Diatribe On Men: My Declaration of Independence

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 …

Fantasmas de gente sola

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

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

To That Asshole (spoken tango with piano)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.)