H B/D 2 U... H B/D 2 U!

Monday will be my niece’s birthday. Preparations are underway. She is now two years old—though she should be, in fact, only one year and eight months.

She was born four months too early.

The doctor said she’d probably not live to see the outside of the hospital. She weighed just under a pound and a half when she was born. Fully formed, she was the length of my hand from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger. She hardly moved. She breathed on her own, though; the doctor said my sister’s high blood pressure accelerated the baby’s lung development.

At the hospital, we had to scrub any visible body parts, wear a suit and mask, sign a document affirming we were not sick nor had we been sick the past two weeks, before they let us into the little room inside neonatal ICU where they kept the lost causes. When she was born, she was alone in that room. Two months later, she was still there and had a couple of little friends to keep her company. Only two of them made it out of the little room.

We were warned she’d be sickly, probably a weakling. The doctors said she’d probably develop slower (physically) than other kids. But she proved them wrong.

She is tall, for her age, and despite her fine features she is the perfect weight for a two year old. She is strong, strong-willed, and hard-headed. She speaks in nearly-whole sentences, always makes sense, is outgoing and friendly, and can exhaust my mother in an hour flat. And she has eyes that can melt a grown man’s heart in no time.

Talk about hybrid vigor! Part Spanish, Lebanese, Filipina, Latina (god knows what combination of sub-groups these last two entail), she chose the best features from each race like a picky shopper at Pavillions.

Her party is tomorrow, Saturday. We’ll have it at home. Two or three people will be cooking whatever weird foods this mini-United Nations assembly will require. Between friends and relatives, we’ll have about ten countries represented (from the former Soviet Block, through the middle east, to western Europe, to Central and South America, and South-East Asia), and of course the United States, with as many languages spoken throughout the party at some point or another.

Sometime during the party, we’ll watch sports on t.v. while the kids play in the jumper outside—probably soccer; we’ll likely play poker while the kids watch The Incredibles, or Shark Tale, or my personal favorite: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The kids will demolish a gaudy little star filled with candy, fill their bellies with all those things their parents spend most of the week keeping from them, and hopefully fall asleep sometime around eight, so the parents can have their party.

Sometime around ten, everybody will go home. It will have been just another birthday party—like there are so many in this family. But, when we put her to bed, I will know it was not just another party. It was a special party, for a special little girl that saved her life and my sister’s by sheer force of will, a little help from a German doctor in San Bernardino, and what I choose to call divine intervention. And though nobody will mention it, I know there will be three people there who will say a little prayer of thanks.

It’s going to be a great day.

El Seminarista De Los Ojos Negros

Crecí con judíos y árabes, enemigos mortales durante el día, en los negocios, pero amigos y compañeros por la noche. Viejos exiliados de patrias que los ignoraron cuando vivían ahí y los olvidaron en cuanto se fueron, se hicieron amigos porque nadie mas recordaba el olor del mediterráneo, y el seco y frió viento del desierto, y la guerra mutua que compartían—aunque en su tiempo fuesen adversarios. Jugaban backgammon y comían cabras. Tomaban ron y compartían los descubrimientos de su nueva tierra.

Entre estos estaba la poesía. El viejo, mi viejo, pasaba horas hablando de poemas, o recitando, u oyendo a otros recitar. Recuerdo que tenían un juego en el que se comunicaban con puras líneas de poemas. El chiste era tener una conversación común, de temas políticos o lo que fuera, pero usando solo líneas de poemas famosos que todos conocieran. Así pasaban horas. Nosotros los niños no divertíamos muchos oyéndolos.

Uno de los poemas que mas recuerdo, tal vez por la melancolía que los viejos demostraban al recordar amores perdidos, era este. He aquí, por ellos, los que ya no recitan mas poemas:

El Seminarista De Los Ojos Negros

Desde la ventana de un casucho viejo,
abierto en verano, cerrado en el invierno
por vidrios verdosos y plomos espesos,
una salmantina de rubio cabello
y ojos que parecen pedazos de cielo,
mientras la costura mezcla con el rezo,
ve todas las tardes pasar en silencio
los seminaristas que van de paseo.

Baja la cabeza, sin erguir el cuerpo,
marchan en dos filas pausados y austeros,
sin más nota alegre sobre el traje negro
que la beca roja que ciñe su cuello
y que por la espalda casi roza el suelo.

Un seminarista, entre todos ellos,
marcha siempre erguido, con aire resuelto.
La negra sotana dibuja su cuerpo
gallardo y airoso, flexible y esbelto.

Él solo, a hurtadillas y con el recelo
de que sus miradas observen los clérigos
desde que en la calle vislumbra a lo lejos
a la salmantina de rubio cabello
la mira muy fijo, con mirar intenso.
Y siempre que pasa le deja el recuerdo
de aquella mirada de sus ojos negros.

Monótono y tardo va pasando el tiempo
y muere el estío y el otoño luego,
y vienen las tardes plomizas de invierno.
Desde la ventana del casucho viejo,
siempre sola y triste, rezando y cosiendo,
una salmantina de rubio cabello
ve todas las tardes pasar en silencio
los seminaristas que van de paseo.
Pero no ve a todos; ve sólo a uno de ellos,
su seminarista de los ojos negros.

Cada vez que pasa, gallardo y esbelto,
observa la niña que pide aquel cuerpo
marciales arreos.
Cuando en ella fija sus ojos abiertos
con vivas y audaces miradas de fuego,
parece decirle: "¡TE QUIERO..., te quiero!...
¡Yo no he de ser cura, yo no puedo serlo!...
¡Si yo no soy tuyo, me muero, me muero!..."

A la niña entonces se le oprime el pecho,
la labor suspende y olvida los rezos,
y ya vive sólo en su pensamiento
el seminarista de los ojos negros.

En una lluviosa mañana de invierno
la niña que alegre saltaba del lecho
oyó tristes cánticos y fúnebres rezos:
por la angosta calle pasaba un entierro.
Un seminarista, sin duda, era el muerto,
pues cuatro llevaban en hombros el féretro
con la beca roja encima cubierto,
y sobre la beca el bonete negro.
Con sus voces roncas cantaban los clérigos;
los seminaristas iban en silencio,
siempre en dos filas hacia el cementerio,
como por las tardes al ir de paseo.
La niña, angustiada miraba el cortejo:
los conoce a todos a fuerza de verlos.
Sólo, sólo faltaba entre ellos
¡el seminarista de los ojos negros!...

Corrieron los años, pasó mucho tiempo...
y allí en la ventana del casucho viejo
una pobre anciana de blancos cabellos,
con la tez rugosa y encorvado el cuerpo,
mientras la costura mezcla con el rezo,
recuerda muy triste las tardes de antaño,
¡al seminarista de los ojos negros!...

Miguel Ramos Carrión

Anything But Temptation!

I worked a long day today. I was there at 7:00 a.m. and left at 9:00 p.m. I am officially tired.

So I got home, looking for dinner, wanting to relax... read a little of the ongoing conversation over at the good doctors' blog (look for Sigmund over on the right).

Imagine my surprise when, just as I am settling in to a good bloggin' session, my sister comes out, money in hand, and sends me to the store!

I am tired, I say. I want ice cream, she replies. But we (yes, we) are going on a diet tomorrow, says I. C'mon, says she. I went. Women always win.

Most of everything I am has been defined by women: Grandma (who hated me), Grandma (who wasn't my grandma, and took me for the child she never could have), Mom, Sis, Ex-wife, OtherSis, Daughter, Niece. Bossy bitches all of them--I wouldn't want it any other way.

So, having had my dinner, I now sit in front of the computer, cup of coffee to my left, bowl of peanut-buttery ice cream to my right, my own blog in front of me.

I can resist anything, except temptation, the man with the green carnation said once.

I need a portrait like Dorian's portrait. Beauty becomes the wicked.

And whoddathunk peanut butter would go so well with ice cream? Ralph's is having a "buy one get one free" on tubs of ice cream tonight.

Yes, tubs...

Yes, yum!

To His Coy Mistress

Lover's Knot

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave 's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Andrew Marvell

The Heavy Life of Pansies.

And then he came upon a stone that looked like it was left from recent road improvement work, off to the side of the road and only slightly dusted by the recent wind. He sat and looked at the building on the opposite side of the soccer field. A wide, slightly slanted, multi-level roof covered in red clay “tejas”, trying hard to blend in with the much older buildings that surrounded it, as if anyone would miss the new construction, the brand new wooden beams still smelling of fresh stain, the large and shiny silver cross upon its peak: Don Bosco.

My mother tells me that she wanted to have a boy and a girl—in a house with a white picket fence, but neither dogs nor cats, because she’s allergic to them. She was happy when she got pregnant the first time; the doctor said she’d have a boy, and it’s good, she thought, to have the boy first. He would grow up big and strong and protect his little sister and everybody would be happy. About six months into the pregnancy, while my father beat her, she broke her back, or was it cracked? Either way, she was in bed the rest of the pregnancy, which was difficult and painful—but she had her boy.

The doctor told her she couldn’t have any more kids, that it would kill her, and that she’d better take steps to prevent any future pregnancies. But she wanted her daughter, and a little over a year later, I was born.

I’m not a girl.

I still wonder if what happened after had something to do with the way she felt, or if she treated me differently because of it and that’s why I was like I was. What ifs, though, are just the kind of waste of time people of leisure do to replace a life well lived. My mother raised my brother and me pretty much the same way, and still we came out very differently. I am gay; he was straight. He was always very masculine, but I (up until the fourth grade) was very effeminate.

This is the story of how that changed.

People were playing soccer, a friendly game taking just the near half of the field, a priest or two competing with the kids right out of catechism class. On the opposite side of the field, two teams of elementary kids were changing into their bright red and blue uniforms, about to start an official league game. Two joggers crossed his line of sight, on their way around the grounds. Freshly-planted shrubs lined the road that led to the rectory behind the church. As he followed the joggers with his eyes, he noticed father Mario, long black coat and ecclesiastic collar on, making his way out to him, on his daily walk after the morning’s mass.

Kids always called me names. I was the “typical,” girly little boy all the bullies tease, and all the other kids tease too because they’d hate to feel they’re at the bottom of the teasing ladder. I had plenty of bigger problems in my life at the time, though, so it was ok. Getting teased, and sometimes beaten and generally derided and mostly ignored still hurt, but deep down inside I still had my mother, and that’s all that mattered, and my books, and I had church. I went to church despite my parents’ best intentions. They were progressive, revolutionary, educated, agnostic. I needed a God a little closer to the ground—one you could talk with, not discuss over dinner. My aunt, who thought it was miraculous that I wasn’t retarded, had given me a bible that I carried with me and read whenever I had a little free time. I started going to church (which was only a couple of blocks away, and very near my aunt’s house) three or four times a week. I asked the priest to teach me catechism, because my parents wouldn’t take me. It is because of that priest that after all these years I have not lost faith in the church, because despite the evil in some men’s hearts, I know there are far more whose great wisdom and boundless love and generosity far outweighs their animal cravings, men of good heart who do not publicize their good deeds and thus go unrewarded, unknown, and end up grouped with the criminals through no fault of theirs.

Let’s call him Father Mario. An old man recently moved to the tropics from Andalucia or some other place with a heavy accent who nonetheless tamed his tongue to speak to us natives softly and wisely. And then there was Mr. Velez, who taught biology and drove a CJ9, and talked to us all the same, even me. When other kids would tease me and even my older brother would say nothing, Mr. Velez would quickly distract the group and get attention away from me. I think he avoided chastising them because he knew he would not always be there and kids are vengeful and hold grudges a long, long time.

I didn’t play sports because I was no good at them—I was no good at them because nobody would play with me. But that, too, was ok, because it gave me time to read, and reading one learns more, and when one knows more, the adults show interest, and ask “important” questions and smile and nod knowingly and hand out candy and money. I should have had an old man, an accordion and a tin cup, for all it was, but it was positive and I felt good, so I didn’t mind.

I didn’t mind till I was in the third grade. That year, I started liking this girl in my class. I even wrote the little note with the fateful “circle yes or no” at the bottom. She was so pretty, I thought, and smart, and funny, and she played all the sports during recess and knew the answers in class. I thought she was smart enough to be my girlfriend. But she wanted nothing to do with me, because of what all the kids were saying about me, she said. She wanted a real boy for her boyfriend, and whatever I was, I was not that. So I got to thinking.

I was a reasonably smart kid, and I knew what boys were and what girls were: I had read all about it in the Encyclopedia Britannica. I knew I was a boy, but what was real?

I would look at the girls, in their little groups, holding hands, and giggling, and playing with dolls, and brushing their hair, and generally being girly. I would look at the boys, picking their noses, and spitting, and hitting, and kicking, and playing with dirt, and generally being boyish. I analyzed every aspect of my being. I took note.

One day, in fourth grade, a little boy started teasing me. Thing is, I always was taller and stronger than anybody in class. I never used that against them, and they soon forgot it. But I was still stronger. The boy kept teasing me and at some point I turned to him and told him to stop. He ignored me and kept going. The teacher, busy with her lecture, did not hear or if she did, did not interfere. The boy continued. I told him to stop, again. He didn’t. I told him I would choke him till he passed out. He didn’t stop. I knew he wouldn’t die if I let go of him just as he passed out, so I got up and grabbed him by the neck and started squeezing. He punched me, kicked me, scratched at me. Other kids tried to stop me. The teacher grabbed me by the wrists and tried with all her strength to pull my hands apart. But I kept squeezing. The boy turned blue and pretty soon passed out. Everybody in class was screaming.

I let go of him. His limp body fell to the ground with an undignified “plop.” I returned to my desk and sat down. The other kids told the teacher what happened, and she led me by the hand and I went quietly to the principal’s office. I sat there, across the hall from the kid, who was taken there after he came to. The nurse had checked him out and said he’d be fine. After a while, almost as if they had timed it, his parents and my parents all came into the office, quietly. There was no shouting, no arguing, no name-calling. The principal took them all into his office and they talked for a few minutes. After that, my parents took me home, and his parents took him home.

I wasn’t punished. Nobody ever mentioned it again. He was at school the next day, and nobody said a word.

But the kids didn’t tease me again. Ever.

We missed you at mass today, Father Mario said. At fifty or so, he was quite ancient to the boy sitting on the stone by the side of the road. With his hand on his waist, the priest leaned back and took a deep breath. The boy did not respond. Are you ok? Still no answer. The priest sat on the stone, by the boy, who now had a tear at the corner of his eye. We leave tomorrow, the boy said. The boy and the priest then prayed things would come out ok. The flight was scheduled for 9:00 a.m.

When other kids tease you, what hurts the most is not what they think, but rather that they’re confirming what you already thought about yourself. Was I not raised by straight parents? Did I not hear everything a patriarchal society has to say about men of questionable masculinity? When even your parents hate you, where do you go for love? Four times a week, I’d be at church, praying things would change. I would pray to God that His most divine hand should come down from the heavens and touch me lightly and make me someone else.

And one Sunday he answered. He said: “heal thyself.” And so I did.

By this time, I knew every nuance and subtle movement my body would make when I willed it to move. I was in the fifth grade, danced every chance I got, played whenever the neighborhood teams were one kid short. I was still girly, but I knew precisely in what way I was girly, and went about changing.

Absolutely every tiny little bit of my personality today was, at some point, evaluated, checked, weighed for masculinity against the standard set by my peers. Whatever did not measure up was replaced with a similar, more masculine bit of behavior from those around me. I write like a priest I once knew. I speak like a teacher I once knew. I drive like a friend from high school. I cross my legs precisely like the tennis coach in high school. I hold my bottle of beer like my father’s best friend. I curve my a’s like my father did. I kick soccer balls like my fourth grade best friend did. I twist my fork in my hand when I eat like my father’s engineer friend used to back in the day. I sit just so, and hold my book on my knee while I read because that’s how I saw it done precisely when I needed to know how to do that.

This is not a sad story. Everybody, without exception is changed by their environment. I am glad that my experience led me to the point where I selected what would change me and how. I am precisely as I have chosen to be. Who can make that claim? Those who’ve picked up bad habits subconsciously should reconsider how they let themselves be so misguided. Those who pick up good habits subconsciously can hardly be proud of the happenstance. I am precisely as I chose to be. My hair parts on the side I chose in the fifth grade.

The few people who know this story are usually saddened by it—which never ceases to amaze me.

The airport was big, and cold, and full of strangers. I, who can never remember anything, remember that day quite clearly. We sat by a planter so we could hide if they came looking for us. We looked down, kept quiet, pretended we weren’t really there. I was by then an expert at disappearing and by the end of that day, we had indeed disappeared—never to be seen again by those who had so threatened us. We were running away. I, who had changed everything, fought everything and won, was running away. That day I saw my father’s fear in his eyes and knew that even strong, brave men fear something. He feared for us, and so he gave everything up and ran, like a scared little girl from a bully, holding her dolly close to her chest.

Somehow, that made me feel better.

Lengua Franca

In the beginning, I spoke no language. I don’t mean that when I was born, I couldn’t speak—nobody can. Rather, I mean that when the time came when everybody expected I should say something, I didn’t. For months, people thought I was retarded, that all I’d ever do would be cry and mumble and cry some more when nobody understood. But I was a crafty little sucker. My mom and I figured a way to communicate with signs and nods and looks and grunts. She says that I showed enough curiosity and responded appropriately to stimuli, so she figured I was just going to take my time. She waited.

At a time when other parents would show their kids off when they said “mama” or “papa” or any of a myriad dumb monosyllabical repetitions of something they didn’t really understand, I stayed quiet. My mother didn’t begin to worry until I was almost potty trained, but said not a word.

Then, one day, I started talking in full sentences. I went to bed one night without a word and woke up in the morning and said something along the lines of “good morning, mom; what’s for breakfast?” She had the sense to say nothing more than “cereal and milk. Go sit at the table and I’ll bring it to you.” Later, she’d tell me how happy she was, but that morning, she told that little boy nothing for fear of embarrassing him into silence.

------------------------

In the middle, there was the war. I’m almost sick and tired of how all my stories have the war in them, but wars are pernicious, ubiquitous, insidious, intrusive things that tend to get all up in your business and wreak havoc with your social life, especially when you’re just old enough to join society on your own. Those were the days when I was supposed to “go out and play,” and many kids did. But my parents, being the revolutionaries that they were, were involved in all that clandestine shit democratically-inclined, socially-responsible people do when under a foreign-imposed dictatorship—so they feared for their kids. That meant limited “go out and play” time. We even had “people” (ain’t it funny how some people “have” people?) who drove us to and from school.

Those were boring days.

I spent nights teaching myself German from a book. Now, if you speak German, which I don’t, you’ll understand how funny it would sound if you never heard it before but tried to read it aloud from a book. Well, my dad told me to stop. He was pretty successful and well-liked, so a friend of his high up in government arranged for me to go to the University of East Berlin (was there only one? Why did we just call it “the” University of East Berlin?). This was after the war, and we weren’t hiding no mo’, no mo’…

Then they suggested, politely and sweetly, like people often offer when showing you the barrel and quietly unzipping, would I want to go to the University of Moscow instead? But I’d have to wear olive only. Too old to go unnoticed; too young to go into the army; I would join the army and go abroad. Untrustworthy people have a habit of not trusting anyone, so they take other people’s kids hostage to ensure loyalty. Hell, when you’ve killed enough people, you just don’t know who’ll want to kill you, so you take steps… and that sometimes means stepping on poor fools’ toes. I was that toe.

Two weeks later, I was in San Francisco.

------------------------

You’d think July would be a warm month, and it mostly is. But when you come from the tropics, just about anything north of South Beach is worthy of a light jacket. It was 50 degrees in San Francisco. I was freezing!

Whatever language you speak, you can find a karaoke bar somewhere in San Francisco playing your very own version of I Left My Heart (In San Francisco). If you’re lucky, they’ll even have imported beer, from your homeland. Cold!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Everybody Speaks Spanish in America—and if not, they should. Twenty years, my dad lived in the United States, and never needed English. Many people oppose this view thinking that they can legislate what people do with their tongues—and that works about as well as telling people what to do with what God put between their legs. Even—or rather, specially—in America, one cannot force someone else to speak a language that would be beneficial to all. I think everybody should speak English, but then I also think everybody should speak Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian. In the United States, you have the perfect right to be as much an inconvenience to everybody else as your tax dollars allow. Contrary to popular opinion, this is a good thing. Ultimately, the ramifications are far more positive than negative, in my humble opinion.

I never needed English, either. But I craved it. I hungered after it like it was a twisty doughnut right out of the oil, dripping in sugary goodness at four o’clock at the local Korean guy’s shop. It was like a cigarette after an eight-hour drive down the coast with my mom and my ex-wife. There is something far beyond the doughnut and the cigarette about each experience, and if you don’t know it, I won’t waste your time explaining it.

I learned English because I had no choice. It took three months. I have been madly in love with the language ever since. Only half-humorously, I’d dare say everybody should learn to make love with their tongue, and every tongue is different—if you catch my drift. I love oblique, multi-lingual humor caused by poor translations.

And I write in English, and my Spanish-speaking friends ask “why?” And I write in Spanish, and my English-speaking friends say “uh?” And when I can, I throw in one or two phrases from other languages I picked up. It is in the nature of English to be open, welcoming of other languages, ideas, the very essence of other languages. At a time when others fight to keep their “cultural” identity and “purity” of their language, it’s reassuring to see American English saying: “Bring me your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free..."

Miguel

Miguel

My little friend Melinama made herself into a character from South Park. I have always wanted to kill Kenny--I mean, be in South Park, so I copied her, shamelessly and without honor.

But at least I told you I did.

so there!

:-P

So, yeah, this is how I see me in my head--a little less green, perhaps...

So if you find me around the school yard, say hello!