Yesterday night, I met up with Elizabeth at the college auditorium to hear Naomi Wolf speak about her latest book. Even tough I do not consider my self a first wave feminist like Elizabeth is, or like Naomi Wolf was at some point, I do agree with mostly all of modern feminist theory and with what it has to say about our gender.
So, I guess am a feminist. Not only that, but I’ve also been made a member of the Feminist Union at college, courtesy of my friend Liz, who is the president of the club. There is more: I also like women, which makes me even more of a feminist, and I love having friends that are women, which makes me distrust girls who only have male friends. And I happen to believe that men would stereotype and mock at our gender way less, if we females could be nicer to each other, and learn how to be friends. But this entry isn’t directly about feminism; it is about friendships between women and about my relationship with Elizabeth (probably; another really gay entry, but there it goes…)
Liz is my best friend in Charlotte and one of the few people I know who has managed to utilize all the feminist theory we have been reading in those Women’s Studies classes, and bring it to the practice. I met her one night at a local bar called The Penguin; and I remember how the first thing she ever said to me was “I love your hair,” and the last thing: “you should come to my place tomorrow.” Two weeks later, I was driving to Ashville with her to see Cat Power play. Three weeks later she made me a mixed CD with the title “My Love will set you on Fire,” and by summer, we were best friends. Liz has shiny red hair and blue eyes covered up by her bangs, she does not shave her armpits and I have never heard her complain about her body. She enjoys having one night stands, and she is smart. She has a hidden geeky side, and she is very difficult to figure out. She can talk without stopping, and she can stay in silence for hours. She is strong, she is temperamental, and she is my friend.
It was Liz who got me drunk with raspberry liquor one night, and dragged me to the “Red Door” in Charlotte, just to buy me my first vibrator as a birthday present. I remember picking it out because it was purple and had sparkles on it, not even sure how it worked. She is also the one who urged me to get out of my tomboyish cowgirl shirts and stop covering my body all the time: “Carolina, you are a beautiful young woman, now, try on this skirt, I promise it will look good on you!” and she was the one I always went to when I needed advice on men: “Liz?” I would ask her while eating popcorn in front of the TV, “How do you give a hand job to a guy?” and she would laugh at my ignorance first, but then would answer: “Aw, that’s EASY!” and go on to explain things step by step, using an empty bottle or a banana as a reference, while her other roommates stared at us in confusion.
Liz is also one of the few people whom I can talk about Art with, because she knows about colors and palettes, and about hundreds of contemporary artists I have no clue about. She is also someone I can lend my books to and someone I can steal books from, which means that she is somebody I can share my geeky literature obsessions with. I mentioned how she has red long hair but I forgot to mention how sometimes she leaves parts of it blond and how she always does my eye-make up whenever we go out. She tends to go for tall, skinny guys, and once chased Adrian Brody through NYC, but can also admire Woody Allen for his wit. She collects pictures and items with owls and likes to cut out magazines to make collages. She took care of me when I just moved to N.C from Connecticut, and when I was lonely and extremely broke in Charlotte, and I still do the same for her whenever she drinks too much and starts wondering about the meaning of life.
One night after I had smoked too much weed and was feeling extremely melancholic, I dialed her number at three in the morning, crying,as I blurted out: “Liz, PLEASE, NEVER LEAVE ME, YOU ARE THE ONLY THING I HAVE,” which was followed by a sleepy response on her side of the line: “Carolina, it is fine, everything is alright, you just smoked too much. YOU ARE FINE. I will not leave you. I promise,” which was enough to calm me down, and get me to gulp down a few pairs of aspirins with water, and fall asleep. Another night I stayed over at her place and we talked for so long that the sun started rising: We ended eating pancakes at the nearest dinner, while the blackbirds kept singing on the telephone wires.
But this entry is also about our unexpected separation, which began last summer when we took a road trip to Greensboro for a vacation…and I met a guy. This implicitly means that I betrayed her. It did not happen on purpose, I promise, but heading back to Charlotte with her, after the road trip and after my newest infatuation, things were already changing. When fall arrived, I had a boyfriend, and she was starting to explore relationships with women. When winter arrived, I started ditching her to spend more Saturdays watching movies with him, while she stayed out meeting new people without me. The summer had ended and, along with it, the exodus of a beautiful friendship. Even though we still share a strong bond, nothing compares to the amazement we both experienced in the beginning. Because a new friendship feels like the spell of a new Love, only that it does not carry all the expectations found in a male-female relationship. Like with any good partner, Elizabeth and I had influenced each other, learnt from each other, and we had both been transformed, which is what any great friendship, and any good relationship should be able to do: To be the ax that cuts into the frozen sea.
This is just to say that we hung out last night, after the Naomi Wolf conference. Liz had her hair up, and chunks of it were covering the sides of her face. She was wearing lip gloss and a red, polka dotted vest. We stole chocolate covered strawberries from the reception and ate them at the table in the far corner. We acted like twins who had been separated at birth and she introduced me as “her best friend” while I did the same with her. But on our way to the parking lot, she brought up another subject, “Guess what I ended up doing last Saturday because you weren’t with me Carolina?” I knew that something was coming, because ever since I have started hanging out more with my boyfriend (my other best friend of the second sex), she has implicitly brought up the fact that I have abandoned her, on many opportunities. “What?” I decided to risk it. “I ended up hanging out with my roommate Cathy and her redneck friends, at some redneck bar” she answered, “and because I was so bored, I started drinking, by myself. I drank so much that I ended throwing up inside the bathroom.” I laughed and nagged at her, but then, as we arrived towards her car, she had something more to say, almost in a whisper: “You should have been there with me.”
There, she had done it again; she had given me an unexpected guilt trip, and even though I was a little thrown off by her remark, I knew she was right. Because even though one admits it or not, at some point you end up making a list of priorities in your life. When you are single, they go like this: your best friend, school, work, going out, and guys. But when you happen to fall for someone, they change into: your boyfriend, school, work, and your best friend. And as much as I hate to admit this; I had made a list too, and Liz realized her place on the list way before I did, and she pointed it out to me like if I had broken a pact.
So this is why I just had to redeem myself over here, by writing about Elizabeth and about that other type of love one finds in friendships only: The fresh one, the one that does not carry all the fears and expectations; and all the consequences of a romantic relationship. I had to write about a friendship growing apart so that I do not make this mistake again. I had to write about the type of love we sometimes ignore, the one we leave out, the one we unintentionally leave behind, the amazing path traced by friendships which is also the road less traveled.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
El Otro/ El Mismo...
I am standing in line at the college cafeteria waiting to get a meal before my Biology class. All of the ladies who serve from the other side of the counter are Latin and speak little English. I assume they are Mexican because I know that one of them is from Puebla and the other from Guerrero, and the one with the green eyes could have been born in Acapulco. But not the Acapulco you know, not the one with the beaches for tourists, I’m talking about the other one; the real one. They know me because I eat there often, and we usually engage in small talk. But it is hard to understand each other: my Argentine Spanish sounds too Italian and too fast to them, and even when I try to slow down my speech and give it more music and a lower tone they will ask me to repeat what I said. We Argentines, specially the ones from Buenos Ayres, can roll our R’s like if it where the last thing we will ever do in our life, and we pronounce the Y’s very differently from Central Americans. This is a reason why many central Americans have, friendlily, mocked at my accent, but we can still communicate between each other.
As I stand in line, I am separated from them by a counter that divides our roles, and while they are here to work, I am here to study. The counter also separates our privileges: while they get payed four dollars an hour "under the table," I sit in class. Going further, this can also translate into: while I am able to project a future and to dream a little, they see this job as their only choice of a future.
Today it was slower than usual, and when my turn arrived, one of the ladies asked me, in spanish, what was I studying. I always hesitate to answer whenever people ask me this, because I used to be a Philosophy major in my country, back in the days when I believed social change was possible. Shamefully, part of me has given up on this ideal, and now I want to be a writer and I want to teach Spanish Literature. I also want to be able to talk to other people, so that I can know about them. I tell her that I am trying to be a teacher, and she smiles and gives me an extra scoop of grilled vegetables. I wonder what she would have done if I had answered "I'm majoring in Business!"
And at the same time, I only get to ask her about her day, or about the weather. I cannot go into details about the reason why she is here, or about the family she has left behind when crossing the border, or if she enjoys serving meals to spoiled teenagers all day long, or if she thinks less of me because I live amongst Americans. I am on the other side of the counter, and she probably assumes that I do not understand anything. But I do, even though I am not the girl who was working illegally at that bagel store anymore, three years ago in Charlotte. Even though I am not that girl who used to laugh in Spanish with her co-workers from Peru and Ecuador. Even though I am not the girl who waited for the bus in the snow to get to places and who stayed in the public library at two PM, reading novels near the tables in where the homeless men took naps. Even though I am not the girl who mispronounced every single word she uttered in English and who could not afford college, I still understand. Something happened on the course of these last years; the loss of my innocence surrendered to what is commonly called " adaptation."
It’s been almost three years now, since my last trip to Argentina, and the distance and the longing have stopped hurting. This could mean that I am slowly starting to make myself feel at home in a new place, or it could also mean that I have learnt how to numb myself from melancholy. Maybe, it means that I am only leaving things behind; that I have started building a big bubble of clear glass around me, and that I am forgetting what is real and what isn’t. This is why I just had to sit down for a minute to write this entry. Because this scratching down on paper; this endless typing is my tent, and it is a constant battle against fallacies and against forgetfulness.
Real is what lies on the other side of this bubble, on the other side of the border, on the other side of the water. Real, today, was what I found on the other side of the counter.
As I stand in line, I am separated from them by a counter that divides our roles, and while they are here to work, I am here to study. The counter also separates our privileges: while they get payed four dollars an hour "under the table," I sit in class. Going further, this can also translate into: while I am able to project a future and to dream a little, they see this job as their only choice of a future.
Today it was slower than usual, and when my turn arrived, one of the ladies asked me, in spanish, what was I studying. I always hesitate to answer whenever people ask me this, because I used to be a Philosophy major in my country, back in the days when I believed social change was possible. Shamefully, part of me has given up on this ideal, and now I want to be a writer and I want to teach Spanish Literature. I also want to be able to talk to other people, so that I can know about them. I tell her that I am trying to be a teacher, and she smiles and gives me an extra scoop of grilled vegetables. I wonder what she would have done if I had answered "I'm majoring in Business!"
And at the same time, I only get to ask her about her day, or about the weather. I cannot go into details about the reason why she is here, or about the family she has left behind when crossing the border, or if she enjoys serving meals to spoiled teenagers all day long, or if she thinks less of me because I live amongst Americans. I am on the other side of the counter, and she probably assumes that I do not understand anything. But I do, even though I am not the girl who was working illegally at that bagel store anymore, three years ago in Charlotte. Even though I am not that girl who used to laugh in Spanish with her co-workers from Peru and Ecuador. Even though I am not the girl who waited for the bus in the snow to get to places and who stayed in the public library at two PM, reading novels near the tables in where the homeless men took naps. Even though I am not the girl who mispronounced every single word she uttered in English and who could not afford college, I still understand. Something happened on the course of these last years; the loss of my innocence surrendered to what is commonly called " adaptation."
It’s been almost three years now, since my last trip to Argentina, and the distance and the longing have stopped hurting. This could mean that I am slowly starting to make myself feel at home in a new place, or it could also mean that I have learnt how to numb myself from melancholy. Maybe, it means that I am only leaving things behind; that I have started building a big bubble of clear glass around me, and that I am forgetting what is real and what isn’t. This is why I just had to sit down for a minute to write this entry. Because this scratching down on paper; this endless typing is my tent, and it is a constant battle against fallacies and against forgetfulness.
Real is what lies on the other side of this bubble, on the other side of the border, on the other side of the water. Real, today, was what I found on the other side of the counter.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
A Penny for your Thoughts
So here I am, in Beaufort, S.C, staying for a few days with my family. This is the place in where time decides to take a cigarette and where the sun wakes us up every morning by beating down on our faces until it hurts. I love staying here as much as I can, because this is where I can walk in sandals through the streets covered in spanish moss and not worry about the things I left behind in Charlotte. Here I can eat food that does not involve a frozen TV dinner, and I can look at the people with my same eyes and speak to them in the language of my childhood.
This evening, at 6:30 PM the sun started setting on the bay and Dad suggested we all cram inside the red Volkswagen, just like we used to do when me and my sister where younger, to go walk through the pier. Mom complained at first because she never likes getting outside of the house in fear of running into her ninth grade students around town. My sister Diana seemed pretty excited to go though, and I did not mind a walk, so we made it a family trip. On the drive to the Bay, we had a typical "Drake Family Moment" which goes like this: Diana put on a CD, like she usually does on trips, and we all had to listen to her loud folk music of choice. Meanwhile, Dad was talking about the song and Mom was trying to speak over the music and over my Dad, while I, simultaneously, was trying to hear what Mom was saying and what Dad had to say. Yes, everything was in place.
Once we got to the Bay Area the sky was purple and violet, and its reflection on the waves created a mirror that forced the sky to continue endlessly under the water's surface. As I got off the car and faced the water, my Dad commented: "This is what we do very evening, Carolina" and I assumed that him and mom get off work and walk back and forth through the pier, and that maybe they talk about tides and currents, but there was more to it. "This place is beautiful Dad" I answer, and as I'm saying this, my Dad reaches for his pocket and grabs a bunch of pennies. He gives one to Mom, one to my sister and one to me.
"You are supposed to make a wish and throw it in the water" he tells me. And my Dad, who has always enjoyed creating rituals like this one, seemed pretty excited about the magic of wishing and the art of having hope. Every year, for example, he will throw his old Bible into the water, and get a new one that he will read for the next twelve months just to throw back into the water. I remember walking with him one morning to the pier in Olivos, my old neighborhood in Argentina, many years ago, and watching him drop his Bible into the river, as the few sleepy fishermen stared at us with their eyes numb from the morning sun. So this is what my sister and my Dad have been doing with their extra pennies every evening, here in Beaufort: they throw their wishes into the water and they head back home; a humble ritual to keep them hanging on as we wait for better times to arrive.
I thanked Dad for handing me a coin, and left the penny in my pocket as we all walked together to the end of the pier. The humidity in the air was dense and a few fireflies were starting to come out over the sand, Mom kept on describing the scenery to me in her story-teller mode, and I think Dad threw his penny when I was walking ahead of him; Diana must have made her wish as soon as she got off the car. But I waited too long, maybe because I was looking for the perfect spot to throw my penny, or maybe because my wishes do not belong to Beaufort anymore, and they should be made in Charlotte where I have plenty of lists of things to hope for. So the penny stayed with me all through the walk, first inside my pocket and, then, in between my fingers as we all drove back home.
But I really had no need to make a wish this evening. Despite all my longing and my usual melancholia which could be linked to exile, despite my trivial complaints, I was alright. The truth was that I could not have ever wished for anything better than finding myself stuck inside a red Volkswagen with the three other members of my family who share my eyes, heading back home after watching the sun fall into the water. I kept the penny then, and this one is for my thoughts.
This evening, at 6:30 PM the sun started setting on the bay and Dad suggested we all cram inside the red Volkswagen, just like we used to do when me and my sister where younger, to go walk through the pier. Mom complained at first because she never likes getting outside of the house in fear of running into her ninth grade students around town. My sister Diana seemed pretty excited to go though, and I did not mind a walk, so we made it a family trip. On the drive to the Bay, we had a typical "Drake Family Moment" which goes like this: Diana put on a CD, like she usually does on trips, and we all had to listen to her loud folk music of choice. Meanwhile, Dad was talking about the song and Mom was trying to speak over the music and over my Dad, while I, simultaneously, was trying to hear what Mom was saying and what Dad had to say. Yes, everything was in place.
Once we got to the Bay Area the sky was purple and violet, and its reflection on the waves created a mirror that forced the sky to continue endlessly under the water's surface. As I got off the car and faced the water, my Dad commented: "This is what we do very evening, Carolina" and I assumed that him and mom get off work and walk back and forth through the pier, and that maybe they talk about tides and currents, but there was more to it. "This place is beautiful Dad" I answer, and as I'm saying this, my Dad reaches for his pocket and grabs a bunch of pennies. He gives one to Mom, one to my sister and one to me.
"You are supposed to make a wish and throw it in the water" he tells me. And my Dad, who has always enjoyed creating rituals like this one, seemed pretty excited about the magic of wishing and the art of having hope. Every year, for example, he will throw his old Bible into the water, and get a new one that he will read for the next twelve months just to throw back into the water. I remember walking with him one morning to the pier in Olivos, my old neighborhood in Argentina, many years ago, and watching him drop his Bible into the river, as the few sleepy fishermen stared at us with their eyes numb from the morning sun. So this is what my sister and my Dad have been doing with their extra pennies every evening, here in Beaufort: they throw their wishes into the water and they head back home; a humble ritual to keep them hanging on as we wait for better times to arrive.
I thanked Dad for handing me a coin, and left the penny in my pocket as we all walked together to the end of the pier. The humidity in the air was dense and a few fireflies were starting to come out over the sand, Mom kept on describing the scenery to me in her story-teller mode, and I think Dad threw his penny when I was walking ahead of him; Diana must have made her wish as soon as she got off the car. But I waited too long, maybe because I was looking for the perfect spot to throw my penny, or maybe because my wishes do not belong to Beaufort anymore, and they should be made in Charlotte where I have plenty of lists of things to hope for. So the penny stayed with me all through the walk, first inside my pocket and, then, in between my fingers as we all drove back home.
But I really had no need to make a wish this evening. Despite all my longing and my usual melancholia which could be linked to exile, despite my trivial complaints, I was alright. The truth was that I could not have ever wished for anything better than finding myself stuck inside a red Volkswagen with the three other members of my family who share my eyes, heading back home after watching the sun fall into the water. I kept the penny then, and this one is for my thoughts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
