Cosas de la Cuca // Cuca's Things

Libertad sin pájaros/ Freedom Without Birds

2010-12-31T18:20:00.000-08:00

(Click en el título para escuchar la canción) (Click on the title to listen to the song)

No hay pájaros.
El cielo estático azul.
Sólo el grito de los cuervos.
(No hay pájaros)

¡Quiero escuchar!
Se ven árboles grandes como torres a lo lejos,
pero no se escuchan pájaros.

Es demasiado el silencio.

El desierto. La palabra.
Las alas de los pájaros.
El mar.

Maria de los Angeles Esteves
Irvine, 2002
Dedicado a la memoria de Federico Garcia Lorca

Freedom without birds

There are no birds.
The static blue sky.
Only the crows’ cry.
(There are no birds)

I want to listen.
I can see big trees like towers in the distance,
but I can’t hear any birds.

There is too much silence.

The desert. The word.
The birds’ wings.
The ocean.

Deep Cleaning / Limpieza Profunda

2010-12-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

I

Going through my papers
Found this one folder
Tagged
“Legal/Divorce/INS”
I opened it to see
Sitting atop a bunch of divorce papers
A card
With a little girl in a swimming suit
Standing at the entrance of a beach
Her little dog on a leash
Her bicycle in one hand
The other arm akimbo
Reading a sign that says:
“NO dogs
NO bicycles
NO swimming”

II Glo

Ella me mira desde la foto
Con esa sonrisa pícara
Qué estará pensando
En Ámsterdam
Una mañana fría del invierno holandés
Con su gorrito Coya
Bajo el cielo gris.

Los amigos desaparecen.

Vos estás despierta
Tu cuerpo respira
Escuchás a la lluvia cayendo rítmicamente ahí afuera
Pandora a lo lejos.

Estás viva.

***

Limpieza Profunda

I

Revisando mis papeles
Encontré este folder
Etiquetado
“Legal/Divorcio/Inmigración”
Lo abro y veo
Sentada al tope de una pila de papeles del divorcio
Una tarjeta
Con una nena en malla
Parada a la entrada de una playa
Su perrito con correa
La bicicleta en una mano
El otro brazo en jarra
Leyendo un cartel que dice:
“PROHIBIDOS los perros
PROHIBIDAS las bicicletas
PROHIBIDO nadar.”

II Glo

She looks at me from the picture
With her sweet smile
What is she thinking
In Amsterdam
In a cold Dutch winter morning
With her Coya’s hat
Under the gray sky.

Friends disappear.

You are awake.
You breathe
You hear the rain falling rhythmically out there
Pandora in the distance.

You are alive.

Diatribe On Men: My Declaration of Independence

2010-11-14T18:07:00.000-08:00

Cleopatra says:

I always say that I have a built-in delay: it takes me a while after the facts to see things as they are, and this is added proof of that.

I’ve been sick this past week, had strep throat, so I had a lot of pain, in my throat, head, ears, and neck. Not pleasant. And because my head hurt all the time, I couldn’t read or write much, I watched some Netflix but that tired me too, so I mostly slept. And with all that free time my neurons got working again.

During my time of convalescence, I realized two things: one, that I am sad, very sad. I suffer from deep sadness. Sadness that takes away the joy of life, the beauty, and paralyzes me. But this sadness is not only the product of the last break-up. There is sadness also from before, from two, five years ago at least, from the miscarriage, the divorce, but probably more, more, much more, a sadness bordering on the permanent, a subterranean, all permeating sadness. Depression you might call it, but I call it sadness, elephant sadness, lack of joy. That’s why it’s been so hard to create lately. The spark is missing. That was the thing: he brought the spark with him, but then, he took it away. So especially these past few months I’ve been bare, because of the break-up, but also due to the realization that I am at the end of an era. I recently came to terms with the fact that I will never have children of my own, from my own womb, because I don’t want to do it alone and if I want to do it I have to do it now, and now there is no man on the horizon, and there is not going to be one for a while, and there are too many other things I want to do. Maybe it represents the end of the path, a cul de sac, and now I have other roads in front of me. *

But I also realized that I am angry. I am angry at men that say, You are so great, you are awesome, gorgeous, fantastic, but I don’t love you; tired of men that fall in love with the woman that don’t love them and reject the one that does, and tired to be the woman that falls in love with the men that don’t love her and rejects the one that does. Tired of playing that game.

This guy in Sweden, for example, lets call him Pedro. Recently, a month ago perhaps, Pedro offered me $1,000 to go visit him in Stockholm and bring him the stupid sculptures he bought on Ebay. One of them, especially, takes a decent amount of space in my room. It is in a big box and I don’t want to go through the hassle of sending it by mail. The sculpture is made of plaster and it could break, so, he wants me to go to Sweden and bring it with me. I haven’t said yes or no, I am in between other more important things right now.

But this friend, Pedro, well, I could write a book about us. I’ve known him since 1992, we dated for two years in Buenos Aires before he departed towards Sweden and I departed towards Paris. While I was in Paris in 1995 I got pregnant and he was the main suspect, (I had visited him in Sweden a couple of times), and although, yes, I have to admit, there was another possible perpetrator, in my heart I knew it was him. But he was so adamant about his innocence, he didn’t even blink, he was like, Me? Not possible. I am too good, I could not possibly have made that mistake. So, I had an abortion, and then we continued to see each other from Paris to Sweden until I told him some secret I had been keeping for a little while: a fling I had with a friend of his after he left Buenos Aires and after he had said “I want to fuck as many Swedish girls as possible.” But his honor was hurt so he refused to talk to me for a long time… Anyway, of course I loved him even more after that and I wrote him many love letters to which he always replied, You are so talented and beautiful, but I don’t love you and I never did. But in 2008 when I had the miscarriage he wrote me an email saying, Well, that baby that we never had a long time ago was maybe the only one I would have ever had. He was getting worry about his own posterity. So, in April 2009, when he heard that I had broken up with my boyfriend of 5 years, a pretty bad break up too, he proposed something to me. He was married to an infertile woman so he couldn’t have kids with her. When I dated him he was around 26, and he didn’t want to have kids then, he was like, Why bring a kid to this awful world? But after he turned 40 he became fearful of disappearing from the earth without leaving a sign of his existence, because he realized that he was not going to be this great artist he thought he was going to be and leave behind a wake of beautiful creations known by the universe. In 2009 he was 44 or so, I was almost 39, and his wife was 46 or something like that. But they had a terrible relationship; they fought all the time. He was always telling me that he was going to leave her. He would call me sometimes and complain for hours about his wife, and then when she would come back to the house, because he would only call me when she was not around, he would hang up immediately leaving me in the middle of a sentence. He was afraid of her. He even told me, a few months before April 2009, that in the summer he was going to move to his house in the country by himself and leave her. I remembered this because, even though we haven’t seen each other for more than fifteen years, I was always still kind of in love with him, kind of having hopes (what an idiot!). So when he called and proposed me to have a child with him, first I was happy, because it was what I wanted to hear all my life, and he knew I wanted a kid too, but then I started asking, You are going to leave your wife, aren’t you? And he said, No! Leave my wife!? Why do you say that? And I was like, Well, you said you had problems with her before, that you were going to leave her, and if you propose me what you are proposing me, I will want more, you know, what are your plans? To visit your child once a year and in secret? Oh yeah, it has to be in secret, he said, because now I am going to therapy with my wife and I will not leave her just like that, So you are going to therapy with your wife and you are asking me to keep this secret from her, to have your child in secret? (Silence) I will send you money… Yeah, right. So, that was it, I said no. And I was angry with him for a while and didn’t talk to him. But time passed and a year later he asks me to keep some boxes for him. Some junk he buys on Ebay and people don’t want to send to Europe to him, so they send them to me. I said ok, why not. Now I have three of these things in my house, and as my roommate pointed out, they come with his energy, because every time I see them I think about him.

The thing is now he offers me $1,000 to go visit him and bring him the boxes. And I asked him, How is your situation? He divorced his wife and is now living by himself in a little house close to the metro station in Stockholm. Aha. And so, are you going to offer me again that deal of the child once I am there? And he said, No! I don’t have any hidden agendas! The reason I asked you last year, he said, was because I knew you wanted, I wanted, my wife couldn’t, so the only way I could have a baby was in secret, so I asked you. But now I don’t need to do that. Claro, of course, I thought, now that you are free you can find yourself a nice blond Swedish fertile young girl that can have your kid for you, so you don’t need me, and who could you have asked when you were married other than me, the always understanding me, the compassionate and all loving me? Nobody. Nobody else you could have asked other than me. And now you don’t need me, because you are free and so you are not interested in me anymore. Me is only good for the half-ass option.

So now I say: you want your boxes? Of course, I’ll give you your boxes, dear. You just send me the money and I’ll be there in a few months, and you’ll see, I’ll get to Paris and I’ll send you a text saying, “Oops! I’m not going to make it to Sweden, sweetie! Your box got broken in a thousand and two little pieces so it is not worth going there anymore. Bye bye! Thanks for the trip!”

I draw La Femme after another break-up, a Swedish actually, in Paris 1997. Notice the little smashed head under he foot and her second, fiery mouth.

*Check next blog entry on this. There is more to say …

She's back/ Está de vuelta

2010-10-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

She’s back

She, she always seduces me back into her arms, she, my mistress, I am her slave. I tried to leave her so many times! So many times I call her things, I said I hated her, that I wanted to kill her, that I didn’t want to see her anymore. How many times I promised to myself that I will never be back with her again, and now, I am back with you, my saboteur.

Trato de sacarte de encima, porque mi verdadera vocación, yo digo, es la escritura, ahí sí tengo talento, me digo, pero en la música no, en la música soy un desastre. No soy natural.

Y hete aquí que me seduce con canciones inspiradas por un chico bonito cuyo nombre no voy a nombrar. Canciones con letra, claro, así no me siento tan culpable de que le estoy metiendo los cuernos a la escritura. Así ella también tiene su say.

But she’s back, and what can I do? I can’t leave her out there by the door, in this rain. I have to let her in, right? I have to listen to what she has to say.

***

Está de vuelta

Ella, ella siempre me seduce de vuelta a sus brazos, ella, mi amante, soy su esclava. Traté de dejarla tantas veces! Tantas veces la llamé cosas feas, le dije que la odiaba, que la quería matar, que no quería verla nunca más en mi vida. Cuántas veces me prometí a mí misma que nunca iba a volver con ella, y ahora, estoy de vuelta con vos, mi saboteadora.

I tried to get you off my back, because my true calling, I say, is writing, there I do have talent, I say, but in music not, in music I am a disaster. I am not natural.

And now here she is back seducing me with songs inspired by a pretty boy whose name I will not name. Songs with lyrics, of course, so I don’t feel so guilty that I am cheating on her, on writing. That way writing also has her say.

Pero ahora está de vuelta, y qué puedo hacer? No la puedo dejar ahí afuera, en esta lluvia. La tengo que dejar entrar, verdad? Escuchar lo que tiene que decir.

Jonathan Franzen

2010-10-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

I went to see Jonathan Frazer. He was at The Aratani/Japan America Theatre in a conversation with Meghan Daum, organized by Aloud, the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, on September 16.

This is the first time that I do this kind of thing: I paid $25 to see a writer talk and have my book signed. Why did I do it, if I never do it, especially not for $25? I heard him on an interview with Terry Gross while driving, and I found myself saying “yeah” to every thing he said. He was describing the some times tortuous process of writing, the process of getting into people’s heads, and other juicy writer’s stories, and I fell in love. I felt I had found my soul mate, because all that he was saying resonated with me so clearly and loudly.

I’ve been in the process of writing a novel for quite some time now. You see, this book has been trying to be born for more than 10 years now, a very slow and painful birth. Maybe it is because I am a primeriza, a first time mother. This will be my first novel, if I ever finish it, and if it becomes a novel, because at this point, I don’t know anymore what it is. So, it made me feel good to know that I wasn’t the only one that suffered through the writing process.

Why suffer? Am I a masochist perhaps? Don’t let me answer that question. But yes, it is a hard process when you are revising some painful periods of your life, not all painful, some stupid, some dull, and drawing conclusions and lessons from them. Hurtful truths some times come to surface. Even when we though, oh, this is safe.

So, when I heard that he was going to be in LA, I looked it up and got the ticket, and, of course, I went to buy the book.

I hadn’t read Franzen before. I wasn’t here when all the controversy of “The Corrections” happened. That was in 2001 before 9/11, and I was in Holland then, getting my fiancée visa to come here. So those kind of news were out my radar. I heard about him when I was in the MFA, but I didn’t put much attention to what people were saying. I didn’t read bestsellers authors then, you know. I didn’t consider them “literary” enough. Of course, I was talking only from my arrogance, since I didn’t really know Franzen’s writing.

I started reading “Freedom” before going to the library event, of course. I imagined in my head that I would have an opportunity to talk to him, one on one, to let him know how much I liked what he said in Fresh Air, how much his interview made me feel that I was not alone in the world, that out there, there was someone who also felt like I did about people, who felt how I felt about writing. And as I started reading the book, I also wanted to tell him that I too like to write about people, about relationships, about what happens to us through life, how life change us.

My yeah yeah situation in the car started when he got to talk about depression and being stuck, and working your conflicts, instead of going to therapy, though writing. Self-psychoanalysis. “When I start to crash, I know I am getting something there.” Maybe I am at that point, but I am a bit paralyzed.

When the big day arrived, I didn’t feel like going, driving to downtown LA… but, I had the ticket so I went.

It was in Little Tokyo, at the Japanese American theater, which was much bigger than I thought. It was a full size theater! For an author! It was really full, a lot of people. I sat somewhere in the back, on the left side.

Somebody came out and introduced him, flowers coming out of her mouth as she praised him, and then, he came out, tall, a lot of hair, walked to the podium on the other side of the stage and read an excerpt of the novel that I hadn’t read yet. When he finished, he walked over to the center of the stage where the chairs were set with the microphones, and then the interviewer came and sat down on the other chair.

I didn’t like the interviewer. I thought her questions and opinions were not interesting, and it seemed that he wasn’t connecting with her either, but his answers were still interesting. Overall, I liked the Fresh Air interview better. Then people lined up to ask him questions, some interesting, some not, about Oprah and all that again, so I decided to go out and line up for the signing since it looked like it was going to be a long line.

And then I felt it. Cholula! It was screaming my voice inside, “You are like those people fascinated by fame, following the figure of your adoration like a thirsty puppy!” How cruel. My internal voices are always so nice to me. They have no compassion, they don’t care a bit about my feelings. They just scream out at me their most hurtful criticisms expecting me to take it, and bleed, and feel sorry for myself.

So I made sure to go to the bathroom first, to hush them, and then I moved timidly through the lobby and was relieved when I saw that I was not the only Cholula trying to get one of the first places in line. I was happy to see that there were at least another 10 people before me. And what was even more comforting was that they were even more Cholulos than me! Because they had bags full of books for him to sign. Every book he had written was there, some times multiple copies. Churn out some signatures Mr. Franzen!

But here is when the best part started. Once the talk ended, people were coming out of the theater in masses and lining up behind. I don’t know how long the line was, but I imagine it went around the whole theater, that’s why they set the signing table at the end of the lobby, so they will have the whole length of the circumference of the theater for the line.

Franzen came, sat down at the table and started signing. From my post in the line I could see two people standing next to him, two people that looked like librarians, with their thick glasses and dressed with their last century correctness. And also, there were other two women going through the line making sure that the books were open on the right page. I opened my book and chose a page, a white page for him to sign. The woman came to me, looked at my open book, and corrected my choice: not this page, this one, with the title. Aha. I guess it will upset him to sign his book on a different page. Will it slow him down, throw him off to see a different page in front of him? Will that cause a debacle in the line?

I don’t know. I obeyed.

The guy before me had a bag full of books. He told me he loved his writing. I asked him which book he liked the most, since it seemed that he had read them all, and he said, “The Corrections.” I will have to read it, I thought.

When his turn came up, he approached the table with all his books, the guy standing to the left of Franzen took the books and hand them to him, one by one, and the woman to the right was just looking, making sure he didn’t spend too much time with each, perhaps, keeping the clock. He was flanked by the soldiers of the Queen of Hearts. I was in Alice in Wonderland.

He was not even looking up to see whose book it was. Everything had to be done so fast and expedient. He was the Rock Star of the publishing industry. He had to keep his fans happy, but it had to be done a certain way, everything under control.

I felt sorry for him. Such a long line. His wrist will hurt afterwards.

When my turn came, the guy on the left took my book while Franzen was still signing the previous guy’s books. It was all so fast. He took my book that was handed by the thick glasses guy, without looking at me, and I thought, this is it? Not time to talk? Not nothing? But then it just came out of me: “This is crazy, all these people.” He lifted his eyes from the book, looked at me, smiled. I said, “Thank you,” and he stretched his hand for me to shake it, while looking at me on the eyes.

I left happy, because in just those 20 seconds I felt there was a connection. I got through to him, and he got through to me, but he had already done so before, with his book and his thoughts.

I wanted to write you an email, Mr Franzen, but I cant find your address anywhere, not even an address to write you a letter. I guess I have to go through your publisher. It is sad that good writers seem so unapproachable. Maybe not, maybe it is just me, that I am afraid. I never tried to write to a writer that I admire before. I never thought I would get a response. But this time I will try, just to get it out, and why not, maybe you’ll answer.

Fantasmas de gente sola

2010-09-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

Mi chambre de bonne en París, 7eme.

Anoche no pude dormir. Parece que mi vecina tiene un inquilino nuevo. Me enteré el lunes a la medianoche, cuando los ruidos me despertaron: ruidos de muebles movidos, arrastrados, sus patas marcando los pisos de madera, sonidos de choques, de quiebres, de raspones. Me dormí igual, y los ruidos me volvieron a despertar a las 3 de la mañana. Dí tres golpes fuertes en la pared, y escuché voces del otro lado. Los ruidos se calmaron un poco, pero siguieron, y encima, puso música rock lo suficientemente fuerte como para que yo la escuche del otro lado. A las 5 de la mañana finalmente me dormí, tal vez porque él también se fue a dormir.

Y anoche me pasó lo mismo, despierta hasta las 5 de la mañana con su rock music y sus pasos pesados resonando a través de mis paredes. Y mientras estaba despierta, me acordé de mi primer año en París, cuando vivía en la chambre de bonne, o la habitación que solía ser para los sirvientes en el último piso de los edificios aristocráticos de París. Ahí también tenía un vecino ruidoso, pero él no era tan malo. Era un hombre solo. Mientras yo leía en silencio en mi cuarto diminuto, podía escuchar su televisión prendida, retumbando del otro lado. Tenía solo un vecino, mi cuarto era el último del piso. Una noche salí y le golpeé a la puerta. Le pedí delicadamente que por favor bajara el volumen. Dijo que sí, no hay problema. Era un tipo bajito, de pelo oscuro y piel clara, de unos 50 años. Tenía una expresión en su cara que parecía de extrema tristeza, o tal vez, estaba simplemente cansado. Pero igual la televisión seguió resonando, toda la noche. Dormiría con la tele prendida. Y mientras escuchaba las pavadas que él miraba (sonaba a telenovela), yo pensaba: debe sentirse muy solo. Mira TV para sobrevivir su soledad. Parecía ser un extranjero, creía recordar un acento, tal vez portugués, sin amigos, sin una mujer. A veces escuchaba su voz, o tal vez debería describirlo como sonidos que salían de su boca, y me lo imaginaba masturbándose y eyaculando con un suspiro reprimido de placer. Me lo imaginaba solo en su cuarto, mirando porno y masturbándose. Masturbándose desesperadamente, masturbándose y llorando, masturbándose y flagelándose. Me imaginaba toda clase de cosas horribles en mis noches de insomnio. Su soledad era mi soledad. Me daba pena, el tipo ya no era joven, sólo en una ciudad extranjera, y las pocas veces que me lo crucé me pareció que era un tipo bastante deprimido.

Su televisión fue un paisaje constante por un tiempo, y un día, así como vino, desapareció. Entonces me envolvió el silencio y lo extrañé. Me preguntaba, a dónde habrá ido? Habrá vuelto a Portugal? Habrá encontrado otro lugar? Tendrá una novia y se habrá ido a vivir con ella?

La gente sola me asustaba. Podía verme, mi triste persona, convertida en uno de ellos. Gente triste y sola eran como un espejo para mí, en el que no quería verme reflejaba, por eso los evitaba. Pero no se puede huir de los fantasmas. Nuestros fantasmas corren con nosotros, y siempre nos alcanzan.

Por eso esta mañana, a las 8:30, decidí mover mis muebles y ponerlos fuera del alcance de la pared de mi vecino. Puse la música fuerte y disfruté de los ruidos que mis muebles hacían al ser movidos, los chillidos de mi cama, mi mesita de luz, mi biblioteca, sobre el piso. Tal vez así mis fantasmas me dejen en paz esta noche.

The Ghosts of Lonely People

2010-09-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

Last night I couldn’t sleep, laying awake listening to the rock music of the new roommate of my neighbor. He is occupying the room on the other side of my bedroom wall, and he likes to stay up late, till 3 or 4 in the morning. He moved in on Monday after midnight. I was already in bed, had gone to sleep early, at around 10pm. At midnight, noises of furniture being moved around woke me up. Furniture being dragged on the wooden floor. I went back to sleep, but at 3am, I woke up again. The noises continued: somebody walking, speaking, loud music. It sounded like he was putting stuff away now. So I knocked on the wall three times, with all my fury. Then voices, he talking to Omaira, maybe. He turned the music down, but still, I could hear it. I laid awake in bed until 5 in the morning, when finally he went to sleep, I guess.

And last night, I laid awake again, with the rock music and the sounds of his steps resonating through my wall. And while awake, I remembered my first year in Paris, when I was living in the chambre de bonne, or the room that used to be for the servants on the last floor of the aristocratic French buildings. There too I had a noisy neighbor, but he wasn’t that bad. It was a guy alone. While I was in my tiny room, I could here a TV, very loud, rumbling next door. I had only one neighbor, I was in the last room of the row. So one night I went out and knocked at his door. He opened, a small guy, with dark hair and light skin. He looked around 50 years old, and the expression on his face was one of extreme sadness, or maybe he was just tired. I asked him politely if he could put the volume down. He said yes. But I could still hear it, all night. I guess he slept with the TV on. And while I was listening to the crap he was watching, I was thinking: he must be very lonely this guy. He watches TV to survive his loneliness. He is probably a foreigner, I think I remember an accent, maybe Portuguese, and has no friends, no woman. Some times I heard his voice, or maybe I should describe it as sounds coming from his mouth, and so I imagined that the guy was masturbating and coming with a repressed sigh of pleasure. I imagined him alone in his room, watching some porn and masturbating, masturbating with desperation, masturbating and crying, masturbating and flagellating himself. I imagined all kind of horrible things, as I laid there in my bed, awake. His loneliness was my loneliness. I felt sorry for him, he was not young, alone in a foreign city, and the few times I met him he seemed to be kind of depressed.

I heard his TV for a while, and then one day, it was gone. Then the silence enveloped me and I missed him. I wondered, where he might have gone? Did he go back to Portugal? Did he find another place? Did he find a girlfriend and moved in with her?

Lonely people scared me. I could see my sad self becoming one of them. Sad and lonely people were a mirror for me, a mirror that I tried to avoid at all cost. But you can’t run away from your ghosts. They run away with you, and they always catch up.

That’s why this morning, at 8:30am, I decided to move my furniture, to find a better place away from my new neighbor’s wall. So I put some very loud music on and enjoyed the happy noises my bed, night table and bookshelf created, screeching while I hauled them. Maybe my lonely ghosts will leave me in peace tonight.

My chambre de bonne, Paris, 7eme

Love Songs From the Desert: La Casa/ The House

2010-08-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

La Casa

Esta casa suena como un barco,
la madera cruje con el viento oleado.
Me lleva a navegar en el desierto.
Subida a la cresta de la mesa
miro al precipicio.

******
The House

This house sounds like a ship,
the wood creaks with each billowing wind.
It takes me sailing through the desert.
Raised above the crest of the mesa
I look down the precipice.

Love Songs From the Desert: The Roadrunner

2010-08-02T09:18:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem during the Joshua Tree Artist Residency in July 2009. This one was published in the American Free Journal. English edited by Ngoc Luu

The Roadrunner

The roadrunner comes with his clashing beak
begging for food.
He walks with short, quick steps,
wings drooped to his side.
He stops in front of my window
"nose against the glass"
as the tango goes.
I feel pity for him.

I want Baloney! He yells.

When the front door is open he enters,
traverses the living room looking for anything
for himself and family of four.

Sometimes he sits on the stonewall
and watches or follows me
into the bathroom.
Or he spies at me from the other side of the terrace
or the bedroom window
and from there he waits.
Prrrrr! he gawks,
but I don't listen and close the door.

I don't have anymore Baloney, and,
after all,
I don't want to spoil him.

Love Songs From the Desert: El correcaminos

2010-08-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

Este poema lo escribí durante mi residencia en Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency, en Julio 2009. Fue publicado en el American Free Journal (en inglés)

El correcaminos

El correcaminos viene con ese sonido de pico entrechocado
a pedir comida.
Camina a pasos cortos y rápidos
con las alas caídas para que me de pena.
Se para junto a la ventana
"la ñata contra el vidrio"
como dice el tango.

¡Quiero Baloney! Me grita

Cuando la puerta está abierta, se mete.
Recorre el comedor buscando algo
para él y su familia de cuatro.

A veces se instala en la pared de piedra
y desde ahí me mira o me sigue
cuando voy al baño.
O me espía desde el otro lado de la terraza
o la ventana del dormitorio
y espera a que salga.
¡Prrrr! Me grita.
Pero yo no lo escucho y cierro las puertas.

Se me acabó el Baloney, y,
después de todo,
no lo voy a andar malcriando.

My Mother, and More on Life and Death

2010-07-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

(Sorry, this is a few weeks old. I have trouble keeping up with my own writing, editing in time...)

Yesterday morning, Sunday, like every Sunday, my mother called me. I talked to her for a few minutes, giving her updates on my health and the things I am doing, or the ones I can tell her about. And, after giving me the updates from her side, she told me that my grandmother, Nona, the Italian one, went on Saturday to my cousin’s place and they show her pictures of me on Facebook, and there were some pictures there from a bbq I went on the 4th of July which she didn’t approve of. The pictures in question were taken when I was enjoying Stefan’s jacuzzi with Bernard, Elif, her kid and another kid. I was wearing a blue bikini.

-    La Nona says that you were in a small pool, like a bathtub?
-    No ma, it is a Jacuzzi.
-    Well, but she said that she couldn’t see what you were wearing…
-    A bikini, bigger than any of the tiny ones they wear in Argentina (the bikinis there cover the minimum indispensable of the rear parts, of all parts for that matter. The style is called cola-less…)
-    And she says he looks so much younger than you…
-    He is three years younger than me, yes. Rob was 6 years younger than me…
-    But you should be careful what you put on the Internet.
-    I didn’t put the pictures up. Somebody else tagged me.
-    That’s even worse! People talk…
-
People talk yes, they talk all the time, too much and about things they have no business of talking, and if they do, why should we care! We have such different lives, my mother and I, that sometimes I think she cannot even imagine. Ever since I left, when I was 24, now it’s been 15 years since then, I had the freedom of telling them only what I wanted them to know. You, Americans, think that’s normal. You are used to leave home at 18 when you go to college, and live in separate cities all your life since then. In Argentina families are much more close knit. I didn’t leave my parents house until I left the country. I tried to when I was 19, but my father didn’t wanted me to so he build me a room in what it used to be the garage so I could have privacy, but specially, so I could bring the piano there so I will stop waking them up at 8am when I started practicing. People there are used to know everything about everyone, and my mother is always worried about what others will say or think about what we do, specially, what my cousins and aunt will say and think of us. And that worry limited her all her life, afraid of doing things because, what will people say.

But I have to say, my mother went a long way. Her mother, la Nona, didn’t know from where the baby was going to come out when she was in labor. Nobody had told her. Even she said to me once: we lived in the middle ages then, the dark ages. We didn’t’ know anything about sex, nobody talked about it. My mother had to finish elementary school as a homeschooler, because Nona took her out of school when she had her first period. Señoritas are not allowed in school according to my Nona. It is dangerous with all those men around. They wanted to find her a husband when she was 17. So, I understand that my mother did already a lot to free herself from those restrictions and limitations they pilled upon her. Her parents didn’t want her to go to high school, she had to learn to sew and cook instead, but they finally gave up when she was 17, so she started school when everybody was finishing.

So this life of mine here, it is a mystery to her, she cannot even start to imagine it. She will not imagine that, after she called me on that Sunday morning, we made love, I got up, smoked some before drinking mate made on the electric coffee machine while listening to Led Zeppelin… The small everyday things are different. Here I don’t have to walk the few blocks to the bus stop, or walk to the bakery in the corner to buy facturas, or do the line for two hours at the bank to cash my check. I can’t drink mate talking to her and Nona in the afternoon, or she cannot see when I practice piano, when I write, who I am with. Here I go out with the car, go swimming, when I need to buy food I go to the grocery store, or anything else go to Target… I cannot tell her about all the little things, my fights with my cat that walks all over the counters, that gets me up at 5am, my war with the clandestine mechanic of the block that steals all the parking spaces, my last adventure trying to find a maria dispensary open…

But Adrián, the friend that recently passed away, reminds me that life is here to be lived. We came here with a mission: live life. This, who we are, this combination of atoms, will live life the way that only this particular combination that makes me can live it. And no matter how others try to tell me what to do, there is always going to be something that this person, me, does differently than any other person.

Yes, I am talking about death lately, with Kim my room mate’s girlfriend, and her theory of the meat robots, and it came to me the realization that yes, maybe there is an afterlife but it is not this identity the one that lives on. This identity dies with this body. We all go to join the big sea of souls, the source, and this identity, this cuca, disappears. But it is bliss to join the whole, it is bliss to disappear, it is a different life. We oscillate between life and death, between individuality and totality, yin and yang, and I thought, life is this, this identity, and I should try to make the most of it, the most of this identity, before it disappears again in the whole. A drop of water joining the sea. And this particular drop of the sea took on this identity with its quirks and problems and psychology, and it is what it is: Me. Me is this, and this can go places, be happy, be sad… be alive on this earth. It might come back again, as the Hindus believe, reincarnation, but it would not be me, it would not be cuca the one that comes back. It will be a piece of the whole, a drop of the sea, but how much of cuca will have? I don’t know, maybe nothing.

So today I was seeing everybody as a brother, because, after all, we are all part of the same, we are all from the same source, but as we come here, we take in a personality, a certain combination of atoms and energy, and we take on this individuality that separates us from the whole and that allows us to experience life in this earth, which otherwise, we couldn’t, not in this way, with the senses. It is a treat.

What little story I have just invented. Pretty little story. Well, I guess it helps me go to sleep at night, makes me feel at peace somehow, as if being part of something bigger than myself made me feel, “important?” Is that the word? I don’t know. Makes me feel that I want to do the best I can of this particular combination of atoms, this energy that is me, I want to make it fulfill its potential, all the promises, its dreams. I’d like to make it fly.

Maybe that’s why we are so scared of death. Because once we are dead we can see how stupid we’ve been, how we missed the point, how we didn’t understand its meaning. And how afraid we were.

Diatriba de lo pequeño

2010-07-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

Este texto lo escribí hace dos años y estoy pensando incorporarlo a la novela. Cleopatra dice:

Es que hace falta un poco de valor, mucho, para ser artista, para crear. Por eso es que no todos llegan. No tiene nada que ver con el talento, pero con el valor. El valor de decir y hacer lo que sea, lo que fuera, lo que salga. Valor para darlo a conocer y dar la cara, admitir, con toda seguridad, esto es mío. Es por eso que nosotros no pudimos. Nos faltó el valor. No creo que nos haya faltado el talento, de eso teníamos de sobra, imaginación, locura. Lo usábamos para vivir. La vida fue nuestro canvas y ahí lo pusimos todo. Pero nos dio miedo. Nos dio miedo dejar una marca, indisoluble, en el tiempo. Nos dio miedo dejar algo contundente a nuestro paso. Nos dio miedo decir, sí, soy esto, ¿y qué? Pensamos que tal vez los otros no nos iban a aprobar. ¿Quiénes son los otros? Nuestros padres, primero, nuestra familia, nuestros amigos, la comunidad donde nos movemos, vivimos, la comunidad de artistas, de los que hacen lo mismo que nosotros, el mundo. Estamos tan preocupados por lo que los otros van a decir y pensar acerca de nosotros, que no podemos hacer nada. La preocupación nos paraliza. Nos escondemos. Y es así que reemplazamos el hacer arte por el vivir esta vida extraña, cautivante a veces por lo fuera de común, fuera de las reglas. Fumamos para olvidarnos de la realidad, para hacerla un poco mas fantástica y menos repugnante, menos parecida a lo que es. Tal vez los repugnantes somos nosotros.

Es que nos odiamos tanto. Odiamos nuestros cuerpos tan lejos de perfectos, nuestros cuerpos con kilos de más, con arrugas y señales de decadencia. Ellos también nos muestran que el tiempo pasa y nosotros nos quedamos ahí. Odiamos nuestras mentes que nos entretienen con frivolidades, estupideces, cosas pequeñas de todos los días. ¡Odiamos esas cosas pequeñas! Odiamos nuestras vidas pequeñas e inconstutiyentes que no nos llevan a nada, solo a más vidas pequeñas y a más días iguales como éstos, pequeños, iguales. Odiamos nuestra pequeñez y nuestra cobardía. Odiamos al mundo por aplastarnos y obligarnos a aceptar una realidad que no construimos, a la que caímos casi por dejadez, por temor, por ese miedo a lo desconocido. Somos tan pequeños como la realidad que nos rodea todos los días, y por eso nos odiamos. Odiamos lo que somos y lo que nunca vamos a llegar a ser. Odiamos esa posibilidad que se quedó estancada en algún punto de la historia. Esa posibilidad que no se realizó pero que nos hizo soñar y esperar y pensar que tal vez algún día se realizaría. Odiamos nuestra esperanza, y lo que queda de ese deseo de superarse, de tal vez llegar a ser eso que quisimos alguna vez. Odiamos ese pequeño deseo porque ese deseo nos mantiene deseando y alertas, pero resulta que lo único que queremos en realidad es desaparecer, no estar, esfumarnos como el humo que sale de la pipa, quemarnos como esas hojas secas que al menos, en combustión, sirven para algo.

Nos escondemos. Jugamos este juego de decir que queremos hacer algo, pero no lo hacemos. ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué no lo hacemos? Porque si lo hiciéramos se terminaría el juego. Y tenemos miedo de que termine porque a lo mejor perdemos. A lo mejor al final del juego nos damos cuenta de que había otros mejores que nosotros, damm it, y si no terminamos el juego nunca nos vamos a enterar, right? Entonces seguimos jugando, así, escondiéndonos de vez en cuando saliendo a la luz por unos segundos, y volvernos a esconder. Por unos minutos pensamos que tenemos algo, que andamos detrás de algo, por unos breves instantes nos imaginamos que ahora sí vamos a poder, que ahora sí estamos detrás de una idea fantástica. Pero al poco tiempo empezamos a perder velocidad, a perder el impulso, y así sin darnos cuenta, estamos fuera del juego otra vez, mirándolo todo detrás de las vidrieras, contemplando cómo los otros juegan y cómo a nosotros nos gustaría participar pero no tenemos tiempo, no tenemos dinero, no tenemos lugar, no tenemos ganas, y sí, y no tenemos lo único que hace falta tener: pelotas.

Por eso el humo ayuda, el humo crea castillitos en el aire, fábulas a las que nos atajamos, nos colgamos de esas colitas de humo que flamean en el aire y nos llevan con ellas por unas horas así, a flotar por sobre todas las cosas y verlas ahí abajo pequeñitas. Entonces por lo que dura el efecto somos grandes, gigantescos, estamos arriba del mundo, arriba de todo y de todos y los esquemas ya no importan, nos sentimos superiores y omnipotentes. Somos los dioses de todo y de todos y nos olvidamos de quienes éramos. Hasta que se acaba, y la vida vuelve a ser pequeña, fea, absurda, e inconsistente, como nosotros.

Diabribe of the Small

2010-07-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

This is a text I wrote a couple of years ago that would like to include in my novel (Original in Spanish). Cleopatra says:

The problem is that, to be an artist, to create, it takes a bit of courage; actually, it takes a lot, not a bit, a lot. That's why not everybody makes it. It has nothing to do with talent, but with courage. The courage to say and do whatever it takes, whatever it has to be, however it comes out. Courage to make it known and show your face to declare with all certainty, this is mine. That's why we couldn't. We lacked courage. I don't think we lacked talent; we had enough of that, imagination, craziness. We used it to live. Life was our canvas and there we put it all. But we got scared. We got scared of leaving a mark, indissoluble, in time. We were afraid of leaving something concrete behind as we passed by. We were afraid of saying, yes, this is me, so what? We thought that perhaps the others were not going to approve. And who are the others? Our parents, first, our family, our friends, the community where we interact, live, the community of artists, of those who do the same things than we do, the world. We are so worried about what others will say and think about us that we cannot do anything. The worry paralyzes us. We hide. And that's why we replace doing art for living this strange life, captivating some times because it is so out of the ordinary, outside of the rules. We smoke to forget reality, to make it a bit more fantastic and less repugnant, less like it is. Maybe we are the repugnant, not the reality.

It's just that we hate ourselves so much. We hate our bodies, so far from perfect, our bodies with extra pounds, with wrinkles and signs of decay. They too show us that time goes by and we got stuck there. We hate our minds that entertain us with frivolities, stupidity, small every day things. We hate those small things! We hate our small and inconsistent lives that take us nowhere, only to more small lives and more days like these, trivial, repeated. We hate our smallness and cowardice. We hate the world because it crushed us and forced us to accept a reality that we didn't build, which we fell into almost out of laziness, fear, fear of the unknown. We are as small as the reality that surrounds us every day, and that's why we hate ourselves. We hate what we are and what we will never be. We hate that possibility that got lost at some point in history. That possibility that didn't happen but that made us dream and hope and think that sometime it could realize itself. We hate our hope, and what is left of that desire for improving ourselves, the desire of maybe getting where we wanted to be at some point. We hate that small desire because it keeps us wanting and alert but it happens that the only thing we really want is to disappear, not to be, to vanish like the smoke that comes out of this pipe, we want to burn like these dry leaves that at least, while in combustion, are useful.

We hide. We play this game of saying that we want to do something, but we don't do it. Why? Why don't we do it? Because, if we did it, the game would end, and we are afraid for it to end because we may lose. Maybe at the end of the game we realize that there were others better than us, damn it, and if we don't finish the game we would never know, right? So we keep playing, hiding once in a while, coming out to the light for a few seconds, and hiding again. For a few minutes we think that we have something, that we are onto something big, for a few instants we imagine that yes, this time we will be able to, that this time we are behind a great idea. But, after a little while, we start losing speed, losing the impulse, and without noticing, we are out of the game again, watching life behind the glass windows, looking at the others playing, thinking of how much we would like to participate but we don't have the time, we don't have the money, don't have the space, we don't feel like it, and yes, we don't have the only thing we need to have: balls.

That's why the smoke helps; it creates castles in the air, fables to which we can hold onto. We hang from those little smoke tails that fly in the sky and take us with them for a few hours, to float over everything and see the world down there, small. Then, for as long as the effect lasts, we are giants, we are on top of the world, on top of everything and everybody and the schemes don't matter anymore, we feel superior and powerful. We are the gods of everything and everybody because we forgot who we were. Until it ends, and life goes back to being small, ugly, absurd, and inconsistent, like us.

Notes From the Teacher's Notebook: Death

2010-07-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

My friend Adrián died last Tuesday night in New York, a hit and run when he was taking a walk at 2:30am. He died instantly. He was 29 years old, and very talented. He was a clown, an actor, a dancer… a charismatic person. Many will miss him, and I know that it is specially hard for his family.

Adrián was the youngest brother of Adolfo, a friend from the MFA. Adolfo got him involved with the performance of Solaresque, a poetry-dance-music piece created with the direction of Juan Felipe Herrera and the texts written during his poetry workshop. We got along well, so we collaborated in another piece for a performance night in Riverside. We met one afternoon at his parents’ house, where he was living, and improvised with masks and other things, around the theme of dogs. It was a dog night. So we came up with a piece with a very long name. It was the funeral of a dog. It started with the two of us walking out from the back of the audience, I was playing the bandoneon and singing opera, and he was carrying the bag full of stuff on his back. It was clownish sketch, something I had never done before.

That was the only piece we collaborated on together. We talked about doing something else in the future, but we never managed to find the time to meet. He was not living in town and every time he visited we couldn’t get together because of one thing or another, again and again. Last year, in October or so, he sent me a text message, where he just said, I am thinking of you. I didn’t recognize his number because I didn’t have it anymore. I had lost my phone with it. So I texted back, who is it? Although, I thought it might be him. And he texted back, Adrián, I am in New York.

Adolfo gave me the news at 8am on Friday. I called him: I feel for you. It hit me hard, so I can only imagine how it hit you. The injustice of it all, the non-sense. I had to teach at 10:30am, so I went for a walk before my student came to calm my mind. I went to the Altadena library, by the Christmas Tree lane. It’s a very relaxing street, with the pattern of the trees’ shade on the asphalt. I go there when I need a walk. I always have books from the library on my night table so I have something to return there every time I go.

George, my student, arrived a bit early and sat down at his favorite Ikea chair with his notebook. George is from Trinidad, I don’t know his age but probably around 70. I told him about the death. He said, “That’s why I don’t worry about anything anymore. We don’t know when it’s going to be our turn.” He makes fun of me because I always work so hard to teach him something. Sometimes he comes, and if he didn’t write anything that week, we just talk. He comes for composition lessons, not piano, and he scolds me when I try to teach him piano and when I try too hard to give him ideas. He says, I do it because I want to, so if there are no ideas this week, that’s ok. They’ll come.

But that day, with the news of death fresh in my mind, we started talking about the inevitability of it, and I started thinking, why bother, if anyway, we all gonna die. And I suddenly saw myself talking to my students, the kids, pointing at them with my ugly finger, my witch face, my awful teeth and skin, screaming at the top of my lungs: “You’re gonna die anyway, so, why bother? Practice, don’t practice, it doesn’t matter! You’re gonna die!” culminating my fatalistic speech with a screeching laugh while the students run away.

I woke up from that vision, and after talking with George some more, I put the matter aside and I didn’t tell any of my other students about it. I didn’t have to teach in the afternoon, luckily. I had planned to write at that time, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t stop thinking about death, Adrián, the meaningless of it all… and then I realized: I’m gonna die too. I’m not gonna live forever. It’s just so hard to let go. So attached to life, to the little things, to human contact. How could you let go of that?

But, it is what it is. Sooner or later, I’ll have to accept it.

Since I couldn’t write, I decided to go for a hike. On my way there I decided to call my friend Ngoc. We talked for an hour. Then I called Liz, for another half hour or so. Then I went to see Bernard, and I talked with him too. We went out, and in the middle of sushi, its strong taste, the heat of wasabi raising to my nose, the pleasure of the crab and fish, I thought of Adrián, so I raised my sake cup and made a toast for him, to you, Adrián, en agradecimiento, por ayudarme a apreciar las pequeñas cosas, que at least, yo todavía disfruto (to you, Adrián, because you helped me appreciate the small things, that, at least, I still enjoy).

And, just in case, I put the phone number of my parents and sisters in Argentina on the fridge. You never know when something might happen, when someone will have to make the dreaded call.

To That Asshole (spoken tango with piano)

2010-06-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

That guy looks at me from the picture
that came in the new CD I bought,
with his asshole face.

And what can we do
if that's what he is
there is no fix.

Don't tell him about me
'cause he's gonna cuss at you.
The witch, he called me,
when I ruined his plans in Sweden.

He played the bandondeon in a quartet.
It sounded pretty good, I'd say.
I followed them with some girls
-his third world groupies-
to a bar in Barracas
where we drank until
the sunrise surprised us eating pizza at the park.

And what can we do,
if you are an asshole
it's your turn too.

We ended up hating each other,
throwing curses through the distance.
I was in Paris, he, in Stockholm,
stuck there, it was my fault,
or his,
'cause he was an idiot and trusted a woman.

Hate and love share a side
like twins attached by the back.
They don't look face to face
but throw poisoned darts at each other
that hit the butt of the passerby.

And what can we do?
When there is treason
there is grief.
So, if you see him, tell me how he's doing,
but don't tell me the truth, if he's doing well,
lie to me and tell me that he's miserable
that he has no friends and doesn't play anymore
that he's lost in some hovel
drinking whiskey and snorting coke until he bursts.

And if you dare
tell him my name,
but I warn you
he is gonna cuss.

Cuca Esteves
Pinamar, 2007

A aquel desgraciado

2010-06-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Aquel de entonces me mira desde la foto
que viene en el CD nuevo que me compré
con esa cara de hijo de puta.

Y qué se le va a hacer,
si eso es lo que es,
no tiene arreglo.

No le digas ni le menciones mi nombre
porque te va a putear.
La bruja me puso el tipo
cuando le arruiné sus planes allá en Suecia.

Era bandoneonista en un cuarteto
bastante bien sonaba, yo diría.
Los seguíamos
sus grouppies subdesarrolladas
hasta un bar de Barracas
donde chupábamos hasta el amanecer
sorprendiendo al sol comiendo pizza en algún parque.

Y qué se le va a hacer,
a un desgraciado como vos
alguna vez también le toca.

Terminamos odiándonos,
despreciándonos, maldiciéndonos a la distancia.
Yo en Paris, él en Estocolmo,
anclado ahora por culpa mía, o suya,
por haber sido un pelotudo y confiado en una mujer.

Los odios y los amores comparten un costado
como gemelos atados por la espalda.
No se miran a la cara
pero se tiran dardos envenenados
que pegan en el culo del que pasa.

Y qué se le va a hacer
el odio y el amor
se disimulan.

Así que si lo ves, contáme cómo anda,
pero no me digas la verdad, si le va bien,
mentime y decime que es un desgraciado,
que no tiene amigos y que ya no toca,
que está perdido en algún cuartucho
tomando güisqui y aspirando cocaína hasta reventar.

Y si te animás,
decile de mí,
pero te advierto,
te va a putear.

Cuca Esteves
Pinamar, 2007

Road Movie

2010-06-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

Two brunettes
went out for a ride.
They hopped in the car without knowing where to go,
and they left towards the north.

They were looking for an AAA
to get some free maps
and advice.

After bombarding the employee with questions
they went out satisfied
and got on the freeway,
the eighty.

They got confused a bit at the jumble near Oakland
- Cuca got scared on the bridges,
those thin asphalt lines hanging over the water abyss-
but they succeeded
and found their way towards Napa Valley,
land of wine and tourists.

"This is like a Road Movie,"
said Patricia,
and Cuca corrected her,
"A Road Trip Movie."

At their arrival to Calistoga they stopped at a burger joint
Where they ate burgers and ingested wine.
Then they continued to the hot springs,
to which they sneaked in for free
entering by the back door,
the one for the trash,
like the rats.

They saved twenty-five dollars each
and spent four hours jumping from pool to pool,
at the Jacuzzi,
and taking sexy photos in their swimming suits.

From there they went to visit the town
-- one street and three blocks--
and to look for a place, not to expensive, to eat.

They found a bohemian looking bar and went in.
Live music, it said.
There were musicians leaving,
cleaning the stage.

Bullshit, they thought,
It's nine pm and everything is finishing.

But after a little while, a sax started to make noise.
Then a piano
Drums
Bass and guitar.
They nicknamed the guitar player Cacho, because of Cacho Castaña,
an Argentinean singer from the seventies.

El Cacho and the sax player were entertaining the audience.
They climbed on the tables,
strolling among the clients that were drinking beer.
Cacho was wearing sunglasses and a long black hair almost Afro.
A total rock star.
On the guitar he had a sticker that read "Women"
like that, in plural.

The people started to dance.
Patricia wanted to join them but Cuca didn't move.
She was glued to the chair.
The old guy sitting behind Patricia was looking,
and he understood the situation.
He got up and invited Patricia to dance.
Patricia didn't want.
Cuca and the old guy insisted.
They went.

Cuca stayed behind looking at the people.
Some middle aged women, whatever that age means,
dressed with black dresses,
were dancing together like teenagers.
A black man
was dancing with one of them.
He was an elegant guy,
Fraizer style
- high middle class and liberal.

The music ends.
Patricia returns to the table.
The musicians take a break.
The old guy seats with them.
He starts to talk.
The story of his life.

His family lived in Calistoga for generations.
Ford dealer.
He sold.
Girlfriend in Hawaii.
Two daughters.
One of them is a peace corp.
She is in Panama
helping the poor, miserable Indians.

He shows them a picture of the peace corp.
After a little while,
the picture of the other.

The sax player walks towards them and stands next to their table.
He just stands there,
waiting.
The old guy keeps talking.
Cuca looks at the sax player.
Hi, she says.
The old guy keeps talking.
Patricia also looks at the sax player.
The old guy keeps talking.
The sax player leaves.
Humiliated, perhaps.
He was defeated by an old guy.

Cuca says that the sax player reminds her of a flute player,
who was also on his forties and had an asshole and womanizer look.
He was following her around when she spent three weeks working at a chateau in France,
to which Patricia replies,
"You are so negative."

The old guy asks them where they are staying.
They say that nowhere
because they are going back to Stanford that same night.
"Here is too expensive.'
The old guy says that if one has connections with the locals can find better deals.

"Ah, si?"
and they wrote down his number and address in a bit of paper,
for the next time,
although they probably lost that paper later among the trash polluting their respective bags.

They left the bar and up the car to go.
But first they went in search of a gas station to clean the windshield
and put some gas.
They found an ARCO that had cheaper gas
but it was closed.
So they just cleaned the windshield
and kept going,
now in search of coffee.
They found something open, it was midnight,
but they didn't have any more coffee.
Only decaf.
So Cuca just got a Coke to wake up.

Cuca wanted to avoid all the bridges because she already knew she was going to piss on her pants.
She knew already that she was a scare cat.
But she couldn't.
Patricia was the co-pilot with the map
and the route she chose had bridges too.
It seemed that around there the bridges couldn't be avoided.
It's full of puddles. 

In the middle of nowhere they stopped to pay at the toll booth.
They thought they were entering a toll road.
But a few feet later the car entered the most absolute darkness.
And there it was obvious.
This is not a toll road.
This is a bridge.
A damn bridge.

"Where are we? Where did you send us Patricia?
A bridge! Is it long? When does it end?"
Cuca was afraid.
She was trembling, sweating while crossing that bridge in the dark
where nothing could be seen around
only blackness
and those thin white lines marking the difference between life and death.
You have to follow them or else fall to the emptiness.

While Cuca suffered a panic attack,
grabbing the wheel with her nails,
her body tensing
like a knot
stretched as much as the skin on Pamela Anderson's tits,
she became small
like a black dot on this page

.

invisible.

And between her teeth she was mumbling
"I want to leave... I want to get down... take me out of this nightmare... I dont want to be here...."
while moving forty miles an hour.
The other cars passed her zooming on the other lane.
Savages.
They were probably cursing her from inside their stylized cabins.

But the bridge ended, somewhere,
and them,
triumphant and changed after their expedition to paradise,
drove to Stanford
in silence
contemplating their small humanity.

Meanwhile,
the car lights were breaking the nothingness.

April 2007

Road Movie

2010-06-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

Dos muchachas morenas
salieron a pasear.
Se subieron al auto sin saber a dónde ir,
y se fueron hacia el norte.

Buscaban un AAA
porque ahí podrían darles unos mapas gratis
y consejos.

Después de bombardear al empleado con preguntas
salieron satisfechas
y subieron al freeway,
al ochenta.

Se confundieron un poco en la madeja cerca de Oakland,
- Cuca se asustó en los puentes,
esas tiritas finitas de asfalto colgadas sobre el abismo de agua-
pero salieron venturosas
y encontraron su camino hacia el Napa Valley,
tierras de vino y turistas.

"Esto es como una Road Movie,"
dijo Patricia,
y Cuca la corrigió,
"Una Road Trip Movie."

Al llegar a Calistoga bajaron en una burger joint
donde comieron hamburguesas y chuparon vino.
Después siguieron hacia las termas,
a la que se colaron gratis
entrando por la puerta de atrás,
la de la basura,
como las ratas.

Se ahorraron veinticinco dólares cada una
y se pasaron cuatro horas entre pileta y pileta,
en el jacuzzi,
y sacando sexy fotos en malla.

De ahí se fueron a visitar la ciudad
-- una calle y tres cuadras --
y a buscar un lugar, no muy caro, para comer.

Encontraron un bar con pinta de bohemio y entraron.
Live Music, decía.
Había músicos yéndose,
limpiando el escenario.

Truchos, pensaron,
Son las nueve y ya se termina todo.

Pero al rato, un saxo empezó a hacer ruido.
Después un piano
Unos drums
Bajo y Guitarra.
Al guitarrista lo apodaron Cacho, por Cacho Castaña,
un cantor de los sesenta.

El Cacho y el saxofonista entretenían a la audiencia.
Se subían a las mesas,
se paseaban entre los clientes que tomaba cerveza.
Cacho usaba anteojos oscuros y pelo negro casi Afro.
Todo un Rock Star.
En la guitarra tenía un sticker que decía "Women"
así, en plural.

La gente empezó a bailar.
Patricia se quería unir a ellos pero Cuca no largaba.
Estaba pegada a la silla.
El viejo de atrás, sentado de espaldas a Patricia,
Empezó a mirar y comprendió la situación.
Se levantó e invitó a Patricia a bailar.
Patricia no quería.
Cuca y el viejo insistieron.
Salieron.

Cuca se quedó sola mirando a la gente.
Algunas mujeres de mediana edad, lo que sea que esa edad significa,
(Soy de mediana edad yo? De en serio? Qué horror!)
vestidas con vestidos negros,
bailaban juntas como adolescentes.
Un negro
bailaba con una de ellas.
Un negro urbano elegante,
a la Fraizer
- clase media alta y liberal.

La música termina.
Patricia vuelve a la mesa.
Los músicos toman un break.
El viejo se sienta con ellas.
Empieza a hablar.
La historia de su vida.

Vive en Calistoga desde hace generaciones.
Ford dealer.
Vendió.
Novia en Hawaii.
Dos hijas.
Una es a peace corp.
Está en Panamá
Ayudando a los pobres desgraciados indios.

Les muestra una foto de la peace corp.
Después de un rato,
una foto de la otra.

El saxofonista viene y se para junto a la mesa.
Se queda ahí,
esperando.
El viejo sigue hablando.
Cuca mira al saxofonista.
Hi, dice.
El viejo sigue hablando.
Patricia también mira al saxofonista.
El viejo sigue hablando.
Y el saxofonista se va.
Humillado tal vez.
Le ganó un viejo.

Cuca dice que el saxofonista le recuerda a un flautista,
también cuarentón y con pinta de hijo de puta y mujeriego,
que la persiguió cuando estuvo tres semanas trabajando en un castillo al sur de Francia,
a lo que Patricia responde,
"Qué negativa que estás."

Y el viejo les pregunta que dónde se hospedan.
Ellas dicen que en ningún lado
Porque se van esa misma noche de vuelta a Stanford.
"Acá es muy caro."
El viejo dice que si uno tiene conexiones con locales puede conseguir descuentos.

"¿Ah sí?"
Y anotaron su teléfono y dirección en un papelito,
Para la próxima,
aunque después perdieron el papelito posiblemente en medio de la basura reinante en sus respectivas carteras.

Salieron del bar y se subieron al coche para irse.
Pero primero se pusieron a buscar una estación de servicio para limpiarlo el parabrisa
Y poner nafta también.
Encontraron una ARCO que tenia nafta mas barata
Pero estaba cerrada.
Así que limpiaron los vidrios nomás,
Y siguieron,
En busca ahora de café.
Encontraron algo abierto, eran las doce de la noche,
Pero no tenían mas café común.
Solo decaf.
Así que Cuca se compró una Coca para no quedarse dormida.

Cuca quería esquivar los puentes porque ya sabía que se iba a cagar en las patas.
Ya sabía que era una miedosa.
Pero no pudo.
Patricia era la que tenía el mapa y la que eligió la ruta,
pero esa también tenía puentes.
Parece que los puentes no se pueden evitar en esa zona.
Está llena de charcos.

En el medio de la nada se detuvieron en una casilla para pagar.
Ellas pensaban que estaban entrando a una toll road.
Pero a pocos metros de la casilla el auto se internó en la oscuridad más absoluta.
Y ahí se hizo obvio.
Esto no es una toll road.
Esto es un puente.
Un maldito puente.

"¿¡Dónde estamos?! ¿A dónde nos mandantes Patricia?
¡Un puente! ¿Es largo? ¿Cuándo termina?"
Cuca se asustó..
Temblaba de sudor cruzando ese puente en la oscuridad
donde nada se veía alrededor
solo negrura
Y unas tenues líneas blancas que marcaban la diferencia entre la vida y la muerte.
Hay que seguirlas o caer al vacío.

Mientras Cuca paniqueaba y manejada aferrada al volante con las uñas,
Su cuerpo se empezó a tensar
Y a apretar
Se puso tirante como la piel de Mirta Legrand después de una cirugía estética nueva.
Y se hizo chiquitita
Como un punto negro en esta hoja

.

invisible.

Y entre dientes murmuraba
"Me quiero ir.... me quiero bajar.... sáquenme de esta pesadilla....no quiero estar acá..."
Mientras avanzaba a cuarenta por hora.
Los otros coches la pasaban zumbando por el otro carril.
Salvajes.
Tal vez las puteaban desde adentro de sus cabinas estilizadas.

Pero el puente terminó, en algún lado,
Y ellas,
triunfantes y distintas después de su expedición al paraíso,
siguieron hasta Stanford
en silencio
contemplando su pequeña humanidad.

Mientras,
Las luces del coche iban quebrando la nada.

Abril, 2007

De la natación y otras yerbas

2010-06-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

Pierdo peso, lo sigo perdiendo, y ya ni los corpiños me quedan bien. El domingo tuve que salir corriendo a comprar uno que no me quede grande para ponerme debajo de un vestido blanco. El único que me va bien ahora es el último que compré en Victoria Secret's, uno de esos famosos Push-ups. Pero ese es demasiado, además de ser negro. Demasiado provocativo, creo, mostrando así mis tetitas tan juntitas que parecen tomates maduros. No, para un recital con alumnos de piano no es muy apropiado. Así que fui a Target y me compré un par. Ahora sí, se siente la diferencia.

Pero el tema es, ¿por qué bajo de peso? ¿Estoy enferma acaso? Hoy fui al médico otra vez para chequear esos problemas del estómago que anduve teniendo. Ahora estoy en 115 libras, o 52 kilos, el mes pasado cuando fui pesaba 117. A veces se me ocurre pensar que tal vez pierdo peso porque tengo cáncer o algo así. Mi tío, el hermano de mi mamá, murió de cáncer de estómago a los 59 años. Es que no estoy haciendo dieta. Pero lo que sí estoy haciendo es nadando. Empecé a nadar regularmente hace más o menos tres años, creo que empecé en Septiembre del 2007 en la YMCA de South Pasadena. Iba dos o tres veces por semana, por 30 minutos al principio, y después de a poco fui aumentando, 35, 40, 45, y ahora estoy en los 50 minutos, cinco veces por semana. En realidad, ya había hecho un poco en UC Riverside antes, en el verano del 2005. Iba la pileta de la universidad, al mediodía, además de ir en bicicleta esas 3 millas. En ese entonces yo miraba a los que nadaban, va y viene sin parar por horas, o eso parecía, y pensaba, cómo me gustaría poder nadar así, con esa regularidad, sin cansarme. Y algo bien debo haber hecho porque ahora nado así, por 50 minutos, parando sólo una vez en el medio para estirarme, y haciendo diez minutos primero con la tabla para entrar en calor.

El paso de 30 minutos, dos veces por semana, a 50 minutos, cinco veces por semana, fue gradual. Primero, tuve que conseguir la constancia, la regularidad de salir de la casa esos días a esa hora, quiera o no, a nadar. Ese fue el primer bache a superar. Después, aumentar el tiempo. De 30 a 35, de ahí a 40. Y eso no fue solamente una cuestión de superar la resistencia del cuerpo, del cansancio, de la falta de músculos. Eso fue también superar una resistencia mental de sentir que estoy perdiendo el tiempo, dedicándole a mi cuerpo todo ese tiempo, debería estar escribiendo o dando clases o practicando piano, y no nadando, así, malcriándome así. Vanidosa.

En el medio, en el 2008, vino el embarazo perdido que creó una pausa en todo. Después vino el ugly break-up, o la separación, que en realidad, me ayudó a conseguir lo que quería, porque para entretenerme con algo y no distraerme con lloriqueos y sintiéndome miserable, empecé a nadar más. Después me fui a una residencia de artistas en Joshua Tree, en el desierto, donde cuatro veces por semana iba a la pileta pública de la escuela secundaria de Yucca Valley, abierta para el público de 12-1pm. El calor era tal en mi cabañita que mejor irse a nadar y de ahí al Internet café hasta que el calor más fuerte pasara.

Y cuando volví a Altadena en agosto, empecé a ir cinco veces a la semana porque me di cuenta de que la natación también me ayudaba a calmar mi ansiedad, y me sirve un poco como forma de meditación. Porque si uno está nadando a un pulso estable y continuo, la respiración también se regulariza, y si a eso le agregás la cabeza, o sea, lo que yo hago es dejar que los pensamientos corran como locos y no prestarle atención a ninguno en particular, de esa manera no pienso en nada porque pienso en todo junto, bueno, ahí tenés meditación completa, que a mí sentada no me sale, pero nadando, sí.

Así que desde agosto del 2009 que vengo nadando cinco días a la semana, y a eso la doctora le atribuye mi pérdida de peso.

Ella me dijo que todo está normal en mi cuerpo, los tests y todo, aunque voy a hacer algunos más, y que la razón de que bajo de peso es porque no consumo suficientes calorías. Me está diciendo que tengo que comer más, yo que hice dietas desde los diez años, que siempre tuve que controlar mi peso, que tengo tendencia a engordar no importa lo que coma. Yo era "rellenita" según mi mamá, pero para otros era simplemente gorda. Sí, me está diciendo que se gastan muchas calorías nadando, como 400, y que al haber más músculo también me cambia el metabolismo. Crazy! Así que ahora en vez de controlar mis calorías para consumir menos, tengo que controlarlas para consumir más. ¿Te das cuenta? Si me hubieran anotado en natación cuando tenía diez años en vez de ponerme a dieta, ¡cuánto mejor sería! Nosotras (mis hermanas y yo) hicimos natación, cuando yo tenía ocho, pero después no continuamos. Aprendimos a nadar. Así que si quieren perder peso, o si su hijo, como mi sobrino y ahijado Augusto, tiene que perder peso, hagan ejercicio. Sí, comer sano ayuda, pero el ejercicio regular, ayuda más. Y si es natación, mejor todavía. Natación es bueno para la espalda, los brazos, las piernas, y encima, si vas a una pileta abierta como la del Rose Bowl de acá, mantenés un sexy bronceado todo el año. ¿Qué más querés? Y no digas que no tenés tiempo. Empezá con 15 minutos, y de ahí, subí. Cuando te quieras dar cuenta ya vas a estar por los 30 minutos y, si lo transformás en una rutina, no importa lo ocupada que estés, vas a encontrar el tiempo para ir a nadar, porque tu cuerpo te lo va a pedir.

Aunque, si sigo bajando, tendré que empezar a comer más porque con tanta piel suelta se me notan más las arrugas....

Notes from the Teacher's Notebook: On Life, Bach, and Mistakes

2010-06-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

Notes from the Teacher's Notebook: On Life, Bach, and Mistakes

I play Bach before my students come. I want to learn the fifteen Two Voice Inventions, which are kind of easy, but I never did the complete thing and I think they are little masterpieces of thought. The playing sparks ideas that I write in a notebook of blank pages, fat with a black cover, that I always have close by. Some times I write on bits of papers, when I forget the notebook in some remote place, or I write in a small gray notebook that I call the travel journal, because it's more portable.

These notes have to do with Bach, life, and mistakes.

I am playing the A minor invention, number thirteen in my edition, which is pretty fast. I cannot play it without mistakes yet. I always play the wrong note somewhere. And they are stupid mistakes, the result of my lack of concentration, but mistakes after all, hard to eradicate. I have a very intense relationship with mistakes. I always thought of myself as a "dirty" pianist, I mean, I don't play clean, crystal clear, with all the little notes sharply enunciated. No, I am a bit sloppy, muddy, that's why I don't play much Mozart. I can't. Beethoven is more my type, messy, complicated, and murky. Bach helps me to keep my mental health in check, puts order in my head. Since last year, I don't play any other than Bach, of the classics, because my head has needed his assistance, and Bach helps a lot.

But it bothers me that I can't eliminate the mistakes, although, I think my problem is in my relationship with the mistake, not with the mistake per se. Then, I ask myself: what is a mistake for me?

To answer this question I will take a detour by the monastery of the Buddhists monks that I visited last month. Because, there is something else that the monks taught me that, when I wrote the note, RE: My visit to the Monastery, I didn't mention. They also taught me that there is no destination, that one never arrives, that there is no goal, that it's a lie. That we never get to a point where we can say, That's it! I arrived, now I can relax and watch. That there are no saints. The saints are also humans that keep making mistakes, like the humans they are, they also have to learn every day to listen to themselves, each day a new challenge, because if there were no challenges, life would be death, not life. They know that they will never be perfect, that they always will have "bad" thoughts, that they will always desire. Maybe they have more tools to resist temptation, to lead themselves not into temptation but deliver themselves from evil, but they are as sensitive to sin as the rest of the mortals. There are no perfect mortals. We all die, and that common flaw makes us humans and imperfect, no matter what we do with our lives, we'll never get over the fact that if we are not alert, life goes away and it doesn't come back. The clock never stops until it stops. And if we are not alert, we are going to fall again.

But, I keep asking myself: what does it means to make a mistake for you? Do you have a theory about mistakes? You, that have a theory for everything and brags of being a wise woman?

Well, I don't have a theory on mistakes, no, but in one of those little notes that I scribble while I play, I wrote that sometimes I feel that I live my life as if I was playing Bach, and that if I make a mistake in one note, boom! That's it, I ruined it, now it cannot be perfect anymore, and so I loose track, because I get stuck on that damn mistake, and indeed, I keep making mistakes because now instead of thinking ahead, I am thinking backwards. And that's how I think of life too, as if I had a music score in front of me and the notes are already decided for me, the notes of my life, and I just have to play them, read what is written, and interpret it, I mean, give it sense, and if I make the wrong decision, well, I change the piece, and I make mistakes, I play the notes that are not there, and I get so upset because of that supposed mistake that I get fixated thinking about what an idiot I've been.

“Do not fear mistakes. There are none," said Miles Davis. Well, of course, that's because he didn't study classical music with my teachers at the San Martin Conservatory, and that's because he was not a shy and insecure child like I was. I cried if I brought a piece less than perfect to my teacher. And she wasn't the one making me cry I cried because I had failed her, I had not lived up to her expectations. Mistakes had a furious red color for me; they represented the impossibility of perfection, and therefore, the impossibility of being loved, because if I wasn't perfect, I couldn't be loved, she would not love me like that, failed, with all those mistakes on top of me. Because, once made, the mistakes could not be eliminated, they are engraved with fire on the past. But music happens in real time, like life. One doesn't know that one knows how to do something until one does it. One doesn't know that one can play a piece perfectly, until one plays it perfectly. Words are worth nothing, promises, theories. The only thing that counts, it's (is) to play, in real time. Like life. To do, not to say. But mistakes, if taken the way I do, can paralyze. They are invested with supreme power. They are the ones that decide, thumbs up or thumbs down, life or death, they have the power to kill or give life. And I think, it is time to reclaim that power for myself, I mean, they don't dominate me, they don't decide. I decide. Tomá.

This past week, preparing my students for the piano recital, I realized that they too have a bit of a scandalous relationship with mistakes. They are too young, it's not good. And I found myself philosophizing for them. Telling them things that I should tell myself, and yes, I should try it too, see if it works. I told them that if they make a mistake when they are playing in front of an audience, they should do as if nothing happened, forget immediately that they made a mistake and keep going. Lo pasado pisado, as we say in Spanish, which I guess it will translate "the past, walked," or something like that. Both in music and in life, you have to look ahead, always ahead, because the music continues and if we don't look ahead we crush our noses on the lamppost, we stay behind, and it is then that we make mistakes, when we loose our concentration, when we stop being there in the moment, in the music, to be somewhere else that is not the here and now. We loose balance and fall into the temptation of speculating with things that we have no control over, things we cannot do anything to change, things that don't help us at all, on the contrary, they distract us and make us lose focus. "What might dad be thinking of me now? Does he like what I'm playing? But I made a mistake, now I fucked it up, its all wrong, all wrong, and I will keep making mistakes because when I make a mistake I cannot stop, and what are they going to think of me, that I cannot play, and yada yada yada.

And we keep making mistakes because we stop listening to the music, we get stuck on the mistakes. But, ya basta muchachos! In the moment, play. There is going to be time to analyze the why, how, and when of the mistakes after the recital.

Notas del Cuaderno de la Profesora: De la vida, Bach, y los errores

2010-06-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

Toco Bach antes de que vengan mis alumnos, quiero aprenderme las quince invenciones a dos voces, que son fáciles pero que nunca hice completas y son una obra maestra del pensamiento. Y mientras toco, se me ocurren cosas que anoto en un cuaderno de hojas sin renglones, gordo y de tapas negras, que siempre tengo cerca. A veces anoto en papelitos, cuando me olvido el cuaderno en algún lugar remoto, o escribo en un cuaderno gris pequeñito que yo llamo el diario de viaje, porque es más portátil.

Estas anotaciones tienen que ver con Bach, la vida, y los errores.

Estoy tocando la invención en la menor, número trece en mi edición, que es bastante rápida y todavía no puedo tocar sin errores. Siempre me equivoco en algún lado. Y son errores estúpidos, de falta de concentración, pero errores al fin y al cabo, difíciles de erradicar. Yo tengo una relación muy intensa con los errores. Siempre me consideré una pianista sucia, quiero decir, que no toco limpio, cristalino, todas las notitas claramente enunciadas. No, yo soy un poco sloppy, así nomás, muddy, barrosa, por eso no toco mucho Mozart, no me sale. Beethoven es más mi tipo, messy, complicado y turbio. Y Bach me ayuda a mantener la salud mental, las cosas en orden en mi cabeza. Desde el año pasado que, de los clásicos, toco sólo Bach, porque mi cabeza ha estado necesitando de su asistencia, y me ayuda mucho.

Pero me fastidia no poder eliminar los errores, aunque, yo creo que mi problema está en mi relación con el error, no en el error en sí. Entonces me pregunto: ¿qué es un error para mí?

Para contestar a esta pregunta, voy a hacer un detour por el monasterio de los monjes budistas que visité hace un mes más o menos (la traducción al español va a llegar esta semana, perdón por el atraso). Porque hay algo más que me enseñaron los monjes que, al momento de escribir la otra nota, no mencioné. Ellos también me enseñaron que no hay destino, que nunca se llega, que no hay objetivo, que es mentira. Que nunca llegamos a un punto en el que podemos decir, ya está, ya llegué, ahora me relajo y miro. Que no hay santos, que los santos también son humanos y se siguen equivocando, como humanos que son, o tienen que aprender cada día a escucharse, cada día un nuevo desafío, porque si no los hubiera, los desafíos, la vida sería muerte, no vida. Ellos saben que nunca van a ser perfectos, que siempre van a tener "malos" pensamientos, que siempre van a desear. Tal vez tienen más elementos para vencer la tentación, para no dejarse caer y librarse del mal, pero son tan sensibles al pecado como el resto de los mortales. No hay mortales perfectos. Todos morimos, y ese defecto en común nos hace humanos e imperfectos, no importa qué hagamos con nuestras vidas, nunca vamos a superar el hecho de que si no estamos atentos, la vida se nos va y no vuelve. El reloj no se detiene hasta que se detiene. Y que si no estamos atentos, nos vamos a volver a equivocar.

Entonces me sigo preguntando: ¿Y qué es equivocarse para vos? ¿Tenés una teoría acerca de la equivocación, vos, que tenés una teoría para todo y te la das de sabia?

No tengo una teoría sobre la equivocación, no, pero en una de esas notitas que garabateo así rápido mientras toco, escribí que a veces yo siento que vivo mi vida como si estuviera tocando Bach, y que si me equivoco en una nota, ¡pum! Ya está, ya la arruiné, ahora ya no puede ser perfecta la obra, y pierdo el hilo, porque me quedo estancada en ese maldito error, y por ende, me sigo equivocando porque en vez de pensar hacia adelante, pienso hacia atrás. Y así interpreto a la vida también, como si tuviera una partitura adelante y las notas ya están asignadas para mí, las notas de mi vida, y yo no tengo más que tocarlas, leer lo que está escrito, e interpretarlo, eso interpretarlo, darle sentido, y si tomo la decisión equivocada, bueno, cambio la partitura, me equivoco, toco las notas que no son, y me amargo tanto por ese supuesto error, que me quedo atascada pensando que qué pelotuda que fui.

“Do not fear mistakes. There are none" dijo Miles Davis, que traducido es, "No le temas a los errores. No hay ninguno". Pero claro, eso porque él no estudió música clásica con mis profesores del conservatorio de San Martín, y eso porque él no era un chico extremadamente tímido e inseguro como era yo. Yo lloraba si le llevaba una obra menos que perfecta a mi profesora. Y no era que ella me hacía llorar, yo lloraba porque le había fallado, no había estado a la altura de sus expectativas. Entonces, los errores tenían un color rojo furioso, representaban la imposibilidad de la perfección, y por ende, la imposibilidad de ser amada, porque si no era perfecta, no podía ser amada, ella no me querría así, fallada, con todos esos errores encima. Porque una vez hechos, los errores ya no pueden eliminarse, quedan grabados con fuego en el pasado. La música es en tiempo real, como la vida. Uno no sabe que sabe hasta que lo hace. Uno no sabe si puede tocar una obra perfectamente, hasta que la toca perfectamente. No valen las palabras, promesas, teorías. Sólo vale tocar, en real time. Como la vida. Hacer, no decir. Pero los errores, tomados de esa manera, paralizan. Están investidos de un poder casi invencible. Ellos son los que deciden, thumbs up or thumbs down, vida o muerte, ellos tienen el poder de matar o dar vida. Y yo creo, es tiempo de reclamar ese poder para mí misma, de decir, ellos no me dominan, ellos no deciden, la que decide, soy yo. Tomá.

Esta semana pasada, preparando a mis alumnos para el recital de piano, me di cuenta de que ellos también tienen una relación un poco escandalosa con los errores. Es que son demasiado jóvenes, no puede ser. Y me pesqué a mí misma filosofando para ellos. Diciéndoles cosas que debería decirme a mí misma, y sí, lo voy a intentar a ver si me resulta. Les dije que si se equivocan cuando están tocando en público, que hagan como si nada hubiera pasado, que se olviden inmediatamente de que cometieron un error y que sigan de largo. Que lo pasado, pisado, tanto en la música como en la vida, que hay que mirar para adelante, siempre para adelante, porque la música sigue y si no miramos para adelante nos quedamos atrás, y es ahí cuando nos equivocamos, cuando nos damos la nariz contra el poste de la luz, cuando perdemos la concentración, cuando dejamos de estar en el momento, en la música, para estar en otro lado que no es el here and now, el aquí y ahora. Ahí perdemos el equilibrio y caemos en la tentación de especular con cosas de las que no tenemos control, de las que no podemos hacer nada para cambiar, cosas que no nos ayudan para nada, al contrario, nos distraen y hacen perder la concentración. ¿Qué estará pensando mi mamá ahora de mí, le gustará lo que toco? Pero me equivoqué, ahora ya la cagué y ya está mal, todo mal, y me voy a seguir equivocando porque cuando me equivoco una vez no puedo parar, y qué van a pensar de mí, que no sé tocar nada, y yada yada yada.

Y nos seguimos equivocando porque dejamos de escuchar la música, nos quedamos estancados en los errores. ¡Pero ya basta muchachos! En el momento, tocar. Ya habrá tiempo de analizar el por qué, el cómo y el cuándo de los errores después del recital.

Esperando a la grúa

2010-06-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

Esperando a la grúa: Una historia de amor

Downtown Los Angeles se veía desierto a las 3 de la madrugada.
Sentada en el coche esperando a la grúa
En la esquina de la 18 y Maple.

El policía me dejó ahí
Después de que me rescató de una banquina angosta en la autopista 10
Justo ahí donde conecta con el 110 hacia Pasadena.

Sobrecalentamiento.

El coche del policía empujó al mío
Hacia la salida más cercana
Maple Street
Y me dejó ahí
Esperando.

La grúa llegó bastante rápido.
El conductor me ayudó a subir a la cabina
Y se sentó junto a mí
Listo para llevarme de vuelta a Pasadena.

Él me dijo: "Pareces una buena chica," 
A mí, que fui rescatada de una banquina angosta en la autopista a las 3 de la mañana.
Yo lo miré, no se veía nada mal, y le dije, "¿Qué es una buena chica?"
Después dije,
"Estuve casada. Pero no funcionó."
Él dijo,
"Tú lo que necesitas es un HOMBRE."
Y yo dije,
"Claro..."
Entonces me besó directamente en los labios y dijo,
"Dame las llaves,"
Enganchó mi coche,
Y nos llevó a los dos en la grúa rumbo al horizonte.

FIN

05/2007
Versión original en inglés

The Tow Truck Driver

2010-06-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Tow Truck Driver: A Love Story

Downtown LA looked pretty deserted at 3am.
Sitting in the car waiting for the tow truck to come
At the corner of 18th and Maple.

The police had left me there
After they rescued me from a narrow shoulder on the 10 freeway
Right when it splits to the 110 to Pasadena.

Overheating.

The police officer pushed me out
To the nearest exit
Maple Street.
And left me there
Waiting.

The tow truck came pretty soon.
The driver got me up into the cabin
And sat next to me
Ready to drive me back to Pasadena.

He said: "You look like a good girl,"
To me, who was rescued from a narrow shoulder on the freeway at 3 AM.
I looked at him, he looked pretty ok, and said "What is a good girl?"
Then I said,
"I was married. But it didn't work."
He said,
"You need a MAN."
And I said,
"Yeah."
Then he kissed me directly on the lips and said,
"Give me your keys,"
Got my car up,
And drove me and my car on the tow truck towards the horizon.

THE END (rolling credits)

05/2007
Written originally in English

Diatribe on pain

2010-05-28T08:07:00.001-07:00

It's probably difficult for a 3-year-old to understand divorce. To accept the reality: that Dad will not come back to live with Mom, ever, that he will have to see them always apart, that they don't love each other anymore, but, they still love him, of course. To live with the fear that one day, just like that, they could also stop loving him, they could move away, live with other people, have a completely separate live from him... so hard. Somebody that can overcome that terror, is a survivor.

We are all survivors. We carry our wounds, the scars of past disagreements, losses. We carry holes inside that can't be filled with anything, that with their insatiable hunger end with everything, even with ourselves. They end up devouring us.

But even with all this, we survive. He will grow up but his pain will stay there, always beating, always red hot, asking for more and more from him, until he can look at it straight to the face and feel compassion for himself, listen to his scared child's voice, and let go.

Diatriba del dolor

2010-05-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

Debe ser difícil para un chico de tres años entender el divorcio. Aceptar la realidad: que papá no va a volver a vivir en la casa con mamá, nunca, que va a tener que verlos siempre por separado, que ya no se quieren, pero, claro, lo quieren a él. Vivir con el fantasma de que un día, así como así, ellos también pueden dejar de quererlo a él, pueden mudarse a otra casa, vivir con otra gente, tener otra vida separada de la de él... qué difícil. Alguien que pueda superar ese terror, es un sobreviviente.

Todos somos sobrevivientes. Cargamos con nosotros las heridas, las cicatrices de pasados desencuentros, pérdidas. Llevamos agujeros adentro que no se llenan con nada, que con su hambre insaciable terminan con todo, hasta con nosotros. Terminan devorándonos.

Pero así y todo, se sobrevive. Él crecerá pero su dolor seguirá ahí, siempre latiendo, siempre al rojo vivo, pidiendo más y más de él, hasta que él pueda mirarlo a la cara y sentir compasión de sí mismo, escuchar su voz de niño con miedo, y dejarse ir.

On the Kindness of Strangers

2010-05-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

This is the second time this happens to me. In a previous post,p from May 10th, titled: "Museum Piece: The First Cuca's Things," which it should be renamed, "Vous etes ravissante!" the best piropo I heard in my life, I already talked about this, superficially. About what I call the kindness of strangers.

In that post I told a similar story in which an act of kindness, of uninterested generosity from a total stranger, changed my face effectively and without need of drugs for the rest of the day. And now, after that it happened again, I discover a pattern and form a theory. It sounds very scientific, eh? Well, it's not. I realized that the two times in which this act of kindness has happened, in 1995 and now, I was having one of those days where my emotional state could be classified as vulnerable, or perhaps, low, basement level... or just plain shitty.

I am having stomach problems, and I don't sleep well. Last night it was awful. I didn't sleep much. I had to teach in the morning but I stayed in bed longer than usual because I wanted to win my tiredness off. At noon I didn't t go swimming, I was still feeling bad, weak, but I decided to go to Food 4 Less to buy some stuff I needed for my stomach pain. I was dressed in orange, with an orange blouse and orange matching sweater that my mother gave me years ago. I was cold, even though outside it was sunny. I arrive at F4L, park, and on my way to the shopping carts a man that passes by, a man on a yellow shirt, says, "You look very good on that orange." Thanks! I reply. The fact that, even with my gloom and bad mood and feeling like shit, this man tells me that I look good, it's something to celebrate and be thankful for!

I always said that I am a very sensitive person, like a sponge. I absorb everything that's floating around me, and I think, well, I guess there is other people like me, very sensitive, I wouldn't think I am the only one, right? And maybe when I am on one of those low mood days, navigating the dangerous waters of depression, I send screams of help! to the air, which is already overwhelmed with other pollutions as to also having tolerate my humors and mood states, and they catch on it. I think they are out there, these people, like the piropo guy in París, and this gentle observer in Pasadena, and... wait! There is another one: the cashier lady at F4L. This is the second time that this exact same thing happens with a cashier of F4L. I get to the cash register, I'm going to pay, and she says: You have very pretty eyes. Oh! Thanks! And then I think, maybe they notice that I am vulnerable, that I need a little push, a little encouragement, and there they come, to rescue me, without they even knowing.

Anyway, celebrating small, every-day happiness.

Sobre la amabilidad de los extraños

2010-05-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

Esta es la segunda vez que me pasa. En una entrada anterior, del 10 de mayo, llamada: "Pieza de Museo: El primer Cosas de la Cuca", que en realidad debería llamarse "Vous etes ravissante!", el mejor piropo que me han dicho en mi vida, ya hablé de este tema, superficialmente. De lo que yo llamo kindness of strangers, o la amabilidad de los desconocidos, por si hace falta traducción.

En esa entrada hablo de una situación semejante, de una situación en la que un acto de gentileza, un acto de generosidad sin búsqueda de recompensa por parte de un total desconocido, me cambió la cara efectivamente y sin la necesidad de estupefacientes por el resto del día. Y ahora, después de que volvió a suceder, descubro una conexión y formo una teoría. Suena muy científico, ¿eh? Bueno, no lo es. Simplemente me di cuenta de que las dos veces en que este acto de bondad se ha sucedido, en 1995 y ahora, yo estaba en unos de esos días en los que mi estado emocional podría clasificarse de vulnerable, o tal vez, bajo, por el piso... de mierda, ba.

Estoy con problemas en el estómago, como mencioné en la entrada anterior del monasterio, y no duermo bien. Anoche fue un horror. No dormí casi nada. Tuve que dar clases a la mañana pero me quedé en la cama más de lo acostumbrado porque quería ganarle al sueño. Al mediodía no fui a nadar, todavía me sentía mal, débil, pero decidí ir a Food For Less, un supermercado, a comprarme algunas cosas que necesitaba para los problemas del estómago. Estaba vestida de naranja, con un conjunto de remera de hilo y saquito que me regaló mi madre hace años. Porque además de sentirme mal, tenía frío, aunque afuera brillara un sol bárbaro. Llego al FFL, estaciono, y en mi camino hacia los changuitos un hombre que me cruza, un hombre con remera amarilla, me dice: "Se la ve muy bien con ese naranja." Thanks! Le respondo. Que a pesar de mi gloom y mal humor y de sentirme para el orto, este hombre me diga que me veo bien, ¡hay que celebrar y agradecer!

Yo siempre digo que soy sensible como una esponja, porque absorbo todo lo que hay en el aire alrededor mío, y pienso, bueno, tal vez hay otra gente como yo, muy sensible, y sí, probablemente, no te vas a pensar que sos la única, y tal vez cuando estoy en uno de esos humores bajos, navegando las aguas peligrosa de la depresión, mando señales de ¡socorro! hacia la atmósfera, ya bastante inundada de otras poluciones como para también tener que tolerar mis humores y estados de ánimo, y ellos las pescan. Yo creo que ellos están ahí afuera, y esta gente, como el piropero de París, y este cordial observador de Pasadena, y... ¡esperá! Hay otra: la cajera de FFL. Y esta es la segunda vez que me pasa con una cajera de FFL. Llego a la caja, voy a pagar, y me dice: tiene muy bonitos ojos. ¡Ah! ¡Gracias! Entonces, yo pienso, a lo mejor presienten que estoy vulnerable, que estoy necesitando un empujoncito, un poco de aliento, y ahí vienen a mi rescate, sin que se den cuenta.

En fin, celebrando las pequeñas felicidades de todos los días.

RE: My visit to the Monastery

2010-05-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

Hola Ro,

Don't worry about yesterday. There will be other readings. It's not important.

The monastery was good, it relaxed me, although, I didn't sleep well, so I was tired. I am having some stomach problems. It hurts, and I can't sleep.

I think it's worth the trip, but I don't think I could do it too often, not alone. It's a long drive, especially when you are falling sleep. It is in Escondido, kind of hidden in the mountains. I loved the frugality of it all, the simplicity and wilderness and lack of artificiality. No hyper-watered plump lawns. No fancy flowers in fancy pots. No. Just nature, dry grass, and whatever grows in an empty hill.

They are part of a Vietnamese order, the one you told me about. But the monks and nuns are not all Vietnamese. The one that gave us a talk was a white boy from Australia. There were a lot people, many of them Vietnamese, but not all, also families with kids. They even fed us, for free! Or a donation... Good vegetarian food. The funniest thing for me was the bells. Every so often, a bell will sound, coming from one of the gazebos spread like bell towers around the main hall, the meditation hall. They have a cowbell kind of sound, but bigger, deeper. I sat next to one of them, in one of the gazebos, and they are huge, decorated with images of dragons and Chinese letters. At the bottom, engraved in the metal, I saw a lion next to a swastika symbol, and then I remembered what I read once about it: the swastika, which is a word that comes from Sanskrit, was used by Hindus and Buddhist, well before the Nazis, as a mark of good luck.

Anyway, when the bell chimes, everybody, no matter where they are or what they are doing, stops and freezes in action, holding their attention towards the sound. They pause in an attentive way, like in meditation. When the sound fades, things go back to normal. I imagine someone from out of space arriving exactly at that moment when everybody freezes, when everything falls silent, except for the bell; I imagine that it might look weird seen from the outside: a bunch of people, some of them wearing brown robes, standing randomly spread across the campus, inside the buildings, just frozen on that attitude of quiet concentration. Nice photo.

Then, from there to read. It was a rich, full day. It helped me to see that we are not all the same, that I am good at things that others aren't, and vice versa, and that I don't have to be perfect at everything, I don't have to be a saint. Anyway, yes, more music and writing.

Are you anxious, are you ok? How do you hold on there? I would feel crazy if I was in your shoes. I get so anxious and stressed out for nothing! That's why the stomach pain, I think. Anyway, take care of yourself, breathe, as the monks say. On my way there I got lost. The directions where wrong, so I asked two people I saw on the way for directions, a Sunday at 9am not that many out there, but their directions got me nowhere. The first one because he didn't speak English, and the second one, because he didn't really know how to get there, until finally I thought, 'oh! I should call the Monastery!' So I called 411 and they connected me to the answering machine with a message with directions. At the end of the message they said: "If you get lost, don't panic. Just breathe... and smile."   

Besos

cuca

2010-05-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

Y las horas que pasan

sin embargo

te amo

todavía te amo

también

te odio

y te abrazo hasta matarte

y dejarte sin aire

ahogado hasta el fondo

mí.

***

And the hours that pass

nevertheless

I love you

I still love you

also

I hate you

and hug you till you're dead

without air

suffocated to the bottom

myself.

2010-05-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

He on the road whistles his music.
She on the window
her winged face in shadows.

Él en el camino silva su música.
Ella en la ventana
Su cara alada en sombras.

La Multitud Encerrada en una botella/ The crowd trapped into a bottle, self-portrait

2010-05-17T21:06:00.000-07:00

La multitud encerrada en una botella, autorretrato, 1987/1997
The crowd trapped into a bottle, self-portrait, 1987/1997

Diatriba del Ocio

2010-05-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

Es necesario observar. Ponerse en el asiento de atrás de vez en cuando. No estar a la delantera siempre, construyendo caminos, dictando. Dejarse llevar por las cosas sin ponerles resistencia. Fluir, relajarse, entregarse a la corriente y navegar hacia lo desconocido.

Hace tiempo hace falta un tiempo como ahora, de silencio. Tom está trabajando con las manos, modelando, como con arcilla. Y Soretito el gato se enreda por mis patas y las patas de la silla. Piernas, digo. Es terapéutico.

Tendría que estar incluido en el precio: tiempo para las plantas. Es parte del precio de la clase.

La vida tiene que pagar con estos momentos comunes, cotidianos, caricaturas de la historia: los veo así, sentaditos con los pies cruzados, con sus medias rayadas, tímidos, esperando su turno. Modositos. Las caricaturas de nosotros.

Y él sigue con sus plantas, y yo observando.

Las riega con un fertilizante en el agua. Osmocote en el jazmín. Mezcla todo en Homer's all-purpose bucket, 5 gallons, el balde.

Soretito cruza el patio. Se detiene a oler a Homer's. No le interesa. Sigue su camino hasta la mesa de trabajo y se acuesta en su sombra. Soretito, ahora, observa. Estar en esa realidad lo tranquiliza. Los sonidos que escucha son reconocibles. Ordinarios:
Los coches que pasan. Los pocos pájaros. Las cotorras a lo lejos.

Tom's water games, el agua que chorrea de las macetas de los estantes altos, haciendo cascada hacia las plantas de abajo. Está regando. Habla.

"Is there a reason for this guy being here?"

"No."

Una sécula del desierto bajo la sombra del gazebo. Incomprensible! Afuera! Al sol! Las otras plantas se quedaron. Tienen prioridad.

Las pequeñas felicidades de todos los días. Los pequeños momentos de felicidad.

Sueño al sol bajo la sombra del gazebo:

The fart show, the fart man.
It's been done. Old story.
Really?
A little Chinese man yelling things at the screen?
Yes.

(El show del pedo, el hombre pedo.
Ya se ha hecho. Historia vieja.
En serio?
Un hombrecito chino gritando cosas a la pantalla?
Si.)

Diatribe on Leisure

2010-05-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

It is necessary to observe, to sit in the back seat once in a while. To let go of the need to be always ahead, building roads, dictating. Let things carry you, don't resist them. It's necessary to flow, to relax, to give yourself to the current and sail off into the unknown.

There has been for a while, this need for time, a time of silence. Tom is working with his hands, modeling, as if with clay. And Little Fart, the cat, tangles himself between my legs and the chair's legs. It's therapeutic.

It should be included in the fee: time for the plants.

Life has to pay with these common, everyday moments, these caricatures of history: I see them there, sitting with their legs crossed, wearing their striped socks, shy, waiting their turn, like well-behaved caricatures of ourselves.

And he keeps going with his plants, and I keep watching.

He waters them with a fertilizer in the water: Osmocote in the jasmine. He mixes everything inside of Homer's All Purpose Bucket, 5 gallons.

Little Fart crosses the patio. He stops to smell Homer. He is not interested. He continues his way to the worktable and lies down on its shade. Little Fart, now, watches too. This setting calms him. The sounds he hears are familiar, everyday sounds: the cars going by, the few birds, parrots in the distance.

Tom's water games: water flooding down from the pots of the high shelves, like a cascade, to the plants of the lower shelves. He speaks.

"Is there a reason for this guy being here?"

"No."

A desert succulent under the shade of the gazebo. Incompressible! Out! To the sun! The other plants have priority, they can stay.

The small, everyday happiness. These little moments of joy.

A dream under the shade of the gazebo:

The fart show, the fart man.
It's been done. Old story.
Really?
A little Chinese man yelling things at the screen?
Yes.

Museum Piece: The First Cuca's Things (Paris, October '95)

2010-05-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

Let's see what la Cuca has to say

On Monday, I was walking in a bad mood because its been months that I've been trying to loose these extra kilos that weight on me so much, I was walking, I said, on the sunny streets at noon on my way to the electroacustic music class, when I saw coming towards me on the same sidewalk a very well dressed, bearded black man. Of course, it's not polite to look into people's eyes, but he was looking and when he passed next to me I heard the inevitable flattery. I saw it coming. Something like "I would like to suck..." (untranslatable mumble or indecipherable or unrepeatable words here...) But no. What I heard left me bewildered and happy: "Vous etes ravissante" (You are lovely). Great, man! Never before I heard such a good compliment. Used to hear the aberrations that porteños* say, not all of them, but most, this one hypnotized me because of its grace. "Vous etes ravissante." Ah! It sounds like the words of a prince.

And I continued my way with a smile on my lips.

* People from Buenos Aires

Pieza de Museo: el primer Cosas de la Cuca

2010-05-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

A ver que cuenta la cuca (Paris, 1995)

El lunes iba por la calle caminando medio malhumorada porque hace meses que no puedo bajar estos kilos que tanto me apesadumbran, iba caminando, decía, por la calle soleada al mediodía hacia mi clase de música electroacústica cuando veo venir en dirección contraria pero de la misma vereda, a un hombre negro bien vestido y barbudo. Por supuesto, no hay que mirar a los ojos, pero Èl miraba y cuando paso al lado mío escuché el infaltable piropo. Yo ya me lo veía venir. Algo como "me gustaría chup....." (murmullos intraducibles o palabras irrepetibles o indescifrables...) Pero no. Lo que escuché me dejó perpleja y feliz. "Vous etes ravissante" (Usted se ve encantadora). Qué grande negro! Nunca en mi vida me habían dicho un piropo así. Acostumbrada a oír las aberraciones de los piropistas porteños (no todos, pero en general...) éste me dejó hipnotizada por su elegancia. "Vous ÈtÈs ravissante". Ah! Suena a palabras de príncipe.

Y seguí mi camino, con una sonrisita en los labios.

* En caso de que haya alguno que piense que uso esta palabra ofensivamente, va la aclaración: En Argentina usamos "negro" diariamente, para bien o para mal. Depende cómo se use, no se considera una ofensa. A mi papá lo llaman Negro cariñosamente.

Livre de brouillon

2010-04-29T09:58:00.001-07:00

El Livre de brouillon es un cuaderno verde que tiene esas palabras impresas en letra cursiva en la tapa, en la parte inferior, y en la parte superior, escrito por mi puño y letra: "y la verdad que este nombre me ahoga". Es un cuaderno sin renglones, como me gustan a mí, para escribir borradores y anotar lo que se me viniera a la cabeza. Ese año, entre Septiembre '95 y Julio '96, al que yo llamo el año del silencio, fue un año muy solitario en el que escribí a borbotones por las noches en ese departamento de la Rue Joseph de Maistre, cerca del barrio bohemio, o que fue bohemio en algún momento lejano, el Montmartre. La historia de cómo conseguí ese departamento de dos dormitorios, comedor y cocina por solo 800 francos por mes (el equivalente en ese entonces de más o menos 200 dólares) es una historia aparte. Por ahora, va sólo esta introducción a los escritos del Livre de brouillon, que significa simplemente, cuaderno borrador, pero que en francés suena más interesante...

Livre de brouillon

2010-04-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Livre de brouillon is a green notebook that has those words printed in cursive across the cover, on the lower part; higher up I wrote: "and the truth is that this name chokes me." It's a blank notebook -- that's how I like them, without lines -- so I could write drafts, notes, or whatever crossed my head. I call that year, between September '95 and July '96, the year of silence, because I was very lonely and isolated, so during the night I gushed out plenty of words in that apartment on the Rue Joseph de Maistre, close to the bohemian, or not so bohemian now, neighborhood of Montmartre. The story of how I got that two-bedroom apartment for only 800 francs a month (the equivalent at that time of 200 dollars more or less) is another story. For now, here it goes this introduction to the writings of the Livre de brouillon, name that means simply draft notebook, but in French sounds more interesting.

(Translation of the poem in the image:
The Toilet:
See it just as it is
don't be ashamed of its tidy rectitude.
He takes care of its duty
which nobody else does:
to dispose of the effects
that some consider precious
treasures of themselves and
deposit without delicacy
on its waters.)

Wild animals

2010-04-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

My clinginess and my neediness are like wild animals. I try to keep them in check, but they are always so desperate to go out and roam that some times they manage to dig a hole under the gate and wander free and cause estragos in my life (I left estragos in Spanish because the whole sound of it is falling to pieces).

They drag me down with their desperate dependency and obsession. But once more I manage to collect them and put them back in the corral, where they belong, under my supervision.

Notes from the Teacher's Notebook

2010-04-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

The Death of Matt's Best Friend

When he arrived I could see death in his face, overflowing. I asked him, "How are you?” although, I already knew the answer. "Not well," he said, "I'm destroyed, destroyed." The rest, I could see in his eyes. "One day he is here, the next, he's gone. Just like that. Smoke in the air. That voice, those gestures, his unique way of being, don't exist anymore. Kaput. Lost in the ether. Only his body is left, his shell, in which and I don't recognize him anymore."

He sat down and in Spanish I told him, "I'm so sorry."

He had Death on his face
Echoing still in his eyes.
The absence. The surprise. The question mark.
And no answer.

That's how I saw him when he arrived this morning for the piano lesson.

And I taught him "Happy Birthday."

Notas del Cuaderno de la Profesora

2010-04-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

La muerte del mejor amigo de Matt

Llegó a la casa y yo podía ver la muerte en su cara, rebalsando. Le pregunté, ¿cómo estás? Aunque ya sabía la respuesta. "Muy mal," me dijo, "Estoy destruído. Destruído." El resto, lo pude leer en sus ojos. "Un día está, al siguiente, desapareció. Así. Se esfumó en el aire. Esa voz, esos gestos, esa manera de ser, no existen más. Se perdieron así en el éter. Sólo queda su cuerpo, su carcaza, en el que ya no lo reconozco."

Se sentó y en español le dije, "Lo siento mucho."

Tenía la muerte en la cara
Reflejada aún en sus ojos.
La ausencia. La sorpresa. El signo de pregunta.
Esa gran interrogación sin respuesta.

Así lo ví, cuando llegó esta mañana para la clase de piano.

Y yo le enseñé el "Happy Birthday".

The High Priestess of the Karaoke Altar

2010-04-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I went to a Karaoke bar. It is not that I go to Karaoke all the time; actually I don't go very often because I suck at it, but a friend was celebrating his birthday party in one, so I went. And there I encounter the sexiest Drag Queen ever. She officiated as the High Priestess before the Karaoke Altar where the egos were immolated to the Audience God for the ceremony of destruction and elevation of vanities. She was She, the only one, the Playboy Bunny Drag Queen, High Priestess of the Karaoke Altar.

It was in a bar in Glendale, Damons Steak House, bar and grill. You go in and it looks like an Applebee's with all those color lamps and booths and tables for families. But after going through the huge main room, there is another room and a bar, and at the end of the bar, almost in the hallway to the bathrooms, there are a couple of tables that have been extirpated of its chairs, and over one of those tables sat the karaoke equipment that presides the Karaoke's High Priestess-Playboy bunny sensation.

From the opposite end of the bar, under the bright light bulbs that separate the "stage" from the "audience", she can be seen, against the wall, although I, so short, could only see her blond wig rocking to the music over the heads of the flabbergasted multitude. She, super tall, with long legs like columns, pink panties with the bunny tail behind, a white, tight top wrapping her tits, and pink bunny rabbit ears on her head holding a stunning wig, like a sculpture escaped from the Greco-Roman Goddesses' temples, has a mouth that counts for two and a nose that counts for three. When she sings you can see that her mouth could knock the walls down with its energy if it wanted, with its tornado strength. And when she stands up to play the guitar, oh god, and she plays the guitar with those hands so close to her package, that package that we cannot notice because it is completely flattened to make her look like a Playboy bunny escaped from the madhouse, I would say, because it cannot be, it cannot possibly be: the only thing she has in common with a Playboy bunny is her bunny-tail because she is taller than all of us together. Put one on top of the other and she is taller than that. Oh boy. You have to see her. But wait, because on top of her natural tallness, she has a pair of transparent plastic, 8 inches high heels pumps.

And this Madame, this Drag Queen that plays the electric guitar as if she really had a penis, introduces us, poor singers, us, too scared to do what she does, too afraid to show ourselves so vulnerable. We are not capable of climbing on top of those shoes, or standing with all our majesty in front of the audience to give ourselves in all of our longitude. We are not capable of doing that, and we don't want to do it either, although we admire her because she is capable of showing herself without shame and, shit, she does it so well. She's not afraid of saying, "This is me." She's a real bad-ass.

Because of that, because we can't say like her "This is me", because we prefer to hide behind our inconsequential jobs and our normalcy, we need to offer ourselves, once in a while, to the gods, her gods, we go to them in search of food for our egos, a few claps that would make us forget our unimportance and smallness. But not everyone succeeds. Some fall and, defeated, are whacked and slapped by humiliation. Others are lifted by the multitude that erects them as the new gods to be adored in the next few seconds that follow the miracle of the creation, to be forgotten later to make space for a new god that would subsequently be adored and rejected later. What can we do? It's life's chain.

Some go further. They dare to do anything, or almost anything, to feel like one of them, to feel like a god. There was a guy that sang U2 sounding and looking like Bono: he was wearing dark glasses inside, with that particular look, the hair style, the ear ring, everything he needed to feel like him during those few minutes. When he descends from the podium among the clamor of the audience, his ego inflates and strengthens, now able to confront his smallness on Monday at the office. There are also the ones that will have to drag their hurt egos towards an area in which they can be more successful, so they can restore it to be able to exist among people. We all need it; we are so dependent on it. Poor us.

I would like to know what she thinks of us, she seems very understanding, but, what is she really thinking? What does she do during the day, when she is not a Playboy bunny or a Drag Queen of the Apocalypses? Does she serve tables, coffee, teach something? Who is she?

But I only buried myself in her world for a few hours. When I went out to the street she was just a blurry memory amidst the clouds of alcohol. I thought I should write about the wooden walls, the engravings, the details, because I thought they were important, but no, they don't matter anymore because the only thing that matters is she.

Photo: Queen Erica Valentine during the Dooh Dah Parade in Pasadena

La Sacerdotisa del Altar Karaoke

2010-04-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

El sábado pasado fui a un Karaoke. No es que vaya muy seguido a Karaoke, casi no voy nunca porque soy pésima para esas cosas, pero era el cumpleaños de un amigo y lo festejaba ahí, en un Karaoke bar. Fue así como me encontré con la travestí más sexy del universo. Ella oficiaba de Suma Sacerdotisa ante el altar del Karaoke donde los egos se inmolan a los Dioses del Público durante la ceremonia de la destrucción y elevación de vanidades. Ella, la única, la Conejita de Playboy, Drag Queen, Sacerdotisa del Altar Karaoke.

Fue en un bar en Glendale, Damons Steak House, bar y grill. Uno entra y parece un Appelbee's, con esas lamparitas de colores y booths y las mesas para las familias. Pero después de atravesar el enorme salón principal hay otro salón y un bar, y al final del bar, casi en el pasillo que va a los baños, hay un par de mesas que han sido extirpadas de sillas y sobre una de las mesas se ha instalado el equipo de Karaoke que preside la sensacional Suma Sacerdotisa-DragQueen-Conejita de Playboy.

Desde la punta opuesta del bar, bajo los focos brillantes que separan el "escenario" del "público", puede uno divisarla al fondo, contra la pared, aunque yo, tan bajita, al principio sólo pude ver su peluca rubia bamboleándose con la música sobre las cabezas de la multitud pasmada. Ella, altísima, unas piernas largas como columnas, unas pantaletas rosaditas con el pomponcito de conejo detrás, un top blanco apretadito envolviendo las tetas y unas orejitas de conejo rosadas que casi como sujetan a esa peluca rubia despampanante, toda una escultura escapada de los templos de las diosas greco-romanas, tiene una boca que vale por dos y una nariz que vale por tres. Cuando canta puede verse que esa boca, si lo da todo, podría tirar las paredes con su fuerza. La fuerza de un tornado. Y cuando se para y toca la guitarra, hay dios mío, toca la guitarra con esas manos tan cerquita de su bulto, ese bulto que no se nota porque está completamente aplastado para que realmente parezca una conejita de Playboy que se escapó del manicomio... aunque no, no puede ser. No puede ser para nada. De conejita sólo tiene el pompón porque es más alta que todos nosotros juntos. Encima, tiene zapatos de tacos como de 10 centímetros, zapatos de plástico transparente, unos regios pumps.

Y esta madame, esta Drag Queen que toca la guitarra eléctrica como si realmente tuviera una pija, introduce a los pobres cantantes, nosotros, estos seres demasiado asustados como para hacer lo que ella hace, como para mostrarnos así tan vulnerables. Nosotros no somos capaces de subirnos a unos zapatos como esos, de pararnos con toda nuestra majestad en frente del público y darnos con todo nuestro largor. No somos capaces de eso, tampoco queremos, pero la admiramos a ella que se expone así y que, mierda, lo hace tan bien. No tiene miedo de decir, "Esta soy yo." Es una real badass.

Pero por eso, porque no podemos, porque preferimos nuestros trabajos inconsecuentes y nuestra normalidad, necesitamos ofrecernos de vez en cuando a los dioses, sus dioses, vamos a ellos en busca de alimento para nuestros egos, unos pocos aplausos que nos ayuden a olvidar nuestra insignificancia y pequeñez. Pero no todos triunfan. Algunos caen, y vencidos, son golpeados y vapuleados por las cachetadas de la humillación. Los que no, son alzados por los brazos de la multitud que los erige como nuevos dioses a adorar en los segundos que siguen al milagro de la creación para después olvidar nuevamente y así hacer lugar a un nuevo dios que será subsecuentemente adorado y repudiado después. Qué se le va a hacer. Es la cadena de la vida.

Algunos de nosotros van un poco más allá, se animan a todo o casi todo con tal de sentirse uno de ellos, un dios. Como el tipo que cantó U2 como Bono: se vestía como Bono con sus antejos oscuros adentro, ese look particular, el peinado, el arito en la oreja izquierda, todo lo necesario para sentirse Él en esos minutos. Cuando baja del podio en medio de los alaridos, su ego se agranda y fortalece para poder enfrentar la pequeñez que lo espera el lunes en la oficina. También están los que tendrán que arrastrar su ego herido hacia un área en la cual puedan acuñar algún triunfo, y así restaurarlo para poder seguir existiendo entre la gente. Todos lo necesitamos, somos tan dependientes. Pobrecitos de nosotros.

Quisiera saber qué piensa ella de nosotros, ella parecía muy comprensible, pero ¿qué es lo que realmente piensa ella? ¿Qué hace ella durante el día cuando no es la conejita de Playboy y la Drag Queen del Apocalipsis? ¿Atiende mesas, sirve café, da clases de algo? ¿Quién es ella?

Pero solo me enterré en la noche y en su mundo por unas pocas horas. Cuando salí a la calle ella ya no estaba y sólo era un recuerdo borroso entre las nubes del alcohol. Pensé que debería describir las paredes de madera y los detalles grabados porque me parecían destacables, pero ya no, ya no importan, porque lo único que importa es ella.

Foto de la Reina Erica Valentine (finalmente me enteré de su nombre artístico al menos) durante la Dooh Dah Parade en Pasadena