Chiaroscuro Sans Nom

Je chante, je chante

et je pense à toi... un peu plus fort.

Merci j'ai recommencé à rêver.

tu vois? renaissance.

demain je danse.

Of Home and Other Demons

The papalotls started to fly again. I envy them, I envy them, I want to take them, I cherish them, I envy them. One of the voodoo dolls I made months ago was dressed up in purple, in the same colour she dressed me up over a decade ago. It was then when she should have figured that my wings required immeasurable length, that my heavy soul seemed impossible to carry. And the problem here is not my heavy soul but asking the always-avoidable question: taking your soul where? Tlacotzontli came and visited me once again. Je viens vous voir parce que j'ai entendu que ils vous appellent Yolihuani...

I should have been born in a different decade; in a different space, maybe in Macondo when Ursula used to say that the time didn't go as fast. I wanted my life to be full of Magical Realism but sometimes I took the realism too far. Today it has become pragmatism and the only magical part has stayed between my non-existent gods and my dreams. Je ne comprends pas pour quois Yolihuani... il faut m'appeller Necahual si ils veulent me donner un nom.

I saw her before I met Tezcatlipoca, in her always breath-taking splendor, take me with you, I told her and she smiled at me as if I had said something naïve. Vous êtes très petite, mais il paraîtrait comme si vous étiez millénaire. She told me I would regret it; she told me that for a decade I would enjoy it and then, well... then became the present. She was right it was all beautiful, to the point of being addictive, toxic, a constant ecstasy. It was when I saw my wings shrinking, when the colourful papalotls flew in front of me and I couldn't touch them. It was then that I made my deal with Tezcatlipoca feet for light, light for feet... I forgot to ask about the little print referring to the darkness in between.

I built my home here, you were my home while there was light. During the darkness I romanticised what became foreign lands but I kept on calling them home. I did not understand that I was absent during the equinox, until it started snowing in my own equinox, until i felt my feet covered in snow while I was walking in my imagined Tenochtitlan. That was home, but it took me too many years to understand its lack of commitment to established geographic borders, I guess it just reflected who I've become. Sorry, I still don't know how to explain myself. I just find myself in so many random situations, bizarre scenarios in which I often feel that I still am an SDF; I came to understand that I am and that probably I will always be. But let me be clear I don't think I am homeless anymore. Between the reverse culture shocks, the melancholic dreams of what we could have become, the smile-making memories of our past, and my wondering future plans you were gone and I... I died and reborn. I traded my soul in a non-fair trade environment because that's how I grew up; I gave everything for those purple wings... to save them I even gave up my feet. I reinvented myself expecting that you would show up and you would not recognise me.

You showed up, in the way I wanted to see you, the way I expected you for so many years. But for me it meant nothing; I had become a foreigner, a backpacker, a wanderer, a gypsy. We walked around the ruins of our empire we weren't holding hands, just walking with nostalgia with hopes of new paths, peaceful wars. Sitting facing the Fountain of Tlaloc you said that my hair was growing again, you touched it and smiled at me, Ya entendí por qué Yolihuani, you said. Its not what you think, I said, it is because of the rebirth...

A white papalotl flew around my hand and stopped on my finger... white wings to fly back to my imagined Tenochtitlan dreaming about new wings made from colourful Quetzal feathers with no attached nostalgia, with no understanding of set commitment. You saw me and smiled, you took my hand and made me touch the water saying that it would push the demons away. It felt familiar but distant, just like us, just like our featherless home... demonically foreign.

Yolihuani et sa bicyclette

Maybe it is just that I have not met you; our paths have not taken us to the same place... maybe later but not yet. As the leaves start to invade the sidewalks I try to recap again; because that is what I do now, recap so I will not forget, so I will not select certain memories. This time, I want to notice the different seasons so when the spring comes I will not find myself sitting on the sidewalk with my white coat thinking that winter is perpetual. I am doing things differently this time just so the ride to the airport will seem shorter than it usually is. I am taking a different path this time just so if we ever meet I'd smile at you and hopefully I'd be able to ask you what you have to say.

Maybe we did meet, but you did not see me biking and I did not noticed you walking. I don't blame you; I was biking with no inspiration, following everyone on the bike lane on Harbord St. Probably I assumed that you were walking, just walking, and you were just another number in this city with nothing new to tell me. You need to understand that I was his feet, he was my light. To me you could not understand me, no one could, and that is why I did not even tried to explain. Sorry, probably you could had; you see it was more like I spent too much time with boring, plain, selfish, superficial people that I just decided that it was not worth giving it a try.

J'ai vu tes fleurs et je ne savais pas ou j'etais.

C'est un reve, je m'ai dit meme

C'etait quoi cette connerie et la byciclette?

Je ne l'avais pas compris a ce moment

Pardon, je l'ai compris trop tard.

Comme tout la vie, merci.

Maybe it is simpler than this; perhaps you saw me daydreaming on the subway while I was going to the opposite direction. Perhaps we smiled at each other at Sherbourne station but because for me it is already too East, I did not notice you. Tezcatlipoca warned me about you, he knew that you were going to follow me, find me, desire me, enchant me, love me, and take me. He knew you wanted me now that our contract is over... you see I think he gave you the wrong description. You couldn't hear the black hills nor see the long black hair, I lost my Quetzal feathers and the silver chain along the way. Parfois il t'a parle de mes reves, de mes amours, de mes desirs, de mes frustations, de mes voyages et de mes pieds aussi. He told me that your beauty was going to blind me, that your voice was going to enchant me, that your touch would make me follow you... I am sorry to disappoint you, the omen was broken. Tezcatlipoca lost me during the summer and you were three months too late. I didn't want it to happen that way; they saw me crafting flowers in the shape of papalotl sitting on the ruins of another empire. "Yolihuani" they said, Pas Yolihuani, je m'appelle Mariele... et comme ca ils m'ont donne l'equilibre et la bicyclette.

Joyeux Anniversaire

Years pass by, days become forgettable, minutes change lives, and seconds sing along their tragic song. Now and then I miss you a lot, de temps en temps je suis heureuse de te voir sourire... virtuellement. Je rêve d'acheter un gâteau au chocolat que je mangerai jamais, je me suis reveillée après une nuit entourée par cauchemars sur le mondial... il n'y avait pas de pyramides. Should I cry? No. You have given me no reasons to do it, only irrational moments under the rain waiting for a train going somewhere, taking us anywhere.

Est-ce que je peux encore parler en pluriel chéri? Maybe not, et au même temps je crois que on devriez pas penser qu'il aura un moment où nous pourrons dire "voilá c'est tout, je m'en vais". Et donc c'est pour ça que aujourd'hui je t'ecris en français, comme ça si j'ai quelques regrets, je les justifierai à cause de mon mauvais ecriture en français.

Joyeux anniversaire. Tu me manques mais je ne peux pas te voir, je ne veux pas te promettre que je t'attendrai ici... je suis partie, il'y a beaucoup d'anniversaires... bien sûr il paraît que je passerai tout ma vie a t'ecrire, nous avons été toujours spéciaux, même si personne ne l'a jamais compris. Allez! Volez mon petit hibou! moi je reste ici pendant l'hiver.

8, 760 hours

I am breathing... oui Mariele à 2400 m le vent est plus froid... es el hecho de no estar a esa altura en un avion sino mas bien sentada en una tierra mística... here is your closure.

CRONICA QUASI-DETALLADA

Hour -720: Gin and Tonic, I am going to Argentina. Life does not develop as I planned any longer, plans are there to be destroyed, to be laughed at, to be written so they can be forgotten when they are replaced with reality.

Hour -254: I am selfish, but if I don't take it today who knows what is going to happen tomorrow. I will miss you, I am missing out, what did I just missed?

Hour 5: Please refer to the post "The Culture of Magical Realism"

Hour 89: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo. As minutes pass by I wait for the next subte, Plaza Italia, 10 cuadras, the hostel, Anglophone music, ipod on Gardel, confused Mexican calling to Toronto to talk to her Dutch-Peruvian-Italian best friend. I should have visited a psychologist since week one in Buenos Aires... you know to fully live the porteño life.

149: Joyeux anniversaire, ni idea que hubiera hecho esos tres meses sin vos, perdon si no estuve despues.

1440: Pampa del Indio: no Gurruchaga, minus one friend. WOW I do love what I have, I am happy, I am learning, I am doing... doing something, living, breathing, feeling.

2160: Tears, tears, emptiness, confusion, restlessness, broken dreams, empty horizons. Welcome to Toronto, Bienvenue à Toronto.

2328:........ chaos.... chaos..........chaos.......who do I call now? I am not crying, I am trying to find myself without your help but it seems to me that everyone in this damn city is so stupid or my English sucks so much that I cannot explain what is going on.

DEAD HOURS

Double standards; this country is the land of double standards, pseudo-academic integrity over human rights. Hipster nation; please give me an organic fair traded soy latte, while i try on my new American Apparel t-shirt, read about environmentalism in a main stream magazine and dream about going to exotic Thailand. Hypocrisy nation; "so different than any other Western country" I think the Toronto Star reports three more Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, they died liberating these oppressed nation and bringing democracy... less than 50% Canadians vote. Fake Multiculturalism; you are so exotic, so do you miss South American food?, do you salsa? Ignorance, when I went to Cuba (read the resort) it was so different people where so poor like but they were so happy. I LOVE CANADA and that is why a privileged upper-middle class Mexican girl gets to over-exaggerate her non-Western personality, romanticize her quasi war-torned country, play her global south epistemology, openly critique Western supremacism, excuse her mistakes through an overemphasized accent and justify misbehaviour through cultural differences. So... I don't love hockey, but I will be walking around with my flag on Friday, I cook Mexican food for my white friends, I teach them couple of Spanish words now and then, I've taken them to a Latin Club, I hate Harper, I ride a bike and complain about lousy Torontonian drivers, and I shop in Kengsinton Market.... Can I get my Permanent residency now so I can freaking move on without thinking about the future??... Wait you are right for the past 5,000 hours I have lost myself... maybe it means that is time to run once again...

REENCUENTRO, RENAISSANCE Y POTENCIAL DESPEDIDA

7, 440: Dear facebook, (since my blog got mad at me due to my lack of inspiration and my rather emo posts, I can only express this message through you) I am going to Peru, I am going back home, I am making it to the wedding, I am... doing what I love. Hopefully, you will share it with my friends; hopefully, that way they will know that after this trip I should be better, I will be better.

Unknown hours: reality check, reverse culture shock, reality check, reverse culture shock, nostalgia, happiness, wow that tastes amazingly!, weird accent, energy flowing, crush, self-esteem boost, adrenaline, lack of sleep, touching the forbidden, tears, beauty, life, stereotypes, taboos, social rules, wake-up call, wake-up call, wake-up call... let me keep on dreaming I want to keep on flying before I have to crash and fall into the dead grass.

8, 759: One year, one year... I think the storm has passed... or might have found a new umbrella.

AMANECER

The cathedral in Cusco is one of the most impressive things I have seen, the Spaniards incorporated mirrors in the altar piece to attract the indigenous nations into catholicism. Just as they did in Tenochtitlan, they built a massive church over sacred temples. I saw myself in the mirror of one of the chapels; I was so attracted to Northern mirrors that I forgot that an entire foreign Church was smashing my brain. As I de-froze from seeing my aged image in the main altar I felt the cold air of Cusco for the first time, left the headphones, sat outside and started chewing the coca leaves that were left. That night there was light, it wasn't the reflection of the glitter over my face; that night I smiled again like I hadn't in months; that night I rediscovered my forgotten ruins, pinté mi espejo azul rey con motivos prehispánicos y decidí que mi siguiente amanecer seria uno nuevo, uno diferente. 22 hours later the sun started to light up Machu Picchu, as the magic energy of the Inca city invaded my body, I felt the necessity to climb Wayna Picchu... à 2400 m le vent est plus frais...et moi... je respire, je vis, j'y reviens.

Thank you, Si lo rompe lo paga

I started shaking, I tried to breath; not even the most intensive Yoga class would have helped at that moment. My heart started beating so fast, once again I did not feel any air going into my lungs. You broke me, but you couldn't have done it without my help. Yo ya estaba quebrada y tu solo llegaste a romperme. By now I have no idea how many nights I have not slept, how many nightmares, how many tears... I am still in pain.

I was afraid to destroy you. I do like you so much. Because I was afraid I ended up destroying you. I know you love me. I destroyed myself and I am afraid I will regret not picking up your pieces from the mess I made. I don't understand either how did we end up in this point. I've realized it is all those nights I want to call you, the nights I spent here, just so you know one day when I know where I am standing I will let you know about my blog.

... I just need to talk to somebody; She would not look at me, she saw my pain, but she would avoid becoming a witness. There is no one you can talk to, maybe you can come back tomorrow, I can give you a card with an emergency number. It is OK if I wanted to kill myself I would have done it already, nunca lo haria: ironicamente me da miedo fallar porque no me gustan los hospitales. I sat down and started crying aqui frente a una extrania nuevamente siempre pense que no lo necesitaria, era sola yo y mi loquera con mis libretas, cualquier profesional de la salud me aterroriza. Abrame el cerebro, quiteme la parte que me molesta y regreseme a donde estaba antes, si el seguro lo cubre por favor reactive la capacidad de concentracion.

... I did leave, but you never came to find me, it is not my social construction from a stupid romantic comedy. I waited 4.5 years and you never came so now don't come up with your cheesy no-distances well-memorized discourses. Thank you, you did not break me you kept me sane, you kept me healthy with a non-sense (or non-rational since we both live in the West) hope, until you decided to become like everyone else. We had something special, but you and your iPod had to ruin it. If you care go and fucking fix it, I am moving on soon, if you were wondering -just as a friendly reminder- I never promised what you are now requesting.

... I can see that you are very attached with your family, Maria, and it is important, it is hard(er?) when you are away...

... You would have loved my graduation pictures you would have been so happy to see them, to see the website you would have loved everything about it even if you didn't speak a word of English. I will never get over it, I refuse to... I don't want to let you go... not yet.

Freedom of expression, fear to fail, academic integrity, personal values... do you seriously think that is my priority now? you did not break me you did not; I did, and while I decide whether I want to remain broken or start picking up my pieces please shut up, it would be good if you and you apply the only teaching I like from your colonizing background... el que este libre de pecado que aviente la primera piedra. Thank you, you don't owe me anything, and I didn't break it thus I don't pay.

Old empires

Our gods fight against each other while we pretend we are in love mine usually win, in the game of paranormal warfare death remains unbeatable. We are the same souls, descendants of great empires, conquered without a choice, adopting a foreign religion that eventually became a domestic curse. Both at the end immigrants to a country where we constantly feel we will never belong.

While you pretend I am yours (yes, I still have a problem with private property), I continue on playing my will-never-commit-will-always-run-away game,  

where are your gods? mine by now just go and get drunk out of the blood of

the less-fitted survivors of global capitalism and neoliberal North America.

We are so similar and yet you seem like you don't want to see it, 

you want your pain to be unique, incomparable, exclusive, 

remarkable, rare, indivisible et héroïque.

Your gods should have thought you that everyone's pain is. Sorry to kill your dream, mine didn't tell me, I just read it in an article on a pagan magazine. 

Can each one go back to our smuggled heroine?

Technicolor walls become obstacles between us

they were built while we slept, in silence, secretly, obscurely.

Your schizophrenia will make you think I betrayed you by building them

my paranoia will make me believe that someone is trying to break us.

They were built by our own gods, and our fellow followers, 

I used to love you with an immeasurable passion I devoted all my time to you. I guess this is the infidel's and the heretic's pain, now I hate you.

Why did you have to take over my nightmares too?