the return

the father, a thin man with hunched shoulders and a sincere smile, walked away. his four children watched in silence. they had already said their goodbyes, nothing was left.

maria, the oldest, followed him with her eyes and then her feet. then her voice, you should be ashamed to leave your children like this.

he stopped, turned and stayed for a moment observing them. he lifted his hand in a farewell and continued his slow steps to the bus stop. it wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last.

maria elena doesn't forgive.

sitting on benches waiting for the boat, they are skinnier than when they left two months ago. they argue between themselves about who wanted to return. maria acuses jose, you wanted to return to see diana. red, and smiling, he doesn't know how to contradict her. so he joins the laughter. and luis to see ana. luis knows how to feign and begins to insult the absent girl in front of the others whose laughter is fed by his lies. and lucia, victor. jose almost falls from his seat imaging the boy whose broken arm was never mended correctly and hangs perpetually at an almost perfect ninety-degree-angle. the air is lighter, but nobody, nobody, dares to mention the boyfriend maria elena has left behind.

beneath the chuckles and accusations, jose says to maria, its that i couldn't handle the hunger.



january 2008
casa guatemala
rio dulce

logic seems secondary

...busca sus privados puntos y pautas de referencias y aqui y allà va comprobando la validiz o invalidez de sus añoranzas, como una forma rudimentaria de verificar hasta dònde y desde cuàndo su pais personal ha cambiado y comprobar que tampoco èl es el mismo doce años atràs. -mario benedetti


kurosawa made a movie based on dosteovsky's the idiot and i can't help but feel like this silly anti-hero, like the idiot whose innocence knows only good and makes him the pawn of others. he is the illogical bounty of goodness who lacks the shrewdness to maneuver among men. yet he is reedeemed when his pure intentions frustrate the plans of the keen and when the beautiful, jaded woman falls in love with him. my personal movie has no such end, and i admit i haven't read dosteovsky's text, not yet. but considering that most marxists have never read marx and many christians their bible, i am absolved.

two weeks have passed and my pay still has not been confirmed. seño sylvia, the on-site director, radiates positivity, yet not certainty. however, i am not alone. paloma sits in waiting with me.

why do i stay?
1) i do not spend money monday to friday.
2) despite these being two of the hardest weeks of my life, i feel that this is where i should be. in matters such as these, logic seems secondary.
3) if the pay doesn't come through i can use the $700 coming from my cashed pension from UCLA.
4) I have my list of students, the alphabet is up, the reading corner is cozy, and i am living a dream....

...a dream and all its jaded confrontations with reality. to live a dream is to suck from the bottom of the murky waters to flower above like the lotus i wear on my finger. nostalgia is what one experiences on the other side of the puddle. there, while imagining, one reaches artistic, religious transcendence. but returning to the country of exile, arriving to the land of illusion, one lives not in the idea, but in what is.

con la escritura como mi testigo, escribo

days pass and a blank mind sits silently behind movement. then, one day the lifting of an arm triggers the thought: i am solitary even in a group. i cut construction paper and wonder: what is it that makes patricia and paloma content? how can one choose happiness if it is contrary to one's character? i pick up a piece of paper from the ground and contemplate: what do i emote that leads some to consider my inverted tendencies as rejection? i am in a room with other teachers but i have built up my island. i do not want to judge and grow differences. so i roam inwards and create distance. my personality settles in the swamp. this makes it hard to respond, even harder to hear well. i fear that i am making them question their decision to invite me to teach in their language.