#12 - A Why for Blogging

The first memory of my life is a spanking. My sister Irma and I were about three and four, respectively. My parents were in the same room with us playing checkers on what I remember as a big cardboard box that was serving them as a table. Irma and I were going crazy jumping up and down on the bed (I’m thinking theirs). The problem is that we were not barefoot. We were wearing my mother’s shoes, the one with spiky (needle-like) heels, fashionable around the mid sixties.

I think I somehow understood that what we were doing was very wrong, but I was confused by my parents' quietness and concentration (apparent indifference) on their game, which lead us to believe that the destruction we were creating was really not a big deal. Oh but it was, of course it was. By the time we had the mattress on the floor and were happily feeling the heels go into the mattress filling, we saw our daddy getting up from his chair and without saying a word, spank us with his belt.

I sometimes wonder how that first rather violent awareness of self predisposed me to being self-conscious and my worst judge, almost expecting the worst from the beginning (a trend I hope I have defeated).

I spite of my parents' poverty and limited resources, I can say I had a happy childhood. There were definitely no excesses, no abundance, but we were loved, cherished and taken care of by Luis and Marga as best as they were able.

The other memory that stands out in terms of what made me consider the possibility of me being worthy and valuable happened when I was 16 and in prepa (high school) in Mexico. Our Spanish teacher gave us a homework assignment where we were supposed to write an essay with the title “The Happiest Day of My Life.” By then my teenage ennui made me question if I could even say I had had a happy day in my life, miserable and depressed as I felt on an daily basis. But ever studious and obedient, after giving it some thought I decided to write about my father’s reaction the day we found out that I had been accepted into the University of Guadalajara’s educational system when I began my high school studies. My papi’s reaction was one of such sheer delight that it imprinted itself forever into the soul of that 16-year-old girl I was back then. I still can retrieve and dust that memory when I feel like it: the whiteness of his wide smile stretched across his dark face; the high shine of his black eyes; his shout of happiness and almost incredulity (“You’re in, m’ija, you’re in!”), my bafflement and inability to understand his intense excitement about my acceptance into that imposing Colonial building. Whatever it was, it was good, I reflected, my papi is happy (ergo, that has to be “the happiest day of my life”).

It wasn’t until my adult years that I fully understood. I  get it. I understand what this rather small achievement might have meant for a totally unschooled Mexican peasant like my father.

After having read my little essay in front of the class (I got an A), my teacher congratulated me and several of my classmates came to me to tell me that they really had liked my story.

I don’t remember thinking anything, rather I felt a sense of inclusion and acceptance, of achievement. I had done something that others had approved! Maybe a healthy sense of self started burgeoning then. A sense that made me believe, “Hey, I can do something; maybe this is what they call a talent”, a talent for writing about my personal experiences, experiences to which others can relate to no matter how different our lives.

I think this might be what I am looking for every time I post on my two little blogs.

#11 - Unlikely Genius or The Memory of My Bones

 



Julio and his cigarette.



I’m rereading two books, one in Spanish that I read in the early 80s, Rayuela by Julio Cortázar and one I read in the 90s, The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

I have to say, I am actually enjoying them much more this second time around. I’m not much into rereading books, as I’m not much into watching movies more than once. Usually for me the second time I find less pleasure. I remember rereading Exodus by Leon Uris, my “mostest” favorite book in my teenage years. My first reading was in Spanish and I remember it made me cry more than once. The second time I read it in English and I didn’t find it as touching. I also wept like a baby when I watched Benigni’s Life is beautiful for the first time, while the second time it was still heart-breaking but I didn’t cry. This is why I do not want to watch Crash again. I went to the movies on my own and I found myself sobbing loudly. To me my tears were almost a purifying experience. I don’t want to see it again and find myself indifferent to its beauty and storytelling.

Anyway, that Cortázar, man, was he brilliant! Sometimes I wish we lived life like Oliveira does, with his acid and sharp intelligence that makes you analyze everything in life and then allows you to converse with your friends in a way that has depth and meaning. Oh man, when they talk about jazz and literature it’s no surprise La Maga feels stupid, who wouldn’t? I often find myself going back a couple of pages to try to figure out what the hell they’re talking about, coming out still confused and questioning.

My husband’s heroes are Cortázar and the Peruvian Vallejo. I read Rayuela before Raúl came into my life, but 62/Modelo para armar and Historias de famas y de cronopios I read because of Raúl. It’s because of him that I know about the poetic charge of dying on a rainy Thursday in Paris. Raúl has read all of Cortázar’s books and I believe Vallejo’s too.

Still, you know, when I try to imagine a reality like the one lived by Oliveira and the rest of The Serpent Club, I can see how unreal it is. Who like Horacio decides to stay with a mediocre pianist who believes herself to be a genius to the point where she accuses him of sexually accosting her? Who like Horacio stays with a homeless woman, gets drunk with her until she tries to fellate him? Come on, it’s pretty crazy. How can someone like Horacio discover that an infant is dead cold on a bed and does nothing or asks for help? I think these things happen in literature so you can acctually ask more philosophical and existential stuff that I’m probably too stupid to think about, much less ask. But I do recognize Cortázar’s brilliance. Because of him and with him (very happily) I’ve walked blocks and blocks with Oliveira through the rainy Paris nights, while he questions the world with his intelligence that just goes on and on. I’ve felt as lonely and dumb as La Maga, and I’ve identified with her, while feeling totally in awe and at a disadvantage of Horacio and Ossip and Etienne the rest of those cultured bohemians and their surrealism, their stream of consciousness and all that merde.

Of course, The Color Purple is a sadder experience. It talks about another world, a world that sadly seems to me to be more immediate, real and more true than Oliveira’s. It’s a world I can relate to better. I feel that I am or can be an inhabitant of The Color Purple. I’m familiar with its characters and their flaws and their stories. It’s a world somehow known by me. Perhaps, it is my bones and my genes that remember a world like Celie’s.

I’m hoping my daughter will find an opportunity to read these masterpieces soon. That is how much they are worth it.