He Loved Her & He Left
Friday, March 29, 2019 Oaxaca, MX
I’m still too far away from home to pretend to remember what the quote was or who actually said it. Either way, this is my lame attempt to try to paraphrase it, “Every moment of my life, I have felt as though a sword were suspended above my head, held by a spider-web.”
“I keep death close, I imagine a sword directly above my head hanging by a delicate string. ”
I find myself yet again flying through the air making my way back home. I’ve been in worse turbulence before. I’ve experienced the airplane drop what to me felt like a thousand feet, yet this time, I feel death too close. I think of my mom and my brother making their way to New Mexico for the funeral, I think of my dad and kid-brother in Phoenix. No one is home. If the plane drops who would come and find me? How would they? I close my eyes and turn up the volume on my headphones until my eardrums hurt. I breathe deep but my heart only beats faster. I feel my tears weaving themselves between my lashes. I open my eyes and I see the man sitting by the window caressing his partner’s leg, they smile at each other and laugh, seemingly unaware of the of the violent shaking of the plane. I can feel the pressure of treading through clouds like thick cream. I close my eyes again and try to fall asleep behind the darkness of my eyelids. I wonder whether dying would feel like falling asleep. I ask myself if I am satisfied with my life up to this point; have I said all that I’ve needed to say?
I’m terrified and I can feel the anxiety escalate. I cry silently behind closed eyes, feeling embarrassed and betrayed by my emotions. Few times have I ever felt the fragility of my mortality. These past two weeks in Oaxaca, I celebrated the life of a woman whom I know very little about and with whom I interacted mostly in my early childhood. Regardless, she imprinted deeply in my soul. Her love, so vast and limitless, that I still find her in the things that remain.
Tuesday night, March 26, 2019 Oaxaca, MX
I scavenged the cupboards for something I could eat and found an open package of Galletas Maria. When I was little, my abuelita Reyna used to feed me galletas with coffee. My mom objected because of the caffeine, a comment that my abuelita quickly swatted away like a fly in her kitchen, saying it was more milk than coffee anyway. I would drop the galleta in the mug and watched as it resurfaced and expanded, absorbing the diluted mixture like a sponge. I waited until it touched the ceramic walls before I scooped it up with my spoon. I folded the soggy biscuit in half, and like a baby bird, stretched my mouth to match the width of the spoon and ate the entire thing in a single bite. I still remember tasting the mild sweetness of the galleta and the roasted bitterness of the coffee. I was so methodological in my release and capture, I can only imagine what that scene must have looked like for her.
I have a vague memory of her sitting across the table from me, watching me. We couldn’t have interacted much other than the abstract conversation one could have with a young child. I wonder if this was the only time she ever sat down. A sturdy, short woman, with a button nose, long fingers and heavy breasts. I only mention her breasts because I remember nuzzling in her bosom’s warmth as a chick would to a hen. Like all the women of my lineage, she never knew when to rest. I remember leaving the kitchen table when she was distracted and venturing farther into the house as if it were some grand adventure. I remember the bathroom. Blue. In my mind's eye, I see the tiles spilling from the walls down to the floor. The toilet, the sink, the bathtub. Blue. I can’t say how true this is, sometimes our earliest memories become compromised by our dreams. Yet, I do remember it being my favorite part of the house. It was tiny, like her, like me.
It made me feel like a grown up, and although I never wanted to be older, that bathroom felt like it was made for me. When I think of her, I think of sunflowers. As a child, mom made beautiful cotton dresses for me and on one occasion, while visiting my abuelita, as I sat on her lap and I realized the mantle and I matched. As if the sunflowers were crawling off the table and up my dress. When we left Mexico, I was only six years old. Countless times, I bargain with God to allow me to go back home and visit her, so I could see her one last time.
Friday, March 29, 2019 Oaxaca, MX
Yesterday my mom called me. I was upset about something that had happened in the studio earlier in day and although I immediately recognized the tone in her voice, I cut her off and didn’t give her a chance to speak. I told her I was busy and I would call her back. The entire day passed by and it was only until that evening when I stood over the stove stirring chocolate into water that I remembered my mom’s phone call.
Her father had died of a heart attack. The sound coming from my mom’s throat as she tried to speak, was something I had never heard before. A composition of inaudible shrieks and deep wails of sorrow paused only by hyperventilating gasps. All I could say was, “perdóname mamá, perdóname...” I felt like shit for having ignored her call earlier that day. She tried to consoled me by saying that I couldn’t have known.
What would you say to someone if you knew that it would be your last opportunity? The last time I saw him, was also the first time in 17 years that I had stepped foot in my native soil. God had come through and as promised, I was able to see my abuelita one last time, I didn’t realize it would also be the last time I would see her son; my grandfather. I remember him sitting across from me, fidgeting with his hands, speaking profusely, a constant stream of exhaled words. He spoke of a letter my mom had written to him and how he’d stop by before I left and give me a letter in response to hers. He patted the tops of his knees, “la quiero mucho mija,” he said, before he walked away.
It breaks my heart to think of him in that way, I was still so angry and confused. I was short with him, letting him talk, anxious for the time he’d leave. I had angled my chair so as not to face him, nearly giving my back to him. This was a man who had caused a ripple effect of pain. He had abandoned his wife and his daughter before she was even born to start a new family. He was a womanizer, and like so many narcissistic machos, left fatherless children in his wake, whom he refused to recognize. My mother was his first child, and the only one of his children outside of his second marriage whom he gave his last name to; Varela. He was not my grandfather, he merely contributed to my mother’s biological makeup. Yet, we both carried his name like branded animals, as if belonging to him. My mom, during much of her life, was angry and confused too. In her worst moments, she would lash out and the tender woman would transform; her pupils dilated and swallowed the white of her eyes. When the episode was over, she cried and begged for forgiveness. At an age where little of life makes sense, the only reasonable thing for me to do was steer the blame away from my loving mother, who was clearly under a spell. I made the source of her pain responsible for my own pain and I learned to hate him.
Hating him, however, ricocheted to hating parts of me. I ripped his hyphenated last name off of myself like a slab of skin. Thinking the weight would be less but the empty space grew dense. How can I hate someone whose mother I adored? Someone whom my mother ultimately forgave?
My abuelita’s dying wish was to see her son and granddaughter reunited. When my mother was six years old, it was my abuelita who took her to meet her father. After the age of 30, it took my mother 16 years of broken promises to see him again. He had vowed, like he had so many other times before, to meet her in New Mexico only to call the next day and tell her he wouldn’t be going. She feigned indifference, but in a moment of self-sabotage, she lost forty years and reappeared as the six year old girl crying for her father, wondering why she wasn’t good enough for him. I felt rage for his disdain towards her, but then he appeared. Without a moment of hesitation, my mom embraced him and cried in his arms. The shackles, nearly visible, broke around them and my abuelita, blinded by age and tears, needed only to hear the love through the room.
It was so simple and she made it look so easy to let go and forgive. I dreamt once that someone I hated had died. I stood among others dressed in black as the men carried the casket away. My inconsolable sobs roared from deep within my belly, as if I was burning from the inside out. A man approached me and told me not to cry, that they were already gone. “You don’t understand,” I told him, “they are free, and I’m here, rotting with this hate…”
From April 17, 2019 to May 25, 2019, I walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Before embarking on my journey I went to see a woman, a gypsy, who read my tarot cards. I was afraid to walk alone and although skeptical, I wanted reassurance. The woman flipped through cards and said she saw a man who was no longer with us in this realm but who loved me and would take care of me throughout my journey. She asked me if someone had passed in my family, his face immediately surfaced and although I tried to search for the faces of my other grandfathers whom I knew truly loved me, his image never swayed. Bitter and feeling cheated, I left and began my journey still carrying the weight of resentment.
During my time in Oaxaca, I had spent hours day after day carving the face and name of my abuelita Reina. Her blessing and her desire to travel carried me through the most difficult days of my journey.
The day I climbed to Cruz de Ferro, I allowed myself to cry openly. Morgana, my Camino sister walked in silence and solidarity with me, helping me carry the load. In my hand was a rock I had collected at the summit of Mount Sopris in Carbondale, CO. and had carried with me across the Atlantic Ocean and throughout my Camino. Written on it were the things I wanted to leave behind. I can’t explain why I felt so nervous, but I felt as though I would meet God himself at the top. I thought of all the men in my life. I felt abandoned by God through the church. I had felt abandoned by all of them. I felt as though I had never been enough. I have been at war with men since the beginning while simultaneously rejecting myself for my femininity because I never felt strong enough. I felt called to walk and let go. I cried as if vomiting the feeling of unworthiness. Days later, I felt the need to walk alone. I thought of my mother and I thought of him. He had loved her the best way he knew how and that was enough. Towards the end of his life he had repented, who was I to continue to condemn him after his death? To love him is to love myself and to forgive him for his shortcomings, is to forgive the humanity within myself and within all of us. Knowing my abuelita and in celebration of her life on this day, the two-year anniversary of her death, I know she wouldn’t want me to carry the weight of hate any longer.
My grandfather was Rigoberto Varela Mendoza, and this is what I know about him: he loved his mother and he loved my mother too. He was an incredible singer, you’d confuse him for Vicente Fernandez, even if just for a second. He was a truck driver and would sing for my mom on his long drives. He owned a fruit store. His fear of not being forgiven kept him away. When I remember him sitting across from me the last time, I know now it was his way of asking for forgiveness for being gone for so long.