frene, fijando la mirada en la puerta corrediza de mi armario. Estaba acostado de lado, congelado, con la espalda hacia la ventana por la cual la voz rasposa se había vertido. Lo único que separaba la escopeta de mi espalda, salvo aire y espacio, era una cobija ligera. Mi atención estaba dividida entre los sonidos del viento que cargaba el aire avinagrado, el pulso acelerante de mi corazón y la respiración laboriosa del intruso.
Decidí fingir que aún dormia. Evitando la confrontación, la amenaza podría deshacerse de sí mísma por algún milagro. Como en muchas otras ocaciones, opté por la inacción. Decidí que ésta era la mejor opción. Si hubiera muerto, nadie podría argumentar que habría sido por alguna reacción desmedida de mi parte.
–Puedo oler la comida. Te veo ahí. Dámela, o disparo.
Permanecí inmóvil. Supuse que mi apuesta había sido recompensada cuando oí los pies del intruso arrastrarse a medida que empezó a alejarse. Escuché cómo el pasto del patio trasero cepillaba lo que imaginaba eran las suelas de goma de las botas de un hombre. Llegó al fin de mi patio, sólo uno en una serie de patios interconectados en la colonia, separádos únicamente por cercas de madera que medían un metro ochenta.
Me lancé al suelo de mi recámara y suspiré aliviado por la primera vez desde que había despertado. Tan pronto mi cuerpo golpeó la alfombra, pausé mi respiración una vez más, esperando escuchar el estampado atenuado de las botas del intruso cayendo sobre el pasto del patio del vecino al brincar la cerca. Aquél sonido jamás llegó.
–Puedo oler la comida. Dámela, o disparo.
La proverbial siguiente ventanilla. No la del próximo patio, como tal, sino la de la habitación de mi madre. Antes de terminar de pararme, ya estaba corriendo. Abrí la puerta de mi habitación súbitamente.
–Puedo oler la comida… –– escuché mientras me volaba el pasillo. –Dámela, o––
–¡BANG!
Al terminar de resonar en mi jadeante pecho la sonorosa explosión del disparo de la escopeta, vi a mi madre hablando por el teléfono alámbrico mientras tomaba una copa de vino, sentada dándole la espalda a la ventana abierta. Las cortinas translucidas que ondulaban en el viento permanecían cerradas, cubriendo la apertura de la ventana.
Con la adrenalina en su apogeo, comencé a interpretar la escena que percibía a través de las cortinas, justo afuera de la ventana. Mi vecino estaba sentados sobre la cerca, fumando un cigarro, volteando de costado a ver al hombre, que también estaba sentado sobre la barda, apuntando una escopeta humeante hacia el cielo.
–No tengo comida, güey. –– contestó mi vecino mientras el humo de la escopeta bailaba con el humo que el exhalaba al fumar.
Mientras señalaba a mi madre que debía tirarse al suelo, una expresión aterrorizada ocupó su rostro.
–Puedo oler la comida. Dámela o–– mientras terminaba de bajar a mi madre al suelo y el vino teñía su cama, mis ojos encontraron los del hombre. Podía jurar que eran grises.
Lancé mis brazos a través de la ventana, tomando al hombre del cuello de su abrigo, mientras él movía a apuntar la escopeta en mi dirección. Actué, para no tener que reaccionar. El tenía la ventaja de la altura, pero el aventajado era yo, ya que tenía ambos piés en tierra firme. Aunque para ser justos, el tenía una escopeta. Y aún asi, al dar su espalda contra el suelo y yo someterlo, la escopeta no era más. Me encontré mirando al fondo del cañon de un revolver.
Le dí un gancho derecho en la cara. Mi puño aterrizó en y empujó contra una barba áspera como esponja de acero. Era más rápido soltar un gancho derecho que intentar desarmarlo, y tenía mejores probabilidades de desarmar a un hombre sacudido y desorientado. Lo volví a golpear y, a ojo de buen cubero, decidí que eso era suficiente para maniobrar exitosamente a desprenderlo de su revolver. Lancé ambas manos sobre su puño armado. Antes de acabar de quitarle el arma, la disparó tres veces al techo, cada tiro un poco más lejos de mi rostro que el anterior.
El revolver se sentía ligero en mi mano. Por alguna razón, tres balas cargadas fueron todo lo que tuvo el revolver mientras existió. Lo lancé fuera de la habitación hacia el pasillo. Nunca lo escuché caer. Quedaba únicamente lidiar con un hombre mucho menos peligroso bajo cualquier estándar.
Mientras lo arrastraba hacia afuera de la habitación de mi madre, el hombre gruñó, gimió y balbuceó palabras ininteligibles. Para evitar que escapara de mi control, le puse la rodilla al pecho y sostuve sus brazos contra el suelo. Al intentar volterlo boca abajo, comenzó a roer, no morder, roer mis manos. Su esfuerzo fracasó de forma espectaclar; he sido roído por dientes exageradamente más filosos.
Me las arreglé para ponerlo boca abajo y quedé estirando sus brazos detrás de su espalda para inmovilizarlo.
–¡Mamá! ¡Tráeme una cuerda o algo, necesitó amarrarlo!––grité mientras lo arrastraba a la puerta principal de la casa.
El hombre gruñó una vez más, balbuceó alguna otra cosa, nada que alguien pudiera haber entendido. En la conmoción del momento, no podría haber descrito al hombre, excepto que era desaliñado.
Mientras mi madre me proporcionaba un par de esposas policiacas que había encontrado en el cajón de cosas sueltas de la cocina, le pedí que llamara a la policía. Al esposar al hombre desaliñado con las manos detrás de la espalda, miré detrás de mí hacia la puerta principal. Había un perro grande en la casa y éste miraba hacia afuera a través de la puerta principal abierta. El perro volteó a mirarme a mí. Sus ojos, grises, se clavaron en los míos. Detrás del perro solo podía ver una luz brillante. Era de día.
El perro no se me hacía conocido, pero me recordó a mi perro.
«Él debe estar seguro durmiendo en su cama.»––pensé. Mis ojos permanecieron fijados en los del perro y decidí que ese perro salvaja debía pertenecer ese hombre salvaje que yo había capturado.
Mi madre me dió el teléfono, el pinche alámbrico, que yo estiré a mi oído contra la tensión del alambre que se desenchinaba. Antes de poder hablar, escuché la voz de quien debe ser la mujer más burbujeante que ha pisado éste planeta.
My mother handed me the phone, the fucking landline, which I pulled next to my ear, against the tension of the uncoiling chord. Before I could speak, I heard what must have been the most cheerful lady ever to step foot in the world.
–¡Gracias por llamar al servicio de emergencia!¡Mi nombre es Estafany, es un gusto servirle!¡El gobierno del estado se enorgullece de haber reducido drásticamente el tiempo de respuesta de los servicios de emergencia en tan solo tres años! Antes de ayudarle con su emergencia, en gustaría presentarle la oferta de nuestros varios servicios. Tenemos descuentos en paquetes turísticos, fiestas para niños, rentas por hora de salas tipo «lounge», coaching personal, lecturas de cartas astrales––
–Mamá, ¿qué numero marcaste?–– le pregunté con tranquilidad a mi madre. –066.––contestó. El número de emergencia de la ciudad en la que nací. –Mamá, marca 911 porfabor; estamos en Estados Unidos.––le rogé regresándole el teléfono.
Al mirar detrás de mí una vez más, reconocí a mi propio perro. Estaba acostado, sacudiendo la cola, mirando hacia afuera por la puerta principal. Volteó la vista hacia mí, jadeando. Una sonrisa enerética ocupaba su rostro.
Al darme mi madre el teléfono una vez más, le pedí que fuera por mi hermana, quien debería haber estado vigilando a mi perro. Para este punto, dada la conmoción y el tiempo transcurrido, me extrañaba que ella todavía no hubiera salido de su habitación. Mi madre subió tranquilamente las escaleras para buscar a mi hermana mientras yo volvía a estirar el teléfono alámbrico hacía mi cara, con el intruso aún forcejeando en esposas y balbuceando neuróticamente debajo de mí.
–Hi!––dice otra mujer chispeante. –911, how can we help today?––Procedí a explicarle la situación. –Envíen a alguien inmediatamente porfabor, no sé cuanto tiempo lo pueda mantener sometido. Estoy en–– ––Sí, sabemos donde vives. Alguien llegará pronto.––interrumpió. ––Asegúrense de también enviar a control animal; trajó un perro.––agregué mirando hacia abajo, donde estaba el perro con correa que yo había capturado más temprano. El perro intentaba roer la correa, haciendo el mínimo esfuerzo por escapar, pero además de eso, solo permanecía tranquilo a mis pies.
Aun sentía urgencia, pero ya no sabía exactamente porqué. Levanté la vista para ver a mi madre arrastrando a mi hermana de la mano al bajar las escaleras. Mi hermana portaba audifonos cancela-ruido y sus ojos estaban anclados a su tableta. Seguramente estaba viendo alguna serie en Netflix.
–¿Qué chin––me detuve––¿Estás bien? –Sí, ¿tú?––contesta, levantando la mirada de su tableta por primera vez. –¿Porqué tan histérico?––pregunta como si no acabara yo de capturar un maniaco, aunque hambriento, homicida y su perro.
Aun tenía el teléfono en la oreja y la operadora del servicio de emergencia me contaba sobre su día vigorosamente mientras yo, sin éxito, intentaba impresionarle la urgencia de enviar a la policía a mi casa. Susipiré y miré hacia abajo una vez más para monitorear al hombre hecho perro una vez más, reconociendo ahora a mi propio perro con absoluta certeza, volteandome a ver, sonriendo como siempre lo hace cuando estamos próximos a una caminata o a jugar a la pelota, a la espera de que yo haga algo. Se veía hambriendo. Adorable y desaliñado, como siempre ha sido.
(Sí, esta es una historia ficticia)
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]]>When you come in a group the attention is divided. If you’re as wise as I am, you’ll open the door for others so they’ll come in before you do. You let them greet everyone while you head to where all the drinks are with a “Where can I put this?”, holding up your twelve-pack of Whiteclaws, evidently the “this” you referred to because, well, you’re holding it up.
You pretend you’re focused on emptying the twelve-pack into a cooler for a few minutes, at the end of which you’ve been there long enough for someone to come up and talk to you. It gives you an excuse to avoid greeting everyone who was already there saying “Sorry, I got distracted talking to Johnny here” if any of them dare accuse you of being impolite.
When I was even younger and I had to rely on my parents to drive me to parties, my stomach would knot through the 20-minute car rides to wherever I was being dropped off. My body understood it was about to go straight from being with my mom, the original source of unconditional love, to the gladiatorial coliseum that a teenage reunion is, where “unconditional judgment” was first observed. I’ll tell you now, there is no creature crueler than a medium hormonal human, except perhaps an even younger child who has yet to suffer and has not yet begun to empathize.
Then they invented the pre-game. Or maybe it already existed, but I wasn’t drinking yet back then. The point is they now let you catch a buzz before you get to the party, so you go through all the suffering and social anxiety the day after rather than during the event. Everyone will like you better if you arrive with a couple of drinks in you
In the beginning, all conversation is superficial, and the drinks, on which you can still taste the alcohol, are thicker than water. That doesn’t mean that one of several countdowns hasn’t started yet. You know you brought 12 cans, but every time you go back to the cooler there’ll be less than you left last time. You’re racing the universally acknowledged evil of “I didn’t bring anything to drink, but I assume the contents of the cooler are public property, right?” What do you do? Will you drink quickly to ensure you get as much bang for your buck? Or do you pace yourself so the next day you can remember all the dumb shit you will inevitably spew?
Like that countdown there are others. Will there be enough time for your Karaoke pick to come up? Will there be enough time for you to naturally end up talking to a person you owe an honest conversation to? Will there be enough time so that, when someone stays quiet, you arm yourself with courage and decide to be vulnerable, unloading what you’ve been carrying for some time? Will there be enough time so that when everyone around you starts succumbing to their more primitive impulses, you happen to be in the right place with the right person and they too give in to their own primitive impulses? Or will what always happens happen, where you end up alone and become a spectator in your own life?
I just try to banish all inhibition as quickly as I can, not because I don’t care what happens, but because while I possess that disinhibition, the things that happen will not matter.
I don’t go to parties to drink. A while ago I understood that there is a hierarchy of importance to the things in life. There’s breathing, nourishment, engineering, and all of those things Robin Williams claimed are important to surviving in that movie where a young poet dies. Then there are the things that make us want to keep living, right? Art, music, poetry, and women. People. The only thing that ever truly matters. That’s what I go for. To unearth as much humanity in other people, hoping some of that humanity will rub off and rekindle the numbed humanity in me.
The main obstacle in that, the matriarch of all of my aspirations, is that which humanity quite stupidly imposed on itself. The concept of etiquette and social constructs. You can’t just ask whatever you want and express whatever you feel. You must beat around the bush, imply, indirectly suggest, and test waters that could very easily be plunged into. You simply must not ask for what you need or want. That’s too expensive, too risky. We’ve made some progress, at least we now find therapy somewhat acceptable, but that also takes up your time and money. If you drink enough, mind you, those expressions and confessions can be bought through debt acquisition. Even then, there will be interest to pay in the months and years to come. “I’ll take the bill and two cops”, as my dad never fails to say when eating out.
As the number of cans in the cooler decreases, anguish builds up in me that I cannot seem to evict. “This will end”. Just like life. “Life and parties”. An easy pair for an existentialist like myself to analogize. Time moves on too swiftly, intent on leaving me behind. Before I ––
Sorry, I got distracted by this straight-up banger that just popped up in the playlist I am listening to.
Before I satiate my hunger for the consumption of the various interesting personalities that surround me, I start to feel the beginning of the end. To be clear, this soireé started ending as soon as it began, but the point is that now I’ve begun to notice. It’s still early, but the party is beautiful precisely because it is short. You’ll be there for four or five hours, at the most.
Four or five hours seem insufficient. They’re not enough for corporations, they demand eight from you a day. They’re not enough for a flight from Monterrey to Seattle. That’ll take all damn day.
Turns out four or five hours are enough for most of the things that matter. They’re enough to develop the foundation of a friendship that will last a lifetime with a person you just met. They’re enough for you to fuck up a cherished friendship that you’ve had for a lifetime that you will go on cherishing, now bitterly, because it will cease to cherish you back. I’ve gone through this enough times, it’s not surprising I am horrified by the prospect.
Four or five hours are enough for a man to fall in love with a woman that will never love him back. They’re enough for a woman that the man will never think of again to fall in love with said man, who will also never find out. They’re enough for you to have the best night of your life and then spend the next seventy years foundationally enraged about the fact that you will never experience such unbridled joy again. Such completeness. Such a feeling of being accompanied.
In the end, four or five hours are still, also, not enough. They just won’t do. They will not fill. They will not apologize. They will leave you wanting more. Others don’t get it. They say “I want to go home, bye, see ya”. Like they’re sure we’ll see each other again. Like the good could ever last as long as the bad. As if shooting stars appeared in the sky forever and the ends of the world weren’t as absolute and eternal. Some of them have someone waiting for them at home. Being there, with them, is better than being here, with you. Some of them are fine on their own. Being there, on their own, is not very different from being here, with you. I’m not some of them. I never have been. It’s always been me, separate from them. Them against me. Them wanting to leave, and me wishing they’d stay a little bit longer, maybe forever, as long as they don’t get in my way. And I stay until I can’t stay anymore. It’s why I’m always the last one to leave a party.
I think about leaving. Getting in an uber for five minutes at 3 am, getting home, laying down, and staring at the darkness where the ceiling is supposed to be for a couple of hours. A couple of hours where there is nothing but the deafening sound of my own thoughts. Thoughts that I grew accustomed to having many a moon ago, which I cannot escape and, to be honest, don’t think I could survive losing. My thoughts are the only ones keeping me any kind of company, no matter how bad. They’ve been with me since I was happy because I didn’t yet know how much loneliness could grow, how much pain and how much sorrow there was in the lives of others and my own being. So much to want that I cannot have, so much to have had that I was stupid enough to lose. So much to regret. So much to fear and so much fear to overcome. For a moment, a very very fleeting moment, I understand. Loneliness is too heavy a burden to carry alone.
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]]>Cuándo llegas en grupo la atención se divide. Sí eres tan sabio como yo, le abres la puerta a los demás para que pasen antes que tú. Dejas que ellos saluden a todos mientras te diriges a donde estan las bebidas con un «¿Dónde puedo dejar esto?», levantando simultáneamente el doce de Whiteclaws que es, ya sin lugar a dudas porque lo levantaste, el «esto» que quieres dejar.
Te haces güey un par de minutos vaciando el cartón en la hielera y para entonces ya estuviste ahi suficiente tiempo para que alguien se acerque a hablar contigo y tengas una excusa para no haber saludado a todos los que llegaron antes que tú. «Perdón, es que me distraje hablando con Fulano.»
Cuándo era aun más jóven y dependía de mis papas para llevarme a las fiestas, sentía un nudo en el estómago los veinte minutos que pasaba en el auto. Mi cuerpo entendía que estaba próximo a pasar directamente de estar con mi mamá, el primer bastión de amor incondicional, al coliseo gladiatorio que son las reuniones de adolescentes, donde inventaron y perfeccionaron el juicio incondicional. Te digo ahora, no hay criatura más cruel que un mediano humano hormonal, excepto tal vez por un niño aún menor que no ha sufrido aún y carece de tacto y empatía.
Y luego inventaron el pre-copeo. O tál vez ya existía pero yo todavía no bebía. El punto es que ahora te dejan alcoholizarte antes de llegar, para que todo el sufrimiento y la ansiedad social la sufras el día después y no antes. A todos les vas a caer mejor si llegas con un par de copas encima.
Al principio todo la conversación es superficial y las bebidas, que todavía saben a alcohol, pesan más que el agua. Eso no significa que no haya empezado por ahi una de muchas cuentas regresivas. Sabes que trajiste doce latas, pero cada vez que abras la hielera va a haber menos que las que dejaste la vez pasada. Estás en una carrera contra aquel bien conocido mal del «yo no traje nada pero lo que está en la hielera es de todos, ¿no?>». ¿Qué hacer? ¿Tomas rápido para economizar? O, ¿cuidas el paso para acordarte de la mayoría de las pendejadas que dijiste esa noche?
Cómo esa cuenta regresiva hay otras. ¿Alcanzará el tiempo para que salga la canción que pusiste en la fila del Karaoke? ¿Alcanzará el tiempo para que, de manera natural, acabes platicando con la persona a la que le debes una conversación honesta? ¿Alcanzará el tiempo para que, cuando alguien se quede callado, te armes de valor y decidas ser vulnerable, expresando lo que desde hace tiempo te ha pesado? ¿Alcanzará el tiempo para que, cuando todos a tu alrededor empiecen a ceder a sus impulsos primitivos, estés en el lugar correcto con la persona correcta y esta ceda sus propios impulsos primitivos? ¿O te va a pasar lo de siempre, que te quedas solo, convirtiendote en expectador en tu propia vida?
Yo solo intento desterrar la inhibición lo más rápido posible, no porque no me importe lo que suceda, sino porque mientras posea esa deshinibición, las cosas que sucedan no van a importar.
Yo no voy a las pedas a tomar. Hace tiempo entendí que hay una jerarquía de importancia en la vida. Está el respirar, la alimentación, la ingeniería y todas esas cosas que dijo Robin Williams que son importantes para sobrevivir en aquella película donde se muere un poeta. Luego estan las cosas por las que queremos seguir viviendo, ¿no? El arte, la música, la poesía, las mujeres. Las personas. Lo único que en verdad importa. A eso voy yo. A escarvar lo más posible en la humanidad de otras personas, esperando que aquella humanidad reviva la humanidad en mí.
El obstáculo principal en aquella, la matriarca de todas mis metas, es aquel que la humanidad muy tontamente imprimió sobre sí misma. El concepto de la etiqueta y la construcción social. No puedes solo preguntar lo que quieres y expresar lo que sientes. Tienes que ser indirecto. No puedes pedir lo que necesitas. Eso cuesta mucho. Hemos progresado un poco, ya nos dejan hacerlo en terapia y eso solo cuesta tiempo y dinero. Si tomas suficiente alcohol, aquellas expresiones y confesiones las puedes intercambiar a un buen crédito. Aún en esos casos, las pagas con intereses en los meses y años después. «La cuenta y dos policías», como siempre dice mi papá.
A medida que se reduce la cantidad de latas en la hielera, crece en mí una angustia que vive en mi mente y no paga renta. «Esto se va a acabar.» Igual que la vida. La vida y la peda, gran analogía para el existencialista en mí. El tiempo pasa demasiado rápido. Antes de que yo––
Perdón, me distraje porque salió una canción muy buena en la playlist que estoy escuchando.
Antes de que yo satisfaga mi hambre por consumir las multiples personalidades interesantes a mi alrededor, empiezo a sentir el principio del final. Para ser claro, la peda se empezó a acabar el momento en el que empezó, pero el punto es que ahora lo empiezo a sentir. Todavía es temprano, pero la peda es bella precisamente porque es corta. A lo mucho estas ahí cuatro o cinco horas.
Cuatro o cinco horas parecen poco. No son suficientes para las corporaciones, esas exigen ocho al día. No son suficientes para un viajar de Monterrey a Seattle, eso te toma todo un día.
Resulta que cuatro o cinco horas son suficiente para casí todo lo que importa. Son suficiente para desarrollar el noventa porciento de la base de una amistad que va a durar toda la vida con una persona que acabas de conocer. Son suficientes para perder una amistad que tienes el noventa porciento de tu vida queriendo y vas a seguir queriendo aunque ellos ya no te quieran a tí. Eso ya me pasó suficientes veces, no es sorprendente el hecho de que le tengo mucho miedo.
Cuatro o cinco horas son suficientes para enamorarte de una mujer que no se va a enamorar de tí. Son suficientes para que una mujer en la que no vas a volver a pensar se enamore de tí, aunque nunca te enteres. Son suficientes para que tengas la mejor noche de tu vida y pases los próximos sesenta años enojado porque nunca te vas a volver a sentir tan feliz. Tan completo. Tan acompañado.
Y al final, cuatro o cinco horas no son suficientes. No alcanzan. No llenan. No piden perdón. Te dejan queriendo más. Ellos no lo entienden. Dicen «ya me quiero ir, bye, nos vemos.» Como si estuvieran seguros de que nos vamos a volver a ver. Como si lo bueno durara tanto como lo malo. Cómo si las estrellas fugaces aparecieran en el cielo para siempre y los fines de los mundos no fueran absolutos y eternos. Algunos tienen a alguien esperándolos en casa. Estar allá, con ellos, es mejor que estar aquí, contigo. Algunos estan bien consigo mismos, estar allá, solos, no es muy diferente a estar aquí, contigo. Yo no soy algunos. Nunca he sido. Siempre he sido yo, y ellos aparte. Ellos contra mí. Ellos queriéndose ir y yo queriendo que se queden, para siempre, mientras no me estorben. Y me quedo hasta que no me puedo quedar más. Por eso siempre soy el último en irse de la fiesta.
Pienso en irme. En subirme a un uber por cinco minutos a las tres de la mañana, para llegar a casa, acostarme y ver el techo por dos horas. Dos horas donde no hay nada más que el sonido aturdidor de mis propios pensamientos. Pensamientos que me acostumbre a tener hace mucho tiempo, de los que no puedo escapar y, para ser honesto, no quiero perder. Mis pensamientos son los únicos que me acompañan. Han estado aquí desde que era feliz, porque no sabía que había tanta soledad, tanto dolor y tanta pena en las vidas de los demas y en mi propia existencia. Tanto por querer que no puedo tener, tanto por haber tenido y ser lo suficientemente estupido para haber perdido. Tanto de lo cual arrepentirme. Tanto por temer y tanto miedo por vencer. Por un momento, muy muy corto, lo entiendo. La soledad es una carga demasiado pesada para cargarla solo.
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]]>I was born a day before the spring. Twenty-five years passed before that meant something. In my hometown, the vernal equinox was just another day among two hundred of heat. Here, it is the day when the days cease being short and the nights long. It is the day when rays of sunlight become less likely to trip in their journeys. They now begin to reach and caress one’s face. It is the day that paints the ceiling of parks green, yellow, and pink. The day in which, somehow, things start over. They reform. They are reborn.
I do not intend to disparage and undersell the beauty of my hometown. The place I called home for the longest time is, in different ways, as beautiful as this place. Like everything, right? Although it now feels more like someone else’s home, I’ve had much to say about that town. A year later, there is still much to learn about this one. Much to understand. Much with which to fall in love.
My life now is very different. I believe my thinking is very much the same, but what surrounds me is not, so my conclusions are inevitably different. I have seen more of the world. Of the planet, yes, but also of that which we call “life”. I know myself much better, but I also trust my knowledge of myself a lot less. What I’ve written here before, which is honest, albeit not vast, is out-of-date. My points of view have changed, and my arguments have expired. Were I to write on the same subjects, the outcome would be much different. But that is how it will stay: wrong, because although that is no longer who I am, it is who I was, and that is as much a part of who I am as the words I write today will make me what I will be (I apologize for this sentence).
In this place, being my own man, I found fears I didn’t know I already had. I face them every single day. They win more than I’m eager to admit. Even worse, there are days that I let them win without much of a fight because I’m tired and I’ve seen this film before, and I was not too fond of the ending. That hurts, but it’s ok because, especially on the days when I let them win, I at least square up to them and look them in the eyes.
In addition to fears, I have come to possess nostalgias, melancholies, longings, and regrets. These are the emotional collections of an adult. What could a child miss when they were still new to the world and were yet to acquire things to be lost? From one day to the next, I morphed from someone who had everything into someone who missed everything. I’m still learning how to live like this. I rather like this part. It makes me feel like I didn’t wholly waste those first twenty-five years. It helped me understand that I’ve survived more than I could remember.
I am sorely ashamed to say that I am more than curious about the opinions others have of me. It matters to me. I try not to ask. It is not my right to know. I just don’t know if I have ever been perceived as someone who is particularly strong. I always thought I was because things would slide or bounce off my thick skin. Horrible things would happen to me, and not many good things would, yet I always felt fine. Just fine. Now I realize this abundance of awful things and lack of good things could not hurt me because I stood in the domain of everything I would ever need, readily within my reach. Here, now, I must always be in search of what I need. Most of the time, I cannot find it. The bad things affect me more and all the time. The good stuff barely, if at all, makes a dent. I no longer believe myself to be strong. Stronger than I was, for sure, but still not as strong as I deluded myself into believing I was. I’m just really stubborn and thick-headed, so I cannot stop moving forward. How lucky, huh?
Now I am furious at myself and incredibly disappointed, but I can’t figure out why. I try to remind myself that I’m lucky to still be standing. That others have it much worse, with real problems, as it were, and yet they are doing a better job of living than I am. I feel less than them because they are better at being better. I’m angry because I feel like I’m failing, and that is something for which I can never forgive myself. I was born broken, but I expect myself to become fixed. Although we’re all clearly very different, I find it impossible to believe that, in that sense, we are not all the same. How could others see life so differently from how I perceive it? How could we all be in the same room, yet only for some are the lights ever on? Is it in any way better to believe that the light is on for all, yet some of us refuse to open our eyes?
I am still afraid of going to sleep. Unlike some years ago, it is no longer the darkness that I fear. There’s nothing in it that could hurt me. I’m just scared of letting my unconscious mind take the wheel. Unlike me, it cannot hide behind the walls I have built. It is vulnerable to every ounce of pain and sensitive to the slightest aggravation. I cannot trust it. It itself aggravates as soon as I let my guard down. That’s what going to sleep is, letting my guard down. It’s when I wake up that, while my guard is still low and before I can bring my fists up, the real monsters come to frighten me.
Not only flowers are reborn in the spring. I found that the person I was was wilting because the summer was turning to fall. It had happened before; it will happen again. From my branches fell the leaves, and, for an extended season, they covered the ground in orange and brown. I undid myself because I had to rebuild myself. Like anything worth anything in this earthly life, it is a process as beautiful and graceful as it is devastating and painful. Although I could see it quite clearly all the time before, now I sometimes cannot recognize the beauty in everything, but the pain itself is evidence that the beauty is in there somewhere. That I can always trust. Those leaves that fell; I didn’t pick back up. They, too, wilted into dust. The vitally green leaves of the spring are never the same brown and crisp leaves of the fall past. They must always be new leaves. We, people, must also be like them. When, after coming undone, we reassemble ourselves, we are no longer the same people. We are also not always better than we were the seasons prior. That is ok.
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]]>Yo nací un día antes que la primavera. Tomó veinticinco años para que eso significara algo. Allá el equinoccio primaveral era solo un día más entre doscientos de calor en un año. Aquí es uno en el que los días dejan de ser cortos y las noches largas. Es un día donde se tropiezan menos los rayos del sol. Ya llegan y a uno le acarician la cara. Un día en el que el techo de los parques se pinta de verde, rosa y amarillo. Un día en el que, de alguna forma, las cosas vuelven a empezar. Se reforman. Renacen.
No es mi intención menospreciar la belleza de mi ciudad natal. El lugar que por tanto tiempo llamé hogar es tan bello como aquí, pero en diferentes formas. Como todo, ¿no? De allá, aunque ya se siente como la casa de alguien más, he tenido mucho que decir. De aquí, un año después, todavía hay mucho por conocer. Mucho por entender. Mucho de lo cual enamorarme.
Mi vida ahora es muy diferente. Creo que pienso igual, pero lo que me rodea no es lo mismo y las conclusiones por consecuencia son distintas. He visto más del mundo. Del planeta, sí, pero también de lo que solemos llamar «la vida». Me conozco mucho mejor, pero también confío mucho menos en ese conocimiento. Ya lo que he escrito antes por aquí, que no es mucho pero es honesto, está desactualizado. Si lo volviera a escribir, sería algo muy diferente. Y así se va a quedar, incorrecto, porque aunque ya no es quién soy, es quién fui y eso es tan parte de lo que soy como las palabras que escribo hoy me van a llevar a ser quién voy a ser (perdón).
Aquí, valiéndome por mí mismo, encontré miedos que no sabía que tenía. Los enfrento todos los días. Esos miedos ganan más días de los que me gustaría admitir. Y, lo que es peor, hay días donde simplemente me rindo y los dejo ganar sin dar pelea. Me duele, pero eso está bien, porque aún en esos días que no les doy pelea, si me paro enfrente de ellos y los miro a los ojos.
Además de miedos ya también poseo nostalgias, melancolías, añoranzas y arrepentimientos. Éstas son emociones adultas. ¿Qué podía extrañar un niño que apenas estaba conociendo cosas y no había perdido todavía nada? De un día para el otro, fui de ser alguien que lo tenía todo a ser alguien que lo extrañaba todo. Sigo aprendiendo cómo existir así. Creo que esa parte me gusta. Me hace sentir que esos primeros veinticinco años no los desperdicié completamente. Me hace entender que he sobrevivido más de lo que puedo recordar.
Me apena decir que la opinión que tienen las personas sobre mí me resulta más que solo una curiosidad. Le doy importancia. Intento no preguntar. No es mi derecho saberlo. El caso es que yo no se si a mí me han visto como alguien fuerte. Yo siempre creí que era muy fuerte porque nada me podía afectar. Me pasaban cosas muy malas y no me pasaban muchas buenas, pero yo me sentía bien. Ahora se que en realidad nada me afectaba porque tenía todo lo que necesitaba a mi alcance. Aquí, ahora, lo que necesito siempre lo tengo que buscar. A veces no lo encuentro. Las cosas ya me afectan más y todo el tiempo. Ya no me considero alguien fuerte. Me hice más fuerte, pero me sé mas débil. Solo soy muy terco y testarudo y por eso no he dejado de caminar hacia adelante. Qué suerte, ¿no?
Y ahora estoy enojado conmigo mismo y no entiendo muy bien porqué. Intento recordarme a mí mismo que soy muy afortunado y sigo de pié. Que hay otros que la tienen peor y están mejor que yo. Me siento inferior porque ellos son mejores para estar bien. Me enojo porque siento que estoy fracasando y eso no me lo puedo perdonar. Nací descompuesto, pero me exijo estar arreglado. Aunque todos somos diferentes, me cuesta mucho creer que en eso no seamos iguales. ¿Cómo es posible que los demás vean la vida tan diferente a como la veo yo? ¿Que todos estemos en el mismo cuarto pero solo para algunos esté la luz encendida? ¿Será, más bien, que los demás tenemos los ojos cerrados?
Todavía me da miedo irme a dormir. A diferencia de hace algunos años, ya nunca le temo a la oscuridad. Ahí no hay nada que me pueda lastimar. Creo que me da miedo dejar al inconsciente manejar. Él no tiene las defensas que yo me construí. A él cualquier golpe le duele demasiado. Tampoco confío en el. Me agrede cuando bajo la guardia. Eso es irse a dormir, bajar la guardia. Y cuando despierto, aun con la guardia baja y antes de que pueda levantar los brazos, llegan los verdaderos monstruos a asustarme.
No solo las flores renacen en la primavera. Yo encontré que la persona que era ya estaba marchitando porque el verano se convirtió en otoño. Ya había pasado antes, va a volver a suceder. El caso es que de mis ramas cayeron las hojas y, por una temporada extendida, cubrieron al suelo de naranja y café. Me deshice porque me tenía que reconstruir. Cómo todo lo que en la vida vale la pena, es un proceso bello y doloroso. Aunque antes siempre lo veía, ya a veces no veo lo bello, pero lo doloroso es evidencia de que lo bello está ahí, y confío en eso. Aquellas hojas no las recogí del suelo. Las hojas verdes de la nueva primavera nunca son las mismas que cayeron cafés el otoño pasado. Siempre son hojas nuevas. Nosotras las personas también somos así. Cuando después de deshacernos, nos rearmamos, ya no somos la misma persona. Y tampoco somos siempre mejores después de una transformación. Eso está bien.
Comparte tu opinión o sugiere un tema para mi próxima entrada en un comentario aquí abajo, o escríbeme por Twitter @hectormg.io o por correo electrónico. No olvides compartir esta entrada en Facebook, Twitter o LinkedIn utilizando los botones aquí abajo. Si te gusta el blog en general, ¡recomiéndaselo a tus amigos!
]]>Once I ticked off the basics, from Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, through Maroon 5’s Songs About Jane, and Wham!’s Make it Big, I found myself with a Cinema Paradiso-sized hole in my collection. So I bought the original soundtrack long-play on that mildly well-known e-commerce site. Since it arrived from London and for a week, this record remained sealed in its package. As Friday night came around, I set myself out to place the golden disc under my humble turntable’s needle. In my unsurmountable eagerness and impatience, I sacrilegiously skipped side “A” completely, playing side “B”, which starts with Tema D’amore per Nata (Love Theme for Nata). I poured myself a scotch on the rocks, flung my body on the couch, closed my eyes, and let myself drift atop the sweet waves of the musical notes so masterfully ideated by the recently passed Ennio Morricone.
I must add in this translation that, since writing this piece in the original Spanish, I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing a live string quartet’s rendition of Tema D’amore per Nata in a tribute to Hans Zimmer, where they also paid homage to other prolific movie score composers. It emotionally obliterated me to the point of shedding one of those ever-so-elusive tears. I will chase that feeling for the rest of my life.
As the last notes of this legendary theme wafted over my living room, I stood up from the couch, turned the record player off, stored the record, and immediately purchased Cinema Paradiso on my AppleTV.
I enjoyed the movie in a way I never could before. As expected, when one rewatches a film to the point of memorization, I kept picking up on details I obviated in previous viewings. I noticed, for instance, that while Toto projected Mario Camerini’s Ulysses (1954) in the open air of the Sicilian coast, he lamented the ocean-sized space that would separate him from his love for an indeterminate amount of time, like when Poseidon stood between Ulysses and Penelope for a hazardous decade. A bit on the nose, I told myself. We may accuse Tornatore of many things, but subtlety is not one of them.
I am immediately shocked to find out that, rather than an on-the-nose simile, the Ulysses scene is meant as a tongue-in-cheek juxtaposition. I was beginning to forget that I was watching a movie, and Giuseppe Tornatore made it his mission to dispel such illusions. He endeavored to remind us that this is an Italian romance, not a tragic Greek epic, and the contrast had to be made clear. Of course, Toto’s girlfriend would appear seconds after the deep lamentability set in to kiss him in the pouring Sicilian rain, slapping me in the face.
Although the film made me feel beautiful things I had forgotten I could feel, I couldn’t help feeling profound envy for Toto’s childhood and the clarity with which he remembered it. That childhood so clearly defined and profoundly marked by a wholly fortuitous and organic friendship with a simple and ever-so-skillfully paternal projectionist. I noticed myself wishing I had grown up in that time and place when and where life was so simple it seemed complicated, when and where it mattered. I lamented that Salvatore could, deep into his adulthood, remember with cinematographic detail the endless afternoons he spent overjoyed in Alfredo’s projection booth. On the other hand, I struggled to retrieve the most significant of my childhood memories.
Then came one of those distinctly powerful moments in the movie. Having Toto returned from his military service in Rome to find the entirety of Giancaldo had morphed in his absence, Alfredo, the closest thing he would ever have to a father, admonishes him to return to Rome and build a life infinitely more ambitious than the one he could ever live in a small Sicilian town.
Life isn’t like in the movies. Life… is much harder. Get out of here! Go back to Rome. You’re young and the world is yours. I’m old. I don’t want to hear you talk anymore. I want to hear others talking about you. – Alfredo
Moments later, when Alfredo said his farewells to Toto at the train station, begging him to leave it all behind without looking back, without yielding to nostalgia, threatening with never opening his door to him if he dared come back, I stopped paying attention to the film.
I immersed myself in profound and prolonged thoughts regarding my personal experience almost a year after leaving the nest. I remembered, with nostalgic feelings of my own, all those times I expressed to my parents how doubt-ridden I was about moving to a different country, where I would be separate from them and everyone else who had, until that point, loved me. Frankly, I wasn’t afraid of starting from scratch or being alone. What scared me was the feeling I was abandoning by taking off alone. My parents spent a lifetime getting me to understand that I must live a life that is entirely my own, and my decisions must always serve that principle. They and everyone else must figure in this life, but they should not determine my path. They imprinted on me that while they’ll miss me, they’ll be happy to hear, even if only once a month and through a short phone call, how well I would be doing. Unlike Alfredo, they didn’t ask me to forget them or to stay permanently away, but in a way, they asked me never to yield to nostalgic notions, not to let myself be eaten away by the regret of leaving them. They asked me not to waste away thinking about them and everyone I could hope to miss.
They helped me understand that I would leave, even if they had to kick me out of the country themselves.
When Alfredo’s words ceased resonating with those of my parents, I realized I couldn’t remember the specific words my parents used to communicate all of this to me. I focused so intently on identifying moments in my infancy, exact words I had said and heard, and particular interactions I had cataloged. I grasped why I could not, for my life, find my childhood memories in the places where I looked for them. I had not lived my life in distinguishable moments or memorable interactions. I found the memories I sought when I began to think about who I am. When I attempt to measure and weigh it in its totality, my life is a thoroughly scrambled ball of mistakes, friendships, losses, successes, failures, lessons learned, regret, and unbridled emotion in every place I look. The vast majority of the time, it isn’t easy to concretize any of the things I did or happened to me, but I am confident in the assertion that all of those things are evident in every action, word, and thought that add up to who and what I am.
You see, my faithful reader, I cannot tell you with any delusion of certainty where I was or what words my father used when he taught me that the only thing that matters is that I live a whole life with everything, good, bad, or mediocre, with earth-shattering intensity, disposition and decision. When he explained that I would be afraid and it was those moments in which I had no other recourse than to act. When he impressed upon me that not only is it necessary to risk it all to live it all but that taking that bet would be the only sensible decision every damned time I came upon it. Or when he foretold that I would make countless mistakes, terribly and daily, and I had to understand that when one lives life intensely with no possibility of foresight, nothing can be more right than an honest mistake. I cannot tell you where or when, but my father taught me to seek the beauty that life held and helped me understand that to come to possess it, I would have to rip it from its jealous hands. I can tell you that I live with an insatiable lust for that beauty to this day. That is me.
I also couldn’t tell you if it was when my mother, quite beautifully, sang El Oso Carpintero (The Carpenter Bear) or Cri Cri’s entire discography to me before bed or when I’d come home late at night to find her reading, always, a different book. Still, my mother taught me the methods to appreciate the same beauty my father taught me to seek. To find it in the books written by those who have felt as deeply as I. To describe it in words that are beautiful in themselves and to use those words to express it to those who I care about and surround me, without reservation and, when possible, in french. To share it by singing unabashedly in the car to the tune of Mecano and Miguel Bose and others, possibly also in french. I wouldn’t presume to know in which of these thousands of moments my mother infected me with her enviable ability to appreciate the beauty of life through art in all of its forms. Still, I have defeated all doubt that the artist in me is not a list of hobbies but a conspicuous entity unintelligible from my identity. That is me.
Although sometimes, when I try to remember my childhood, I fear I lack the formative memories that Toto holds in spades, today I understand that the things my parents taught me became a part of me so essentially that I cannot distinguish them as things that happened to me. I see them instead as things that I am. Life refuses to split itself into scenes; it won’t fit in a roll of film. It cannot be rewound and rewatched. Life is lived a day at a time and is recalled, not in dialog, but in decisions informed by experience, lessons learned, and aspirations that we inherit and have passed forward by those surrounding us.
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]]>Después de tachar los básicos, desde Kind of Blue de Miles Davis, pasando por Songs About Jane de Maroon 5, hasta Make it Big de Wham!, me vi en el absoluto menester de ordenar una copia de la banda sonora de Cinema Paradiso en formato LP. Desde que llegó de Londres y durante una semana, este el álbum permaneció sellado en su empaque, pero al llegar la noche del viernes, me dispuse a colocar el disco dorado bajo la aguja de mi humilde tornamesa. En mi insuperable impaciencia, me brinqué el lado «A» y reproduje directamente el lado «B» que empieza con «Tema D’amore Per Nata». Me tiré en el sofá, cerré los ojos y me dejé llevar por las dulces notas del recientemente fallecido Ennio Morricone. Tan pronto terminó el tema, levanté la aguja y compré Cinema Paradiso en mi Apple TV.
Disfruté la película cómo nunca la había disfrutado. Como es natural al ver una película una y otra vez, me la pasé observando detalles que antes había pasado por alto. Noté que mientras, al aire libre de la costa Siciliana, Toto proyectaba Ulysses (1954) de Mario Camerini, una película que trata, apropiadamente, de la Odisea, el mismo Toto sufría en su reflexión el hecho de que pasaría mucho tiempo antes de que, sin certeza alguna, él pudiera volver a estar con su amada (la cual llegó unos segundos después a sorprenderlo con un beso en la lluvia torrencial porque ya se me estaba olvidando que estaba viendo una película y Giuseppe Tornatore no iba a dejar que se me olvide).
Aunque la película me hizo sentir cosas bellas que tenía tiempo sin sentir, no podía evitar sentir también una profunda envidia por la niñez de Toto y la claridad con la que la recordaba. Aquella niñez se vió tan claramente definida y profundamente marcada por una amistad completamente fortuita y orgánica con un proyeccionista sencillo y tan hábilmente paternal. Pensé que desearía haber crecido en aquel lugar y tiempo en el que la vida era tan simple que parecía complicada, que en realidad importaba. Lamenté que Salvatore pudiera, ya muy adulto, recordar con detalle cinematográfico las incontables tardes qué pasó extasiado en el cuarto de proyección con Alfredo, mientras yo batallaba para recordar las más significantes de las memorias de mi infancia.
Y entonces llegó uno de los momentos más poderosos de la película. Habiendo regresado Toto de su servicio militar en Roma para encontrar que, en su ausencia, todo en Giancaldo había cambiado, Alfredo, su figura paterna, le implora se regrese a Roma y construya una vida con una ambición infinitamente mayor a la que podría cumplir en Sicilia.
La vida no es como la has visto en el cine, la vida es más difícil. ¡Márchate! ¡Regresa a Roma! Eres joven, el mundo es tuyo, yo ya soy viejo, no quiero oírte más, sólo quiero oír a otros hablar de ti.
– Alfredo
Momentos después, cuando Alfredo se despedía de Toto en la estación del tren, implorándole que no vuelva y no se deje vencer por la nostalgia, amenazando con no abrirle la puerta si volvía a Giancaldo, dejé de ponerle atención a la película.
Me hundí en pensamientos prolongados y profundos sobre mi propia experiencia acercándose el primer aniversario desde que dejé el nido. Recordé con mi propia nostalgia aquellas veces que le expresé a mis padres mi miedo y duda sobre mudarme a un país diferente, donde no estaría con ellos ni todos los que, hasta ese punto, me habían querido. Francamente no me asustaba empezar de cero ni estar solo. Lo que me asustaba era sentir que los estaba abandonando. Mis papás siempre me han dicho lo mismo. Que tengo que hacer mi vida propia y tomar mis decisiones por mí mismo, no por ellos ni por nadie más. Que aunque me iban a extrañar, estarían felices de oír, aunque sea solo una vez al mes y por teléfono, lo bien que me iba a ir. A diferencia de Alfredo, no me pidieron que los olvidara ni que nunca regresara, pero de alguna forma me pidieron que no me deje vencer por la nostalgia, que no me desgaste pensando en ellos y a todos los que extraño. De alguna forma me hicieron entender que yo me iba a ir, aunque ellos mismos me tuvieran que largar.
Cuando acabaron de resonar las palabras de Alfredo con las de mis padres, me di cuenta de que no recordaba en lo absoluto las palabras con las que mis padres me comunicaron todo eso. Me di cuenta de porqué no había encontrado las memorias de mi niñez en el lugar que las estaba buscando. Me había concentrado en buscar momentos específicos de mi infancia, palabras exactas que dije y escuche, interacciones particulares que catalogué. Pero yo no viví mi niñez en momentos distinguibles ni interacciones memorables. Las memorias que estaba buscando las encontré cuando me puse a pensar en quién soy. Mi vida, cuando la intento pesar y medir en su totalidad, es una bola revolcada de errores, amistades, pérdidas, aciertos, fracasos, lecciones aprendidas, éxito, arrepentimiento y emoción. La mayoría del tiempo es difícil concretar cualquiera de las cosas que hice o me pasaron, pero no me cabe duda de que las mismas se encuentran en cada acción, palabra y pensamiento que conforman el quién soy yo.
Verás, fiel lector, no te puedo decir con ningún grado de certidumbre dónde estaba ni que palabras usó mi papá cuando me enseño que lo único que importa es vivir la vida completa, con todo lo que trae, bueno, malo y regular, con absoluta intensidad, disposición y decisión. Que no solo es necesario arriesgarlo todo para vivirlo todo, sino que tomar esa apuesta iba a ser la única decisión sensible cada vez que me la topara. Que iba a tener miedo y era en esos momentos que era importante actuar. Que me iba a equivocar mucho, feo y a diario, y tenía que entender que cuando uno vive la vida intensamente sin conocimiento del futuro, nada resulta más correcto que un error honesto. No te puedo decir cuándo ni dónde, pero mi papá me enseño a buscar la belleza que la vida tiene y entender que para tenerla yo se la iba a tener que arrebatar. Lo que te puedo decir es que hoy vivo con un hambre insaciable por esa belleza. Ese soy yo.
Tampoco sé si fue cuando mi mamá me cantaba El Oso Carpintero o la discografía entera de Cri Cri antes de dormir, o cuando yo llegaba a la casa de noche para encontrarla siempre leyendo un libro diferente, pero mi mamá me enseño las formas de apreciar la misma belleza que mi papá me inspiró a buscar. A encontrarla en los libros escritos por aquellos que han sentido tan profundamente como yo. A describirla con palabras que sean bellas en sí mismas y expresársela a quienes me importan y me rodean, sin reservas y, cuando sea posible, en francés. A compartirla cantando sin pena canciones de Mecano y Miguel Bosé en el carro, y otras a veces también en francés. Es imposible saber en cual de esos miles de momentos mi mamá me contagió la envidiable habilidad de apreciar la belleza de la vida a través del arte en todas sus formas, pero no tengo duda de que el artista en mí no es una lista de pasatiempos, sino una entidad inseparable de mi propia identidad. Ese soy yo.
Y aunque a veces, cuando intento recordar mi infancia, siento que no hay memorias formativas como las que tiene Toto, entiendo hoy que las cosas que me enseñaron mis papás se volvieron tan parte de mí que no las veo como algo que me pasó, si no algo que soy. La vida no se divide en escenas, no cabe en un rollo de película, no se puede rebobinar y volver a ver. La vida se vive un día a la vez, se recuerda no en diálogos, sino en decisiones informadas por la experiencia, las lecciones que aprendemos y las aspiraciones que nos heredan y nos contagian aquellos que nos rodean.
Comparte tu opinión o sugiere un tema para mi próxima entrada en un comentario aquí abajo, o escríbeme por Twitter @hectormg.io o por correo electrónico. No olvides compartir esta entrada en Facebook, Twitter o LinkedIn utilizando los botones aquí abajo. Si te gusta el blog en general, ¡recomiéndaselo a tus amigos!
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