No More Profits Over People: Demanding Government Regulation of Corporations

With the ongoing economic crisis and the much debated health care reform, I have been part of and overheard numerous arguments regarding the merits and evils s of government involvement. I have noticed that many Americans fear government regulation. In fact, they fear the government as a whole. They often refer to government as “in bed with corporations,” “trying to limit our freedoms,” “taking over,” etc. Considering the countless cases of war, dictatorships, genocide, and other cases of abuse of political power, I can understand why citizens the world over are to be cautious of government control. However, being that the U.S. practices and promotes democracy, and claims to have a “government of and for the people” these phobic attitudes seem pretty ironic to me.

I believe that part of the problem lies in the fact that the U.S. government has left behind the government of and for the people myth that was once so central to our identity, to become a government for corporations by corporations in which capitalism takes the central role. A la WTO, the U.S. government increasingly stands to protect commerce and profit-making at any cost, rather than to serve and represent the people. What should we call it? Corporacracy? There is no denying that money grants immense political power in capitalist, campaign-sponsoring, lobbying America. I argue that we should start demanding a separation of corporations and state as much as we demand a separation of church and state.

I have to acknowledge that Americans are often poorly informed about issues that affect them and demand very little of their government in terms of action or protective regulations. However, even when considerable numbers of people demand fair trade, mandatory recycling, higher mileage cars, labeling of genetically modified food, or, I don't know, say, accessible health care, initiatives are stifled over and over by powerful capital holders and corporations who would lose profits to such regulations. Furthermore, it seems many Americans, although they may agree with such needs, chose to trust the not-so-almighty market to eventually make their preferences prevail, rather than putting regulations in place themselves to protect people's health, lives, and freedom. Notice that I said putting regulations in place “themselves,” because although they are government regulations, government officials are supposed to be there representing each one of us.

If the people’s will supposedly rules in a democracy, then there should be no such fraction between the concepts of “government’s regulations” and “the interest and wellbeing of citizens”. Nonetheless, Americans seem to have regulation-phobia and a panic of government involvement, even when the goal is to protect themselves. Why are we so afraid of the government overstepping what we consider acceptable boundaries? We are supposed to be able to set those boundaries ourselves every time we vote, every time we write to our representatives, every time we sign a petition. Sadly, countless Americans have done none of those things in their lives. That is, they have never engaged in democracy, and therefore feel powerless “against” a government to which they have no relationship and in which they have no involvement. (Funny they still root for foreign invasions aimed at bringing democracy to others.)
I have come to believe that regulating corporations is a matter of national security. After reading books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the work of Vandana Shiva, I feel immensely more threatened by the pesticides, hormones, and modified genes in my food and water; by the depletion of our current energy sources; and by the imminent pollution and destruction of the entire biosphere and its precariously balanced ecosystems; than by potential terrorist attacks.

We must remain aware of the fact that corporations are fictional entities created to care only about the bottom line. They have no morals and seek profits without even contemplating their consumer’s health (as long as potential health damages are rare enough or long term enough not to affect their sales), people’s wellbeing (underpaid employees who can barely make a living, displaced populations, families deprived of their livelihoods, etc.), the continuity of life in this planet, or even their own long term sustainability (since often they simply go on for as long as they can until they deplete the natural resources on which they base their own capital making). Because of the for-profit-at-any-cost nature of our market economy, it is imperative that the government regulate corporations, get involved with public health, become more proactive at regulating products (how come asbestos, CFCs, and countless medicines were aloud in the market for so long before their harmful effects rendered them illegal?), require longer term safety studies, limit pollution, make corporations responsible for clean-up and safety, and, among many other things, protect citizens’ freedom. That is, our freedom from being sued for unauthorized used by companies whose patented genetically modified seeds infested our fields without our knowledge (as in the case of Monsanto vs Schmeiser) – as well as our freedom to choose.

In my opinion, perhaps the most important regulation to advocate for is labeling. If we are unaware of what is in the products we purchase, or the processes by which they have been produced, we have no true freedom to choose, even if there are a variety of brands to pick from. Certainly, I wish corporations were not allowed to poison us or the environment (or even take the risk of poisoning if not enough long term research has been conducted). However, I expect that, at least, we should be able to choose which dangerous or even potentially risky substances we ingest or use in our houses or land. Whenever there is a risk involve, no matter how small, we have the right to choose whether to take it or not. In fact, we should be able to do choose by simple personal preference, even if the official claim is that no risks are involved. Therefore, foods containing genetically modified products; as well as meat, milk, and other products from animals that have been administered hormones, should be clearly labeled – so that consumers can opt to be free of them, if they so choose.

We need to pressure the government to protect our interests over the interests of corporations, to protect life over profits. Pressuring for government regulations to safeguard our health and freedom is not allowing government too much control. It is limiting corporations’ freedom if and when it endangers people or other life forms, or limits individual’s freedoms – just like we do with people who do the same to other people. As far as these and many other issues go, a political awakening that brings back empowerment to the people by fostering political engagement and the understanding that we are our government, rather than fearing our government as if it was a dictatorship, is the only way in which we can take action to protect ourselves, the generations to come, and the world we live in.

Round 1: First Wold rips Third World of raw materials. Round 2: First World buries Third World in trash.

Someone brought up the issue of garbage shipped internationally in my Gender, Justice, and Sustainability class. I didn't have a clue of anything related to the topic, so I did a quick online research and here is what I have found.

There are apparently some situations of legal shipping of trash from Europe to developing countries to be recycled by authorized companies that are capable and accountable. However, there are also millions of tons of trash shipped illegally, to non-authorized recipient companies that just burn it or put it on landfills. This stuff has been going on for a while, as developed countries run out of space and options for the immense amounts of trash they produce. However, it became a huge industry when Europe passed regulations that all trash must be recycled or disposes of in a safe way, most dumping in landfills has been prohibited, and safe incineration is expensive and heavily taxed. That became an expensive responsibility for European companies, so they have opted to ship it abroad instead. Thus, in Europe, paper, plastic, metal, and electronics can be exported for recycling abroad. The U.S. has no such laws, so trash can be exported anywhere to whomever regardless of what they will do with it, since we have no regulations within our borders that mandate recycling and safe disposal anyway.

However, there are also international regulations outlawing the exportation of toxic wastes. According to a NY times article on the topic , titled "Smuggling Europe Wastes to Poor Countries" by Elisabeth Rosental (very interseting by the way: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/science/earth/27waste.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1) ports are constantly stopping such illegal cargos. In the case of legal exporting-recycling, I found an example of a woman who founded a company based on creating packaging material in China by recycling U.S. cardboard from Los Angeles. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003544422_zhang280.html). It has made her very rich. It's a good example of capitalism. I guess some money and jobs are flowing back to China because of this. However, there is also the matter of the energy spent in transporting the cardboard, which monetarily speaking is obviously low enough to still allow for a profit. Nonetheless, I have been reading Vandana Shiva’s work, and learnt to look at the bigger picture and include costs that our market economy does not take into account (such as soil depletion, air and water pollution, sustainability, and the energy spent in creating input materials or substance). Thus, I must point out that we should also acknowledge that long distance transportation would be one less environmental cost if the waste was recycled in situ.

A good example to look at for the transportation issue is the fact that trash is currently shipped from Hawaii (where they have apparently run out of space for landfills) to Washington State, to a Seattle based company (http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/09/hawaii_trash_headed_for_northw.html). So, instead of trying to produce less trash to start with, to package less, to use biodegradable materials, to use, and to find viable ways of recycling and incinerating locally, Hawaii ships trash to the U.S. West Coast, and the U.S. West Coast ships trash to China. It would seem to me the only ones that truly benefit from that are the cargo companies and the oil giants who fuel them up. Oh, and the shareholders of the companies involved! That is after all much of the way in which economic “capital” has been created in the past centuries: by moving goods around the world. Raw materials were retrieved from developing countries, shipped to industrialized countries where they were transformed into products, which were shipped by to the original country and other regions of the world for a profit. Money was the fictional profit created by this processes. However, it doesn’t take much to see that it is not sustainable, especially when it depends on irreplaceable natural resources. “Growth” will continue and some will become richer and richer at the expense of others’ poverty only for long enough for us to drawn in our trash and man-made contaminating non0degradable chemicals, and deplete the natural resource upon which humanity and all other living beings depend on.

Going back to the cases in which Third World individuals and companies find an opportunity to capitalize on other countries’ trash, the truth is for every case of legal somewhat positive trash entrepreneurship, there seems to be many more cases of unregulated dumping of millions of tons of trash from U.S. and Europe into landfills in other countries, from dirty pipes to old computers to household trash. Construction debris and other wastes containing asbestos, mercury, and other toxic agents are dismantled by people, sometimes children, at high risk for their help, in Third World countries, where it is often burnt or left to rot, polluting air, soil, and water (Rosental’s article in the NY Times cited above). If that is not imperialism, I don’t what you’d call it.

European and American companies are tempted to export their waste, legally or illegally, because it is “cheaper” than dispensing of it appropriately according to their own regulations. Also, Third World countries may see an opportunity for profit by buying waste and recycling it into new material to be sold, or by charging fees for “taking care” of other countries’ wastes – even if that means contaminating and putting the health of their people at risk. This is a perfect example of what Vandana Shiva repeats over and over in her books: the potential or real economic benefits of these situations are fictional, they only exist from the point of view of a capitalist system, they only hold true if we choose to look exclusively at the monetary income and costs. The truth is, if we, as humans and citizens of the planet, allow for waste to be disposed of in polluting ways in Third World countries, then the regulations against it in Europe have done nothing to help the overall health of our planet. Furthermore, Third World countries continue to carry the heaviest responsibility for the wrongdoing of developed countries, to be abused and exploited, to carry with the consequences of the trash produced by the few who are well off. Ultimately humanity and planet Earth are paying a much higher cost by exporting trash than by recycling it and safely disposing of it locally. While the latter option might be more expensive money wise, exporting trash adds the pollution of long-distance transportation, furthers the disproportions of developed vs developing world relations – and ultimately pollutes the air, the water, and the soil we all share just as much, or worse.

Species Suicide: Poisoning Ourselves

“Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.”
Albert Schweizer

One of the many unexpected consequences of World War II was the start of the agricultural synthetic chemical industry, in particular pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides). For example, although DDT was first synthesized in 1874, its insecticidal properties were not discovered until WWII, when it was used to control mosquitoes and lice among civilians and troops. After the war, it became available to farmers and its use spread like a fire.[1] Pesticide use has increased more than fifty-fold since 1950![2]

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has defined the term pesticide as:
"any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying or controlling any pest, including vectors of human or animal disease, unwanted species of plants or animals causing harm during or otherwise interfering with the production, processing, storage, transport or marketing of food, agricultural commodities, wood and wood products or animal feedstuffs, or substances which may be administered to animals for the control of insects, arachnids or other pests in or on their bodies. The term includes substances intended for use as a plant growth regulator, defoliant, desiccant or agent for thinning fruit or preventing the premature fall of fruit, and substances applied to crops either before or after harvest to protect the commodity from deterioration during storage and transport."[3]

As clearly stated by that definition, pesticides are intended to kill organisms that have become harmful to humans in one way or another. Nevertheless, they are ultimately poisonous to all life, including our own. In fact, pesticide self-poisoning is the method of choice in one third of suicides worldwide.[4] However, those extreme situations are not the only examples of the harm humans are inflicting upon themselves by using pesticides. Everyday people all over the world consume these toxic substances without being aware of the dangers they pose to their health.
Although government agencies (the Environmental Protection Agency, in the case of the U.S.) conduct research to determine acceptable levels for the use of pesticides to avoid harm to humans, a number of complications must be considered. First of all, many of these chemicals tend to persist in the body (that is, it takes a very long time for them to be broken down). Many also bioaccumulate (that is, build up as residues in the body, especially on fatty tissue)[5]. This means that, for example, even though a certain level of a particular pesticide on a particular fruit may be deemed safe for human consumption, that particular chemical will accumulate in our bodies along with those chemicals present in other foods we consume and the water we drink, not to mention those pesticides we might breathe in or absorb through our skins. We have no real idea of what this accumulation entails to our health. Over time, chronic poisoning might result. Furthermore, we do not know what will happen on the long term as these chemicals interact with each other and degrade over time.

According to Randall Fitzgerald, author of The Hundred Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals that Are Destroying Your Health,” mixing synthetic chemicals in our bodies has become tantamount to playing with a chemistry set without an instruction manual.” He points out that toxicology experts predict that a third to half of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime as a result of the chemical experimentation we are conducting on ourselves.[6]

Just to put an example of how many layers of “safe” amounts of pesticides and other chemicals we might be ingesting daily, let’s follow a particular wheat product from the seed to our table. First of all, the soil in which it is to be planed will have likely already accumulated vast amounts of pesticides from many spraying cycles, as well as through underground and rain water which may bring along chemicals from near and far. Second, the actually seeds will have likely been processed with a number of chemicals even before the farmer buys them. Through the growing processes the plant will more than likely be sprayed with insecticides multiple times, as well as with other chemicals such as defoliants. Once the wheat is gathered, it will be treated to look better and to be preserved longer. It will then be processed into a generic food product, such as flour, a process that will add more chemicals, from preservatives to bleaches (or colorants). On its way to the supermarket, and once it’s stored there, it will likely be near pesticides used to control rodents. We will then consume the accumulation of chemicals along with the food we prepare with this flour, and store it with the chemicals from all our other food sources that day, and from every day of our lives – even before birth, since the placenta is no barrier to any of these chemicals and therefore unable to prevent unborn children from exposure to the chemicals present in their mothers’ diets.

But what exactly does this mean? How exactly do these chemicals threaten our health? The World Health Organization and the United Nation’s Environment Programme estimate that 3 million agricultural workers in agriculture in the developing world experience severe poisoning from exposure to pesticides every year. They estimate that 18,000 of those poisoned die.[7] Many more millions suffer mild poisoning, which may include nausea, vision problems, skin reactions, dizziness, vomit, headaches, and many other symptoms. Additionally, many studies have indicated that pesticide exposure is associated with long-term health problems such as respiratory problems, memory disorders,[8] dermatologic conditions[9], anxiety, depression,[10] birth defects, and neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s. In fact, a Harvard School of Public Health study showed that people exposed to even low levels of pesticides had a 70% greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.[11]

It’s been decades already since pesticides were first suspected to cause cancer. In fact, they have been labeled “carcinogens” for decades. However, the general assumption has been, until very recently, that the relationship between pesticides and cancer was no more than an improvable assumption. That dubious connection is no longer the scientific conclusion. Pesticides are known to cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, prostate cancer, and many other forms of cancer. Breast cancer, for example, has been linked to exposure to DDT prior to puberty. All these cases are documented in a document titled Environmental and Occupational Causes of Cancer: New Evidence, 2005-2007 which was prepared for the Cancer Working Group of the Collaborative for Health and the Environment. This report chronicled recent epidemiological evidence linking occupational and environmental exposures with cancer through peer-reviewed scientific studies published from January 2005 through June 2007, supplementing their state-of-the-evidence report published in September 2005. The authors argue that the substantial evidence justifies demanding urgent action that would limit exposure to avoidable environmental and occupational carcinogens.[12]

This recommendation is echoed by the American Medical Association:
"Particular uncertainty exists regarding the long-term effects of low-dose pesticide exposures. Current surveillance systems are inadequate to characterize potential exposure problems related either to pesticide usage or pesticide-related illnesses…Considering these data gaps, it is prudent…to limit pesticide exposures…and to use the least toxic chemical pesticide or non-chemical alternative."[13]

Perhaps, a good example to follow is that of Europe, where legislation has recently banned all use of highly toxic pesticides. The ban includes pesticides that are carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic to reproduction, disruptive of the endocrine system, as well as all of those which are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.[14]

Frightening as all these facts may be, the grim picture that pesticides and other types of synthetic chemicals paint for the future of our species is even more complex than the image conjured up by the scope of this paper. I have limited myself to exploring only superficially the direct effects that exposure to pesticides can have on human health – not considering other issues, such as reduction of reproductive ability, environmental pollution, destruction of habitats, and damage to other species. If the reader is as aware as we should all be of the fact that all life in this planet is interdependent, it will be obvious to him or her that, in the long term, these other devastating consequences of the use of pesticides are as threatening to the survival of the human species as direct damage to individuals’ health – or more. As we try to limit our personal exposure to these chemicals by eating organic, avoiding the use of domestic pesticides, and supporting appropriate policy, we are still left to wonder: how much time is there left for humanity as a whole to realize the suicidal qualities of its actions before it’s too late?

[1] International Program on Chemical Safety, DDT and Its Derivates.
http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc009.htm
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[2] Miller, GT (2002). Living in the Environment (12th Ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, p. 294
[3] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2002), International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides.
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/AGRICULT/AGP/AGPP/Pesticid/Code/Download/code.pdf
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[4] Gunnell D, Eddleston M, Phillips MR, Konradsen F (2007). "The global distribution of fatal pesticide self-poisoning: systematic review". BMC Public Health 7: 357.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2262093
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[5] U.S. Geological Survey Toxic Substances Hydrology Program, Bioaccumulation Definition
http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/bioaccumulation.html
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.

[6] Fitzgerald, Randall. “The Hundred-year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals that Are Destroying Your Health”. Penguin Books: London. 2007, p 30.
[7] Miller GT (2004), Sustaining the Earth, 6th edition. Thompson Learning, Inc. Pacific Grove, California. Chapter 9, Pages 211-216.
[8] Arcury TA, Quandt SA, Mellen BG (August 2003). "An exploratory analysis of occupational skin disease among Latino migrant and seasonal farmworkers in North Carolina". J Agric Saf Health 9 (3): 221–32.
[9] O'Malley MA (1997). "Skin reactions to pesticides". Occup Med 12 (2): 327–45.
[10] Beseler CL, Stallones L, Hoppin JA, et al. (December 2008). "Depression and pesticide exposures among private pesticide applicators enrolled in the Agricultural Health Study". Environ. Health Perspect. 116 (12): 1713–9.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2599768
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[11] Pesticide exposure raises risk of Parkinson’sAscherio A, Chen H, Weisskopf MG, O'Reilly E, McCullough ML, Calle EE, Schwarzschild MA, Thun MJ (2006). "Pesticide exposure and risk for Parkinson's disease". Annals of Neurology 60 (2): 197–203.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9408-pesticide-exposure-raises-risk-of-parkinsons.html
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[12] The report can be downloaded from:
http://www.sustainableproduction.org/downloads/EnvandOccCausesofCancer-2007Update-DownloadVersion_000.pdf
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[13] Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association. (1997). Educational and Informational Strategies to Reduce Pesticide Risks. Preventive Medicine, Volume 26, Number 2
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/pm/1997/00000026/00000002/art00122%3Bjsessionid=pkwgpommd0xm.alexandra
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.
[14] Pesticide Legislation Approved last retrieved 13 January 2009
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=EN&type=IM-PRESS&reference=20090112IPR45936
Retrieved on September 20th, 2009.

Cannibalism

I grabbed that butcher's knife
from the kitchen counter top
and as you stood there in disbelief
I cut my chest open.
I felt the blade
cut through my flesh,
and ripped my heart out
with my bare hands.
I placed it in front of you
throbbing, still beating,
bleeding away.
You stayed still,
looked away.
I interpreted your silence,
so I took it back
and ate it.
I felt the pain
as my teeth ripped it apart
slowly,
the blood dripping down my throat
mixing with the mute tears.
I swallowed and threw up,
threw up and swallowed.
I didn't want it back.
Somehow it seemed more appropriate
to have a hole now
where my heart once was.

A sol y sombra

Mi sol y mi sombra
mi cielo y mi esquina.
Mi casa, mi tierra, mi patria,
mis ganas de ser.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
feliz sin querer.

Mi manantial y mi estuario,
mi verdad absoluta.
Mi paz en las noches,
mi angustia en el pecho.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
mío mi lecho.

Mi todo, mi nada,
mi siempre estaré.
Mi paso seguro,
mi antes después.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
cálida tanta ultima vez.

Mi cómplice y mi verdugo,
mi libre albedrío.
Mi presente en diferido,
mi volvamos a empezar.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
un principio cada final.

Mi música de fondo,
mi mutua intuición,
Mi fluir por tantos caminos,
mi brújula en cada cruce.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
tu ausencia tan dulce.

Mi pasión incontrolable,
mi cariño sincero.
Mis ansias, mi apego,
mi flor con espinas.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
tan cierta la vida.

Mi viento en popa y mi ancla,
mi muelle, mi marea y mi playa.
Mis días de calor,
mi lluvia secando al sol.
Si fuese sin ti no sería
enteramente yo.

I have

I have
blisters on my feet,
credit card debt and student loans,
scars on my wrists,
hope tattooed on my skin,
and a many times patched-up heart.
I’ve got
secrets and traumas,
theory,
stretch marks.
I’ve been
abused, alone, homeless.
I’ve traveled, nested, escaped.
I’ve felt
blessed.
I’ve achieved and started over,
I have done what needed to be done,
I endured, survived.
I have danced till my feet bled.
I have held on
until I could no longer feel my hands.
And I've learned to let go.
I have loved to death.
I've relocated and adapted,
I've moved on and I have returned.
I have claimed mine,
I've imagined ours.
I have refused and rejected.
In loving arms, I've capitulated.
I've argued when necessary,
and made a point when possible.
I've stared and smelled the ocean,
and kept going,
step by step, always reaching,
so I could get to those roses.

Generational Manifesto

I saw the best minds of my generation fueled by madness,
dieting, obese, hysterical, naked,
dragging themselves through the streets at sunset
looking for an angry fix,
red-eyed searching for cheap breakfast at dawn*,
refusing to wear time handcuffed to their wrists,
maintaining it instead at a safe distance
in their pocketed connection to anybody, any time,
from anywhere they pleased,
feeling a panic rush of disconnectedness
without their daily doses of real-time communication and texts,
expressing themselves through icons,
mixing, borrowing, concocting languages,
programming websites, constantly checking their emails,
typing, recording, interacting screen to screen,
dragging, clicking, scrolling, copy-pasting,
designing logos, loops, ergonomic-mouse-pads,
marketing products, jingles, addictions,
engineering environmentally friendly great-mileage gasoline cars,
regularly publishing their ranting thoughts to the world,
instantaneously sharing still images and video images,
eager to fill the void,
connecting and reconnecting to each other,
redefining network, kinship, relationships,
loving indiscriminately open, possessively closed,
fucking the hell out of each other drenched in canned whipped cream,
sweating, drinking instant peach-flavored iced tea lemonade,
breaking gender boundaries, flirting with pain and pleasure,
teasing death, spreading AIDS,
digesting and throwing up easy-access porn,
buying vibrating dildos at the corner sex shop,
accusing each other of frigidity, promiscuity,
fear of commitment, playing hard to get,
making statements with their t-shirts,
recycling, donating, giving blood,
grouping up, joining together, and
labeling, unlabeling and relabeling each other
in an eternal quest to define themselves,
refusing to think about yesterday or tomorrow,
stretching today,
rebelling, non-conforming, protesting,
throwing rocks,
writing poetry and history,
reading science fiction, magical realism, manuals,
imagining Middle-Earth and Mordor,
and "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....",
taking their chances, rolling dice,
roleplaying, videogaming, watching the World Cup,
laughing out loud, screaming at the top of their lungs,
exploring alternative lifestyles and altered states of consciousness,
with or without drugs,
making music, coming up with options, giving birth,
choosing, defending, condoning,
abortion, marriage, bombs,
migrating, tasting, beginning,
ending, cleansing, renewing,
backpacking through this shrunken globalized world,
reclaiming Madrid, Buenos Aires, New York,
running away from and searching for home,
shrugging, risking, jumping without a safety net,
gambling with their life Russian-roulette style,
betting on their chances that life will smile at them
through unexpected karmic outcomes if they just flow,
recreating post-new age modern versions of ancient spirituality,
skinny-dipping, rejecting dogma,
fiddling with yoga, evolution, quantum physics, thealogy and the gaia hypothesis,
fighting Babylon ideology dreadlocked, tattooed, pierced,
going to work from 8 to 5 stoned, daydreaming about being their own boss,
drinking warmed down foreign beer,
listening to watered down world music,
consuming Walmart bought organic food,
dealing, buying, selling, legal and illegal drugs
in the hidden backway alleys and at the sky-scraping glass-windowed offices,
having to shave every morning to conform to the conventional work policies,
moonlighting as dragqueens, denying it,
alternating shortcuts with pleasure walks,
fighting through a digital reality saturated in dualities,
claiming and indulging in their right to be gods.

---

* Italics from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.

Mabon - El equinoccio de otoño

Es otra vez la época el año en que el día y la noche son exactamente iguales. Alrededor del 21 de septiembre, ocurre el equinoccio de otoño. De ahora en adelante, en este lado del ecuador, las noches comenzaran a alargarse. El equinoccio es un momento de equilibrio, pero es también el instante del año en el que la balanza se ladea y la oscuridad triunfa sobre la luz.

Mabon es uno de los ocho Sabbats, o festivales religiosos neo-paganos, que siguen el ciclo de las estaciones a lo largo del año. Marca la mitad de la época de la cosecha. Es un tiempo de abundancia y de dar gracias. Para aquéllos que no cultivamos la tierra, también es un momento de contemplar los frutos de nuestros esfuerzos ya sea en el trabajo, en la vida personal, etc. y sentirnos orgullosos y agradecidos.

Este festival deriva su nombre de un Dios galés. El mito relata que Mabon, hijo de Modron, la madre tierra, nace la noche del equinoccio y desaparece tres noches después. La pena de Modron es equivalente a aquélla de la diosa griega Demeter, cuando desaparece su hija Kore, quien había ido a recoger flores y nunca regresó. Demeter se lamenta y la busca por doquier durante días. Finalmente, Helios, el sol, que lo ve todo, le informa que Kore fue raptada por Hades y llevada al mundo subterráneo de los muertos para ser su reina. De ahí en adelante Kore será conocida como Persephone. Furiosa, Demeter, la diosa de las cosechas, detiene la fertilidad de todo aquello que vive en la tierra, los sembradíos se secan, se pierde la vida y el verde. Desesperado, Zeus logra finalmente llegar a un acuerdo entre Demeter y Hades en el cual Persephone pasa la mitad del año sobre la tierra con su madre y la otra mitad como reina del inframundo junto a su esposo – dando lugar a las estaciones. Cuando Persephone está ausente, la tierra palidece con la tristeza de Demeter da lugar al invierno. Cuando Persephone regresa a la tierra para alegría de su madre, la vida vuelve a resplandecer. Mabon es también el comienzo del otoño y marca el momento en que Persephone vuelve a descender al inframundo. El comienzo del otoño es la época del año en que se celebraban los Misterios Eleusinos Mayores.

Mabon es también afín al festival de la cosecha, de origen céltico y esparcido por toda la Europa rural antigua, celebrado el 25 de Septiembre. Este festival está relacionado con el mito gales en el que el dios Goronwy (oscuridad) da muerte a su hermano gemelo Lugh (luz). Se trata de un sacrificio a través del cual la energía vital del sol se guarda en los granos cosechados, en preparación para el invierno, y parte de la tradición es la quema representativa de un muñeco hecho de granos. El 21 de septiembre es también la fecha astrológica en el que el sol entra en el signo de Libra, cuyo símbolo es casualmente la balanza. También es la fecha de uno de los festivales de Dionisio, por ser la época en la que se hace y se almacena el nuevo el vino, se salan las carnes, y otras preparaciones para el invierno que llega.

Las costumbres neopaganas para Mabon se centran alrededor de la familia y de un banquete suntuoso en el que se celebra la abundancia de la cosecha y se dan gracias por los frutos de nuestros esfuerzos. Son típicas las comidas relacionadas con los granos, el maíz, las nueces, las manzanas, el vino y la cidra, y los elementos decorativos que celebran el comienzo del otoño, así como la cornucopia - símbolo de la abundancia.

Los equinoccios son los momentos de equilibrio perfecto. Hagamos un esfuerzo por hallar el equilibrio en nuestras vidas, al igual que nuestros cuerpos buscan eterna y sabiamente la homeostasis. Date un segundo para pensar, qué esta desequilibrado en tu vida y necesita un reajuste: el trabajo y la vida personal, lo que das versus lo que recibes en cierta relación, el tiempo que le dedicas a ciertas cosas? El equinoccio de otoño es también un día de acción de gracias, y hay muchas maneras de celebrarlo. Puedes, por ejemplo, prender una vela y pensar en todos los esfuerzos que te han sido fructíferos últimamente, o rezar una oración de gracias, o escribir en tu blog una lista de diez cosas por las cuales estás agradecido con la vida, o diez logros de los que estás orgulloso. Te llenará de energía positiva. Mabon es uno de esos buenos momentos para ponernos a pensar no en todo lo que queremos y nos hace falta, sino en todo lo que tenemos para estar agradecidos, y de darnos palmaditas en la espalda para animarnos a seguir sudando con esos proyectos y aspectos de nuestra vida de cuyos resultados nos sentimos francamente orgullosos.

Pablo Neruda

A quién dejo tanta alegría
que pululó por mis venas
y este ser y no ser fecundo
que me dio la naturaleza?
He sido un largo río lleno
de piedras duras que sonaban
con sonidos claros de noche,
con cantos oscuros de día
y a quién puedo dejarle tanto,
tanto qué dejar y tan poco,
una alegría sin objeto,
un caballo solo en el mar,
un telar que tejía viento?

Mis tristezas se las destino
a los que me hicieron sufrir,
pero me olvidé cuáles fueron,
y no sé dónde las dejé,
si las ven en medio del bosque
son como las enredaderas
suben del suelo con sus hojas
y terminan donde terminas,
en tu cabeza o en el aire,
y para que no suban más
hay que cambiar de primavera.

Al odio le dejaré
mis herraduras de caballo,
mi camiseta de navío,
mis zapatos de caminante,
mi corazón de carpintero,
todo lo que supe hacer
y lo que me ayudó a sufrir,
lo que tuve de duro y puro,
de indisoluble y emigrante,
para que se aprenda en el mundo
que los que tienen bosque y agua
pueden cortar y navegar,
pueden ir y pueden volver,
pueden padecer y amar,
pueden temer y trabajar,
pueden ser y pueden seguir,
pueden florecer y morir,
pueden ser sencillos y oscuros,
pueden no tener orejas,
pueden aguantar la desdicha,
pueden esperar una flor,
en fin, podemos existir,
aunque no acepten nuestras vidas
unos cuantos hijos de puta.

Fragmentos de Testamento de Otoño del poeta comunista chileno y premio nobel de literatura, Pablo Neruda, cuyo aniversario de muerte se celebra hoy Septiembre 23.

Manual para marchar en paz y llegar feliz

"Varias palmeras solitarias esperaban su fin. Aparecieron unos trabajadores sudorosos y, como diligentes hormigas, cavaron trincheras alrededor de cada árbol hasta desprenderlo del suelo. Los esbeltos árboles aferraban puñados de tierra seca con sus delgadas raíces. Se llevaron las palmeras heridas hasta unos hoyos preparados en otro lugar, y allí las plantaron. Los troncos gimieron sordamente, las hojas se cayeron en hilachas amarillas y por un tiempo parecía que nada podría sacarlas de tanta agonía, pero son criaturas tenaces. Una lenta rebelión subterránea fue extendiendo vida, mezclando los restos de su antigua tierra con el nuevo suelo. En una primavera inevitable amanecieron las palmeras agitando sus pelucas y contorneando la cintura, vivas y renovadas, a pesar de todo." (fragmento - Isabel Allende)

Esos puñados de tierra que llevamos los des-terrados enredados en las raíces son el tipo de cosas de las que hablé en otro post titulado "Identity Care". Mis puñados de tierra son la costumbre de tomar mate por las tardes (y de ahí la necesidad de alguien con quien compartirlo), la manía de tocar 4-40 cuando lavo platos o limpio la casa, la habilidad para hacer el repulgue de las empanadas argentinas, la debilidad por el plátano en tentación y el arroz con guandú y coco panameño, entre muchos otros pedacitos de identidad-tierra, de "cosas bellas", de patria móvil, de hogar portátil.

La tierra propia entre las raíces nos ayuda a crecer nuevas hojas y ramas en un clima y latitud diferente a los que nos son autóctonos. Y los latinos somos, de por sí, eficientes constructores de invernaderos. No nos basta con adaptarnos a un país al que no podemos llamar patria, sino que hacemos lo posible y lo imposible por transformar nuestro nuevo hogar, por hacerlo nuestro, más parecido a casa. Y Miami es, probablemente, el mejor ejemplo. Allende declara que la nostalgia nos pisa los talones y Blades insiste en que todos, tarde o temprano, volvemos a la tierra en que nacimos.

En Miami, convivimos más inmigrantes, desterrados, exiliados, asilados, fugitivos, inconformes, desesperados, aventureros y curiosos hispano-hablantes que gringos que están aquí no por elección, sino por que aquí nacieron. En el año que llevo viviendo en este "melting-pot" de ciudad, he conocido una sola persona que haya nacido aquí. Lo que sí he conocido han sido argentinos, colombianos, cubanos, venezolanos, puertorriqueños, dominicanos, peruanos, brasileros, hondureños, y todo lo demás. Hay algo especial en la manera en que, estando acá todos mezclados y revueltos, vamos aprendiendo a identificarnos como latinos, mas allá de las fronteras y costumbres de nuestros países particulares. Constantemente adoptamos los unos las expresiones y platos de los otros. Si hay algo que aprendí en E.U., y en especial en esta isla de forasteros, fue geografía latinoamericana! Y además, a diferenciar el acento de un Bogotano del de un Barranquillero del de un paisa; el de un hondureño del de un salvadoreño; el de un Mexicano del DF del de uno de Sinaloa de uno de Yucatán. Aprendí que el ceviche peruano no es el mismo que el panameño, y que las empanadas chilenas son de harina de trigo mientras las colombianas son de maíz.; que los Cubanos toman colada y los venezolanos tinto; que los del trópico bailan salsa y los del sur no, pero que todos jugamos fútbol.

En Mi País Inventado, Isabel Allende acierta: "Al comparar aquella experiencia de exilio con mi actual condición de inmigrante, veo cuan diferente es el estado de ánimo. En el primer caso uno sale a la fuerza, ya sea escapando o expulsado, y se siente como una victima a quien le han robado media vida; en el segundo caso uno sale a la aventura, por decisión propia, sintiéndose dueño de nuestro destino. El exiliado mira hacia el pasado, lamiéndose las heridas; el inmigrante mira hacia el futuro, dispuesto a aprovechar las oportunidades a su alcance."

Pienso yo que tanto a exiliados como a emigrantes "la tierra nos duele en medio del alma", como dice Gloria Estefan en aquella canción "Mi Tierra" que suena bailable pero trivial hasta que uno la escucha lejos y con ganas de estar en casa, y tiene que cantarla a voz en grito para no llorar. La razón, entonces, por la que cito ese párrafo es porque, quizás y hasta cierto punto, todos los que vivimos fuera de nuestro país tenemos nuestra porción de desterrados y de inmigrantes. Es cuestión, entonces, de perspectiva, de porcentajes, de puntos de vista, de vasos medio llenos en vez de medio vacíos. En mi opinión, la mejor manera de vivir el presente, aún estando lejos, es adoptar la actitud del que está donde está por decisión propia, del que hace de tripas corazón y aprovecha, del que ve la vida como una aventura. No soy, para nada, partidaria de olvidar el pasado, ni mucho menos de negar los orígenes. De hecho, y si no lo saben, pertenezco a la casta de esos latinos tremendamente orgullosos de serlo, y vivo preocupada por la confusión de identidad (y la perdida del idioma!) de los jóvenes hispanos de segunda generación en E.U. Pero, no se puede negar que, la tierra con la que uno comparte el secreto idioma de la infancia (para citar, también, a Mercedes Sosa) le tira a uno de las entrañas. León Gieco tilda de desahuciado a todo el que tiene que marchar a vivir una cultura diferente, y no se equivoca. Sin embargo, hay que cultivar las raíces, con amor y con lealtad, no con desdicha. Hay que contemplar el pasado más como oportunista que como victima, para que el futuro no se nos venga encima "sin haber hecho lo suficiente."

All of a sudden, us.

I have this sudden urge
to invade your privacy,
to fill up your days,
to warm up your nights,
de sacarte de quicio,
de que me arranques la ropa,
de verte reír y llorar,
de acompañar tu camino.

I can’t stand not having
your hands on my back
holding me tight
against your body.
No me aguanto las ganas
de mojarme contigo
en la lluvia, en el mar,
en la ducha, en la cama.

Quiero besarte en las noches,
despertarte en las mañanas,
fastidiarte en la madrugada,
hastiarte de tardes soleadas.
I want you to promise,
to build my hopes up,
to disappoint me,
to constantly start all over.

Tengo ganas
de ser la que celas,
la que proteges,
la que mimas.
I’m suddenly craving
to be blindfolded,
to know no other
existence but our own.

No Birds in Cages

Infinite abudance of love.
There is always enough,
and yet there never will.

A boomerang of happiness,
only your beloved's joy
will bring you ease.

Open, clear, peaceful truth.
No bitterness from jealousy.
No guilt from lies.

Deep acceptance and respect.
We honor each other's feelings.
We love ourselves for who we are.

Compromise and commitment,
we don't run away, we face.
FREEDOM DOESN'T MEAN NO ATTACHMENTS,
IT JUST MEANS NO CHAINS.

Orgullosamente Poli I: Los cuatro Principios del Poliamor (English Version Below)

Últimamente, he estado buscando buenos artículos acerca del poliamor para mostrarle a mi madre, quien ha accedido amablemente a leer un poco al respecto con la esperanza (mi esperanza) de que esto la hará más tolerante y dispuesta a aceptar este estilo de vida que he escogido. Como resultado, me he dado cuenta de que, a pesar de que hay un consenso sobre la definición general del poliamor, también hay muchas opiniones diversas, y a veces contradicentes, sobre los detalles. Hay un chiste que dice: Dale a mil cristianos un tema y tendrás una opinión; dale a diez paganos un tema, y tendrás once!

No todos los artistas son agnósticos, no todos los paganos buscan estilos de vida alternativos, no todos los polis son activistas sociopolíticos. Pero sí hay mucho cruce entre estos y otros grupos. Yo creo que esto se debe a que hay algo que todos compartimos: pensamos individualmente. No tomamos las cosas sin cuestionarlas, desafiamos, no creemos las cosas tal y como nos las presentan, somos creativos, y nos rehusamos a aceptar el status quo. Como resultado, somos todos muy obstinados con nuestras opiniones personales. He ahí que no me haya sorprendido las muchas interpretaciones personales del poliamor.

Es más, uno de los principios del poliamor es, de hecho, su flexibilidad y fluidez. Su negativa a quedarse dentro de un cuadrado, a convertirse en un etiqueta fija. A pesar de que todos tenemos nuestra opinión personal de cómo vivir el poliamor, somos cuidadosos de que nuestras definiciones dejan espacio para otras posibilidades. Hoy quiero presentarles mi interpretación personal.

La definición general dice: “El poliamor es el deseo, practica, o aprobación de tener más de una relación íntima amorosa a la vez con el conocimiento y consentimiento total de todas las personas involucradas.” Muchas definiciones se refieren a: “más de una relación íntima, amorosa y sexual (aunque no siempre)”. Ven a lo que me refiero? Así que, a pesar de que mucha gente marca el límite entre amistad y relación amorosa a través del sexo, “la definición del poliamor tiene que ser lo suficientemente amplia como para abarcar todas las diversas formas de relaciones poliamorosas que existen”, como dice la creadora de polyamory.org. (Para información en español visiten www.poliamoria.com)

Yo creo que la palabra se define bastante bien a sí misma a través de sus raíces grecolatinas: poliamor = múltiples amores. Mi definición personal va así: “la habilidad de amar a más de una persona al mismo tiempo.” Nosotros creemos que el amor es infinito. Por eso muchos de los símbolos creados para representar el poliamor incluyen un corazón y el ocho acostado que simboliza el infinito. A mí, personalmente, me gusta un enunciado que ilustra el principio del amor infinito en particular. Este paralelismo compara el amor romántico con el amor paternal de la siguiente manera: Los padres no necesitan querer menos a su primogénito cuando nace el segundo hijo; de la misma manera los poli entendemos que nuestras parejas no nos aman menos por amar también a alguien más.

Por supuesto que no se queda ahí, en la habilidad de amar a muchos. Se expande a la práctica, a la cual muchos se refieren como no-monogamia responsable o consensual. Es ahí donde dejamos muy claro que las relaciones poliamorosas son aquéllas en las que todas las personas involucradas son conciente de la situación y la aceptan. Una persona que tiene un marido o una esposa y también un amante, puede muy bien amarlos(as) a ambos(as), pero si miente al respecto, no está teniendo una relación poliamorosa. Esa persona sería, obviamente, una persona poliamorosa que no tiene los cojones para aventurarse mas allá de la monogamia. Está siendo deshonesto(a).

La honestidad, en mi opinión, es el principio más importante del poliamor. He aquí donde ocurre el cruce entre los practicantes del poliamor y los practicantes de la honestidad radical (sobre la cual podría hacer un post entero más adelante). El principio del amor infinito es, por supuesto, romántico. Pero, como todos sabemos, el tiempo no es infinito, y ocuparse de más de una relación a la misma vez es frecuentemente complicadísimo. Ayuda, entonces, cuando todas las personas involucradas son honestas respecto a sus sentimientos. Después de todo, nos amamos unos a otros, y queremos la felicidad de todos. Pero la única manera en que tu pareja puede asegurarse de que te sientas amado, es que seas honesta en cuanto a tus sentimientos. Los celos no son desaprobados, se los maneja hacienda algo al respecto. Se les encuentra solución. Obviamente, es mucho mas fácil mantener una relación con dos personas que también se preocupan de la felicidad la una de la otra, que con dos personas que no se soportan. Eso sería prácticamente imposible.

La honestidad total y completa trae un nivel de confianza que es muy difícil de obtener en relaciones tradicionales. Para mí, la confianza es el segundo principio del poliamor. En una relación poliamorosa, no solo la tentación de mentir es erradicada, pero el miedo de que tu pareja te esté mintiendo o ocultando algo también es eliminado. Yo nunca temo que uno de mis compañeros o compañeras esté teniendo algo con alguien a mis espaldas, porque si estuviesen interesados en empezar una nueva relación podrían simplemente decírmelo, y viceversa. En esa situación la mentira se vuelve un absurdo. Mis parejas son mis mejores amigos, y en el instante en que conozco a alguien que me gusta corro a contárselos con el inocente entusiasmo de los confidentes. Y ellos comparten mi alegría!

Ahí es donde entra en escena el tercer principio. Es un concepto radical. De hecho, es toda una palabra nueva. Es la compersión – lo opuesto a los celos. Es definido como la alegría de saber que alguien a quien amas es feliz. Es sentirse feliz de que tu pareja es bienamada por alguien más y disfruta de otra relación que le trae alegría. La compersión está basada firmemente en la definición de amor de Heinle: “la condición en la cual la alegría de otra persona es esencial para la de uno mismo.” Ahora, imagínense el sentimiento cuando dos personas que amas se aman entre ellas. Es compersión al cuadrado! Lo he sentido, y, desde entonces, me he decidido a no conformarme con menos. Es también importante explicar que cuando digo “se aman entre ellas” no me refiero únicamente al amor sexual, sino que también puede incluir muchos aspectos de cariño. Incluso cuando dos compañeros(as) tuyos son buenos amigos entre ellos(as), el cariño y el amor se multiplican a tu alrededor.

Hay un aspecto más respecto a la cuestión de la confianza del que quiero escribir. Algunos amigos y familiares preocupados, traen a colación el tema de la promiscuidad. Temen que al tener múltiples relaciones sexuales, las personas poli están más expuestas a las enfermedades de transmisión sexual que las personas monógamas. Yo creo que en ambos casos se requiere de mucha confianza para tener sexo sin protección como parte de una relación. Personalmente, siento que una relación forzada a ser monógama tiende a ser más deshonesta. Las estadísticas que dan vueltas en la Internet dicen que más del 50% de las parejas cometen adulterio. Entonces, que tan protegidos de ETSes están estas personas? No mucho, creería yo. El secretismo del adulterio fácilmente da lugar al comportamiento deshonesto. Porque mis parejas son libres de tener relaciones sexuales con quien se les de la gana, así como lo soy yo, todos somos muy concientes de la importancia del sexo con protección. Así es como se desarrollo el concepto de polifidelidad. La polifidelidad ocurre cuando un grupo de tres personas o más deciden tener relaciones sexuales exclusivamente entre ellas y con nadie más. También se da el caso conocido como “condom compact”, en el cual los miembros de un grupo que tienen relaciones sexuales sin protección entre ellos son libres de tener relaciones sexuales fuera del grupo solamente si utilizando condones como medida de proteccion contra enfermedades de transmisión sexual. Por lo general se requiere de las personas en el grupo exámenes de ETSes antes de unirse, y nadie es nunca admitido a menos que todos los miembros estén completamente de acuerdo. La polifidelidad es un procesos que toma tanto tiempo y dedicación para desarrollar la confianza necesaria, como sucede entre una pareja convencional, o más aún. Sin embargo, yo la encuentro más merecedor de confianza por su honestidad inherente. Adicionalmente, los miembros de un grupo de polifidelidad saben que si fueran lo suficientemente estúpidos como para tener sexo sin protección fuera del grupo, no sólo se están poniendo a sí mismos en riesgo, sino a todas las personas que aman. Créanme, eso pone mucha responsabilidad sobre tus hombres y el resultado es que ni se te pasaría por la cabeza romper la confianza que tus compañeros(as) han depositado en ti!

Para terminar, el cuarto principio del poliamor, en mi opinión, es la fluidez. Nosotros no nos comprometemos a una relación “hasta que la muerte nos separe”, sino “hasta que dure el amor.” No se espera de nosotros que llenemos todas las expectativas de satisfacer todos los deseos de nuestras parejas solos – y eso le quita mucha presión innecesaria a la relación! Por ejemplo, si una de tus parejas adora las películas de miedo, y resulta que tu las detestas, probablemente habrá otro amante que estaría feliz de acompañarlo(a) a ver Saw III. Es más, las relaciones son como organismos vivos, cambian, mutan, evolucionan, pasan por fases. Nosotros aceptamos esto, en vez de tratar de perpetuar algún aspecto específico de la relación con nuestras parejas, lo cual termina casi siempre en una situación para nada saludable. La amistad es la base de nuestras relaciones, y la única cosa que nunca cambia. Así pasemos por fases sexuales, románticas, íntimas, creativas o aburridas, siempre podemos confiar en nuestros compañeros y compañeras como nuestros mejores amigos.

En fin, a pesar de que tengo el link a la definición de Wikipedia del poliamor aquí en mi blog – y, por cierto, la recomiendo totalmente por ser extensiva e inclusiva – nunca antes había escrito algo sobre el poliamor personalmente. Ahora que lo veo terminado, lo entiendo como un esfuerzo de resaltarlo como una opción de estilo de vida ético y con principios morales fundamentales, y no promiscuo y caótico como muchos sospechan. Sin embargo, siento que me he dejado muchas cosas por fuera. Cada uno de los principios ilustrados, y muchos otros aspectos, son material suficiente para uno post en sí mismos. Quizás los toque en más profundidad en posts futuros. Por ahora, estoy lista para comentarios y preguntas si los hay. Carguen, apunten, fuego!

Poly and Proud I: The four Principles of Polyamory

Lately, I have been looking for good articles about polyamory to show my mother, who has graciously agreed to read a bit about it in hopes (my hopes) that she’ll become more tolerant and accepting of this lifestyle choice of mine. As a result, I have realized that although there is a consensus on the general definition of polyamory, there are also many diverse, and sometimes contradicting, opinions as far as details go. There is a joke that goes: Give a thousand Christians a topic, and you will have one opinion; give ten Pagans a topic, and you will have eleven!

Not all artists are agnostic, not all pagans seek alternative lifestyles, not all polys are socio-political activists. But there is a whole lot of crossover between these and many other groups. I believe the reason behind this is that there is something we all share: artists, pagans, polys, eco-activists, and all sorts of bohemians alike think for themselves. We don’t take things without questioning, we challenge, we don’t believe things are just as we are told they are, we are creative, and often refuse to accept the status quo. As a result, we tend to be very opinionated. Ergo, I’m not surprised that polys have so many personal interpretations of polyamory.

Furthermore, on of the principles of polyamory is, in fact, it’s flexibility and fluidity. It’s refusal to stay inside a box, or become a non-evolving label. Even though we all have our personal take on how to live polyamory, it seems we are all careful of leaving space in our definitions for other possibilities. Today I would like to present to you my personal interpretation.

The general definition goes: “Polyamory is the desire, practice, or acceptance of having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.” A lot of definitions state something like: “loving, intimate, sexual (although not always) relationship.” See what I mean? Of course you can have a romantic relationship with someone which is not sexual. So, although, many people draw the line between friendship and romantic relationship through sex, “the definition has to be loose enough to fit the many arrangements of poly relationships out there,” as the creator of polyamory.org states.

I think the word defines itself very well through its greek/latin roots: poly=many, amor=love. My personal definition goes: “the ability to love more than one person at a time.” We believe that love is infinite. That is why many of the symbols created for polyamory include a heart and the horizontal eight that symbolizes infinite. I personally like a statement commonly used to illustrate the principle of the infinity of love. This parallelism compares romantic love to parental love and goes as follows: Parents don’t need to love their first born less when their second child is born. In the same manner, poly people understand that our partners do not love us any less because they also love someone else.

Of course, it doesn’t stay there, as an ability to love many. It goes into the actual practice, which many call responsible or consensual non-monogamy. That’s where we make it clear that polyamorous relationships are those in which everybody involved is aware and accepting of the situation. A person who has a husband or wife and also a lover, may very well love them both, but if he is lying about it, he isn’t having a polyamorous relationship, becaues he is being dishonest. He is, obviously, a polyamorous person, who doesn’t have the guts to step beyond monogamy, or whose situation doesn't allow him to.

Honesty is, in my opinion, the most important principle in polyamory. Here is where a lot of crossover occurs between practitioners of polyamory and practitioners of radical honesty (which will do for a whole post of it’s own later on). The principle of infinite love is, of course, lovely. But, as we all know, time, for example, is not infinite, and dealing with more than one relationship at a time is often very complicated. It helps, then, when everybody involved is honest about their feelings. After all, we love each other, and we want each other to be happy. But the only way your partners can make sure that you feel loved, is for you to be honest about your feelings. Jealousy is not looked down upon, it’s just worked out. That’s why it is also important that everybody involved is not only aware of the situation, but committed to working it out. It is, obviously, a lot easier to carry on a relationship with two people who also care about each other’s happiness, than with to people that can’t stand each other. That would be plain impossible.

Total and complete honesty brings about a level of trust that is much more difficult to achieve in traditional relationships. For me, trust is the second principle of polyamory. In a polyamorous relationship, not only the temptation of lying to your partners is eradicated, but the fear that your partners is lying to you, or hiding something, is also eliminated. I never fear that one of my partners would be doing something with someone else behind my back, because if there were interested in starting another relationship they could just tell me so, and viceversa. My partners are my best friends, and the moment I meet someone I liked I run to tell them with the excitement of elementary school confidants. And they share my happiness!

That’s where the third principle comes into play. It’s a radical concept. In fact, is a whole new word. It’s compersion – the opposite of jealousy. It’s defined as the joy of knowing your beloved is experiencing joy. It’s being happy that your partner is loved by someone else and enjoying another relationship. It is firmly rooted in the Heinle definition of love: “the condition in which another person’s happiness is essential to your own.” Now, imagine what it feels like when two people you love also love each other. It’s compersion squared! I have felt it, and, since then, I doubt I would settle for less. It is also important to state that the term love in that statement is not exclusive to sexual love. Even when two of your partners are good friends, the love is multiplied all around you.

There is one more aspect to the trust issue I would like to address. Concerned friends and family of mine often bring up the promiscuity issue. They fear that by having multiple sexual relationships, poly people are more exposed to sexually transmitted diseases than monogamous people. I believe that in both cases, it takes a lot of trust between partners to have non-protected sex as part of the relationship. Personally, I feel that a relationship that is being pushed into being monogamous is more likely to bring about dishonesty. Statistics around the internet say that over 50% of couples commit adultery. So, how protected from STDs are these people? Not much, I would think. The secrecy of adultery is prone to dishonest behavior. Because my partners are free to have sex with whomever they please, and so am I, we are all very conscious of the importance of protected sex. That is how the concepts of polifidelity and “condom compacts” was developed. Polifidelity occurs when a group of three people or more decide to have sexual relationships exclusively with each other. A condom compact is a group of people with any arrangement of relationships within it, who have unprotected sex between them and are free to have sex outside the group only when using a condom. People are often asked to test themselves for STDs before joining the compact, and are never admitted unless everybody involved is in agreement. It is a process that takes a lot of time to develop trust, but I find it more trust-worthy because of its inherent honesty. Additionally, all members of a condom compact know that if they were stupid enough to have non-protected sex they would be not only putting themselves in risk, but all the people they love. Believe me, that puts so much responsibility over your shoulders you wouldn’t even think about it!

To end with, the four and last principle of polyamory, as I see it, is fluidity. We are not in relationships “till dead do us part.” We are in relationship “till love lasts.” We are not expected to fulfill all of our partners’ desires on our own – and that lifts a heave weight from the relationship! Here is an example: If one of my partners loves scary movies, and I happen to hate them, there is probably another lover happy to go with him to see Saw III. Furthermore, relationships are like living organisms, they change, mutate, and evolve. They go through phases. We all accept that, instead of trying to perpetuate any given aspect of the relationship with our partners, which almost always ends in an unhealthy situation. Friendship is always the basis of our relationships, and the one thing that will never change. Whether we go through sexual, romantic, intimate, creative, or dull phases, we can always count on or partners as our best friends.

So, although I have the link to the Wikipedia definition of polyamory here in my blog – and by the way, I fully recommend you check it out because it is pretty extensive and inclusive – I had never written something on polyamory on my own before. Now that I see the finished product I realize it’s an attempt to shed some light into polyamory as an ethical lifestyle choice with moral principles, instead of the promiscuous, chaotic choice many suspect it to be. I feel like I have left so much out. Each one of this principles, and many other aspects of polyamory, are material enough for a post of their own. I might delve more into this on future posts. For now I guess I am ready for comments and questions if there are any. Ready, aim, fire!

TheVirginia Tech Shootings

Goodness. What the hell is wrong with people, in this country, with Western society, with this world? What is UP with the violence?

I got to work this morning and was greeted by my boss saying "Did you hear about the shootings at Virginia Tech? It's on T.V. There's 22 dead."

You know what came to my mind first? Students protesting the war or something, and getting violent, you know breaking stuff, throwing rocks around. Then the police showing up and confronting them with tear gas and cubs. Then, the logically consecutive man to man fight and agression between students and police, which would, very probably, end up in a dead students.

So I asked: "What? How? Why?" My boss had no answer.

So the second thing that popped in my head was students fighting, you know how that kind of conflict can escalate, and you never know who has a gun and is willing to use it. Maybe gangs.

So I tried to be more elocuent: "What do you mean a shooting? The police or students against students?" "I have no idea."

It wasn't until then that the memory of that documentary about the Columbine High School massacre came to my head. One student armed with a gun killing other students and then killing himself, a pattern that now seems repetitive in this country, and, it seems, no where else, did not come to my mind until the third try!

I think that says a lot about me, and therefore about my background, my culture, my country, all of us ... and about this culture, this country, and all of us here.

Really. I seem to have been in Panama mind set. If someone said in Panama there were 22 students dead at la Universidad, who wouldn't think of el Fer 29 "tirando piedras" protesting something and it getting totally out of the hands of a repressive police force (read antimotines)? So, what does that say about our country? Or about Latinoamerica, for that matter, because I think the scene applies to all of the other Latin countries too? Hell, it even applies to China.

But, then again, given that the scenario is Virgina, U.S.A., and not anywhere else, the first thing that should have come to my mind should have been Columbine, ergo the student shoots others and then kills himself situation. And, what does that say about our country? Yeah, I have, recently, started to talk about the U.S. in the first person. I have lived here for five years now. I finished growing up here. I feel certain social responsibility for what goes on inside these borders, and for what goes on outside these borders because of us. And I am not sitting around about it, by the way. I have become as much of a political/social activist as I have been able to, mind you. But that is besides the point. When will we, this country, figure out that guns are too freaking accessible even if the president supports the interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which protects "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," as an individual's right, and not as the right of "el pueblo" to rise to arms to defend itself against the tyranny of an unjust government, or an exteranl invasion. Gun politics in the U.S. are ridiculously bureocratic and are not getting us anywhere despite of the huge rate of gun violence, and possibly because of gun culture, which is so ingrained in American society. When will we realize that the violence inside our borders is not only spilling out to the rest of the world, but running rampant inside?

I am not sure why this Columbine type of thing doesn't happen in Latin America. We are embedded in the same violent media that dehumanizes our children before they can tell right from wrong. Then, what's the differnce? What is the rest of the world doing right, or the U.S. doing so wrong that these kind of thing is becoming so common? Oh, please, if you have any theories - share them! Something's gotta be done in here. Soon.

Nostalgia Egoista

Tus recuerdos me asaltan

en el momento más inesperado

del día o de la noche.

Son recuerdos

como nubes dispersas,

como manchas de tinta,

como algodón de azúcar,

como plumas volando,

como un amor incierto,

como una poesía inédita,

como un grito ahogado,

como un beso reprimido

o como una melodía

que nadie se atreve a cantar.

Son la sensación pasada

de tus besos apasionados,

de tus caricias cuidadosas,

de tus palabras enamoradas

que me hacían temblar y reír,

soñar y escribir…

Porque mis pasiones imprudentes

nuca tuvieron control

entre tus brazos,

y mi subconsciente egoísta

pensó qu estarías

siempre ahí para mí.

Written in 2000

Celos

Quiero saber qué ha cambiado detrás de tus ojos,

pero tú ya no eres capaz de sostener mi mirada,

de cualquier forma sé que sólo vería

el rostro de ella reflejado en tus ojos,

igual que exala alegría tu sonrisa

cuando ella se digna a mirarte.

Sé que la quieres como jamás me querrás,

como jamás te querré…

sé que la besas como jamás me besaste,

porque yo conozco tus besos, pero no tu amor.

Te atreviste a desearme sin amarme

y alguna vez me dolió,

pero tu temor a desearme, amándola

lastima mi orgullo y me parte el corazón.

Tu anhelo de sus ojos, verdes,

no me quita el aliento,

ni la vida ni el calor,

pero alimenta mis celos, mi orgullo

y mis deseos de posesión.

El ansia de mis besos, cálidos,

no te quita la calma,

ni la cordura, ni la razón,

pero alimenta tu miedo

de nunca alcanzar su amor.

Brillando en tus ojos el reflejo dorado de su cabello,

te imagino corriendo tras sus huellas…

yo no daré ni un paso por llegar a ti.

Así te estrelles contra el muro de su indiferencia

o te hundas en las aguas tibias de su amor…

yo no daré ni un paso por llegar a ti.

¡Grítale a los vientos que la amas!

pero no dejes que ellos soplen martirios en mi corazón

como soplan en las caracolas canciones de amor.

¡Grítale a los vientos que la amas!

pero no permitas que me susurren al oído

pesadillas de tus sueños de hacerle el amor

¡Grítale a los vientos que la amas!

pero prívame por siempre de sentir el fresco viento de verano

soplar en mi rostro anhelos de libertad

¡Grítale a los vientos que la amas!

pero el viento no me arrastrará más a la deriva

como a una hoja seca,

pero el viento no formará más en mi olas

como lo hace sobre el mar.

Con cada respiro, con cada latido,

con cada tic-tac del reloj

me siento apartada,

me siento de más.

Proyecta tu amor por ella

en la luz de la luna,

grábalo en el sonido del mar

¡Grítenle a los cuatro vientos

que se aman,

y déjenme en paz!

Written in 1999

Olor a ti

Esta noche huelo
a tu recuerdo
impregnado en mi piel.

Huelo
a pasión de besos reprimidos,
a marea, a viento y a sal,
a naranja luna llena.

Esta noche huelo
a necesidad de abrazos
a sueños y a desvelo,
al perfume de tu sonrisa
que colándose en mi mirada
se filtró en mi alma.

Esta noche huelo a ti.

Written February 2001
Edited March 2006
Pictures by Eric @
Parque Omar, Summit, and El Prado,
Panama 2001.

Link to We are the Other People by Oberon Zell Ravenheart

En honor al hecho de que hoy tocaron a mi puerta a las 9:30 de la man'ana dos testigos de jehova encamisados y con sus respectivos maletines to try to shove their guilt and need for redemption down my throath ... y, obviamente, me despertaron de un placido suen'o ... en el que me estaba besando con, ni mas ni menos, que John Stamos .... he decidido hoy compartir el link to:
"We are the other people"
If you have never read this astounding, now classical pagan writing piece, do yourself a favor and give it a shot... maybe next time somebody tries to "evangelize" you, you'll have a come back.

Tackling the cliche question: What would you do if you were dying soon?

If I was told that I have a limited time to live, I would live more fully the present. I would forget about all my long term plans. I would not finish college. I would not even think about graduate school, or marriage, or having children. I would not save to buy a better car. I would spend more time with my friends and family. I would go back home. I would spend my time reading, writing, and contemplating nature – the ocean, the forests, and the mountains. I would eat more of my grandmother’s delicious dishes. I would keep on dancing, if I was healthy enough to do it. I would dance and write about living and dying.

I constantly try to live my life intensely, to appreciate each and every moment. Nevertheless, it is a very different thing to try to be grateful and glad for everything you experience, as if it was your last chance, than to know it for sure. It makes you wonder why we push ourselves through so many unpleasant moments for the sake of the future, if the truth is that we could die any moment for the simple reason that we are alive.

Written July 2006

With the certainty of death would surely also come the need for transcendence. I would probably turn unto writing more than ever before in my life. I would probably feel that my words would outlive me. I would thrive in the hope that, although I might be gone, anybody could pick up my writings and still listen to my voice, still share my thoughts, still get to know me. I once read a quote, whose author I have forgotten, that went something like this: “Sharing what we know is as close as we can get to immortality.”

If I had the money to travel, I would certainly try to go to as many places, off that list we all keep of places we would like to visit one day, as possible. I would visit Morocco and the pyramids in Egypt. I would dance in India and in Cuba. I would soak in and absorb Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. I would marvel at Hawaii and Madagascar. If I had the health to do it, I would finally set onto those backpacking trips through Europe and South America I have been postponing since I graduated from high school.

It is difficult to think about what one would do in such a situation without actually feeling the need for doing all those things we are not doing, without feeling like we are wasting our time. Even as I try to imagine what I would do, I am avoiding being fully aware of the fact that, in fact, I could die tomorrow, and so could any of the people I love. Maybe we have to prepare for the long term, with all the sacrifices doing so entails, because it is the only way of pretending that our lives are not as fragile as they truly are.

Make Love not War this Season - a plea for peace

I shall not talk in this essay about any specific political circumstances. I will not argue about the rightness or wrongness of any particular war or battle. I will, instead, state my utmost reject for violence, for the slaughter of human beings by other human beings, for wars anywhere and under any circumstances. For as Erasmus said in the dawn of civilization: “War is delightful only to those who have not experienced it.”

People may think that there are moral justifications for the war on Iraq, for what happened in Vietnam, for World War II. But I believe there is simply no justification for war. Independences have been declared and accepted peacefully before. And non-violent battles, such as that of India against Britain, have also been successful. War is no way of showing who is right and who is wrong, only who is left. For nobody can convince anybody that those who win the wars are always the “good guys.” There are those who believe war is a fair punishment for those who somehow “deserve it”, or a good stratagem for revenge. I, on the other hand, agree with Thomas Jefferson: “war is as much a punishment to the punisher as it is to the sufferer” – ask the mothers of the soldiers who died in Afghanistan.

Unbelievably, at least to me, there is people who think war is, sometimes, the only way to peace. But, as A.J Muste stated, “there is no way to peace, peace is the way.” Even Albert Einstein assured us of an undeniable truth: “You cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war.” A poster I once saw sated: “Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.” It cracked me up, but I also nodded in wholehearted agreement. War is no solution, it only brings on more trauma – hate only provokes a vicious cycle of hate. Nobody ever put it as straight forward as Mahatma Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Where do our personal, religious, and moral values stand? Don’t at least most followers of the three big monotheist religions believe in “Thou shall not kill”? “Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?”, said Blaise Pascal. Risking being morbidly radical, I will quote Abbie Hoffman: “I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed there would be no more war.”

The atrocities of war, especially in this nuclear era, should not even be a possibility in this time of “civilized” peoples and conscious evolution. Ever heard that slogan: War is Terrorism with a bigger budget? If you ever saw your city burst in flames under the bombing aircrafts, if you ever saw images of the Holocaust or from Hiroshima, you must agree. Plus, aren’t there so many better things we could be investing our resources in instead of waging war on each other? (How about the one that went: Buy books not bombs?) Wouldn’t it be better to try to find a cure for AIDS, or a solution for hunger and starvation? Dwight Eisenhower said it loud and clear: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed—those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone—it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

Written in July 2006

The fucking endless politiqueria about the war in Iraq

Yesterday peace won another victory. The resolution against the escalation in Iraq was passed by the House! Today we wait to see if the Senate will take a stand on it too.

Nevertheless, I saw the transcripts and read what what my representative said. He was completely for the war. So I sent him a letter. Here's for your amusement:

I agree that we should ask ourselves what this means to us personally, our families and our neighbors, what this means to the future generations. The only way to establish a secure and lasting peace is through peace, not war. What this war is causing is precisely a much more insecure future for the next generations, it is only destabilizing Iraq more and throwing them further into a civil war, it is only creating future jihadists in the children who now resent the U.S. because of the war, and the invasion, and the friends and family who are now dead.

You must keep in mind that the 9/11 attack, and all other similar attacks around the world (madrid and london, for example) were not perpetrated by any of the nations you mentioned in your speech. They were perpretated by terrorists who hold an irrational hate for our country in their hearts. Those are the people we are emboldening through war. Islamic jihadists are currently emboldened in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the greater Middle East because of the many deaths this war causes daily. How much more hate will be brought upon us by deploying more troops to another foreign sovereign nation! We are bringing upon us further attacks, we are building "a hellish nightmare" with our intrusions, we are teasing the fire of their hate, we are condemning ourselves to untold numbers of "horrors never imagined by the most creative writers of horror fiction", by waging war in Iraq.

Precisely because I am concerned about the next generation, I ask you to please consider the possibility that this war will not bring us peace in the future, but only fuel the hate of the terrorists who attack us. Waging endless war against certain countries, only because a war against terrorism is an impossibility as it is not a nation, and has no territory, and no citizens, will not solve the problem. We must dig down deep into the roots of the issue, AND STOP GIVING THEM REASONS TO HATE US!

Before and after La Ruta Quetzal

I was a confident girl during my early teenage years, but after participating in La Ruta Quetzal, I felt like wonder woman. I lived in a tent for two months, camping through Central America and Spain with another couple hundred teenagers. We faced challenges and climbed mountains. We passed tests, kayaked down roaring rivers, and flew across the jungle’s canopy. We were left without lunch or dinner for punishment. We enjoyed fruit for rewards. We washed ourselves and our clothes in oceans and rivers. We suffered endless nights in wet sleeping bags at bellow freezing temperatures on top of mountains; and during the days, we collapsed of dehydration hiking for hours down endless trails. In a very Survivor style, cameras followed us: the ones that gave up and left crying, and the ones that held on.

When you reach the top of a mountain, after many hours of climbing and hiking, and see both views (the one you left behind and the other side), you earn your right to touch the clouds. You feel that if a mountain cannot stop you, nothing can. Before La Ruta, I used to give up before trying many things, especially those that were physically challenging. After La Ruta, I thought back to those days and said: “If I could do that, why couldn’t I do this.”

When you share treasures like a piece of bread when you have not eaten in a day (a day full of physical activities, that is,) or a chocolate bar when all you have been eating is rice and beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week, you understand the true meaning of communality. Before La Ruta, I thought I had shared a lot with my friends. But in La Ruta, I made friends to whom I will never be able to repay the favors, the hugs during chilly nights, the support when you feel like the altitude will not longer let you breath, the voices that accompanied you with songs that somehow made it possible for us to keep on walking.

When you know how much a scorpion bite hurts, when you know how fast your heart can really pound, when you know how many days you can go without bathing, you understand how trivial and unnecessary TV is. On the other hand, when you have to eat mud and bugs with your food in the dark, and constantly use latrines or take long walks away from the camp site to take a shit and then bury it, you appreciate the toilets and the refrigerators.

I was about to give up many times throughout those weeks. I did not comprehend how much I would have regretted giving up, until the months went by and I was able to look back at the experience and feel so proud of all I learned and everything i experienced during those weeks. More than changing my life, La Ruta changed the way I look at life, at challenges, at the opportunities we run into, at the blessings we often take for granted.

Legalize It! (seriously)

The current legal approach to marijuana, that is criminalization and prohibition, has proven ineffective in making it unavailable, or reducing its consumption. In fact, the overall rate of marijuana use in the U.S. has risen by roughly 4,000% since marijuana was first outlawed in 1937.* On the other hand, the illegal marijuana market has brought about many other problems. I do not support full legalization, but rather a legal regulation of its production and distribution, and a definite decriminalization of its consumption. “Decriminalization” involves the removal of criminal penalties for possession of marijuana for personal use. Marijuana is presently decriminalized in 11 states: California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon. That doesn’t mean it’s legal: small fines (somewhat similarly to speeding tickets) are issued, but there is no arrest, incarceration, or criminal record. I call that a step forward! Just to start with, decriminalization saves a tremendous amount in enforcement costs. It is estimated that California saves $100 million per year since marijuana was decriminalized. (Aldrich, Michael, Ph.D., and Mikuriya, Tod, M.D., “Savings in California Marijuana Law Enforcement Costs Attributable to the Moscone Act of 1976 — A Summary,” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 0(1), Jan.–March 1988; pp. 75-81.)

Truth Be Told

A report from the Institute of Science’s Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, titled Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base, helps clear up many of the common misbelieves regarding the use of marijuana. The first of them is the belief that it causes a dangerous addiction. Here’s a table straight from the document:

Drug Category: Proportion of users that ever became addicted
Tobacco/Nicotine: 32%
Alcohol: 15%
Marijuana (including hashish): 9%
Cocaine: 17%
Heroine: 23%

"In summary, although few marijuana users develop dependence, some do. But they appear to be less likely to do so than users of other drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs." [p. 98]

Another common belief is that smoking marihuana can cause cancer or other health problems, such as “amotivational syndrome” (lazyness or slowness in plain English.) Here is what the report states:
"There is no conclusive evidence that marijuana causes cancer in humans, including cancers usually related to tobacco use."[p. 119]
"Epidemiological data indicate that in the general population marijuana use is not associated with increased mortality." [p. 109]
"Earlier studies purporting to show structural changes in the brains of heavy marijuana users have not been replicated with more sophisticated techniques." [p. 106]

Now, take a look a this table and explain to me why is alcohol legal and not marijuana?

The Gateway Theory

Probably the most common misbelieve regarding marihuana is that it leads consumers to use other drugs. Who hasn’t ever heard their parents state truly concerned: You start with marijuana, and in a blink of the eye you will be involved with much harder drugs!

The truth is, in the Netherlands, where adults have been allowed to possess and purchase small amounts of marijuana since 1976, the use of marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines is far lower than in the U.S.* An article titled Two New Studies Show Marijuana Is Not a 'Gateway' to Harder Drugs published in the Chicago Sun-Times on December 24, 2006, explained the results of a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in which researchers from the University of Pittsburgh tracked the drug use patterns of 224 boys, starting at age 10 to 12 and ending at age 22. Some of the boys followed the traditional gateway paradigm, starting with tobacco or alcohol and moving on to marijuana, but some reversed the pattern, starting with marijuana first. And some never progressed from one substance to another at all. When they looked at the detailed data on these kids, the researchers found that the gateway theory simply didn't hold; environmental factors such as neighborhood characteristics played a much larger role on which drug the boys happened to use first. Researchers in Brisbane, Australia, and St. Louis reached much the same conclusion in a larger and more complex study. The research involved more than 4,000 Australian twins whose use of marijuana and other drugs was followed in detail from adolescence into adulthood, allowing for both social, genetic predisposition, and gateway theories to be put to the test. The data did not show that marijuana causes use of other drugs, although it indicated that the same factors that make people likely to try marijuana also make them likely to try other substances. The researchers added that any gateway effect that does exist is "more likely to be social than pharmacological," occurring because marijuana "introduces users to an unlawful provider who eventually becomes the source for other illicit drugs.” “In other words”, Bruce Mirken, the author of the article, concludes, “the gateway isn't marijuana; it's laws that put marijuana into the same criminal underground with speed and heroin.”

Teenage Usage

Research data shows that it is a myth that making marijuana illegal for adults will keep teenagers from using it. On the contrary, regulation would reduce teen access to marijuana by taking it off the streets and putting it in the hands of licensed businesses, which would lose their licenses if they sold to kids. The reality is that 85% of U.S. high school seniors qualify marihuana as “easy to get.” (Monitoring the Future, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 2005.) Anybody who’s been a minor in the U.S. knows that cigarettes and alcohol are very difficult to obtain for teenagers, because everyone, from gas stations to bars, will ask you for an I.D. if you look the slightest bit underage. But clandestine sellers of marihuana don’t card their costumers! According to the White House, more than half of U.S. teens try marijuana before graduating from high school. In the Netherlands, where marijuana is sold in indoor establishments to adults who are carded for age, only 28% of teenagers have ever tried it.* Furthermore, in the Netherlands, only 9% of secondary school students actually use marijuana; while in the U.S., recent government estimates have ranged as high as 22% U.S. (Trimbos Institute, National Drug Monitor, Annual Report NDM 2004, p. 13.) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance — United States, 2003,” Table 28, May 21, 2004.)

Another issue that often concerns parents is that legally regulating marijuana would cause a surge in violence. Nevertheless, the fact is marijuana use does not stimulate violent or aggressive behavior (Peter N.S. Hoaken and Sherry H. Stewart, “Drugs of abuse and the elicitation of human aggressive behavior,” Addictive Behaviors, vol. 28, p. 1533-54, 2003.) But the prohibition of marijuana increases violence by giving criminals and gangs a monopoly on marijuana sales. The liquor trade, for example, was filled with black market violence and irregularities during Prohibition, but that violence ended as soon as alcohol was legalized.

Do It for the Economy

A report released recently by Jon Gettman, a marijuana public policy analyst, contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion — far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops.* Additionally, if the marijuana trade was legalized, billions of dollars that now enrich criminals would instead go to legitimate businesses, and marijuana itself would be taxed. Each year, the government spends $7.7 billion to arrest and lock up nonviolent marijuana users. Taxing marijuana would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year, instead of generating profits for drug dealers. (Miron, Jeffrey A., The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition, December 2004.)

It’s a Waste

Police officers now make more than 771,000 marijuana arrests per year, almost 90% of which are for possession, not production or distribution. In fact, there are more arrests due to marijuana than for all violent crimes combined! (Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2004.) Honestly, I do not think anybody should have to go to jail for lighting a joint! I also don’t think that cultivating even one marijuana plant should be considered a federal felony, or that the police should be able to give out Driving Under the Influence tickets based on urine tests that could throw positive results even weeks after the consumption of marijuana. It would be like handing out a D.I.U. to someone who is driving Thursdays and had a bottle of wine Saturday night! There are no longer effects on the person’s driving abilities. This policy needs to be rewritten.

Medicines are drugs are medicine – Prescribed Marijuana

Prior to 1937, at least 27 medicines containing marijuana were legally available in the United States. On March 17, 1999, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that “there are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses.” The IOM report, the result of two years of research that was funded by the White House drug policy office, analyzed all existing data on marijuana's therapeutic uses. So much for those who say that there is no real proof that marijuana has medicinal powers! Here’re some of its uses:

• Relief from nausea and appetite loss (which is why doctor’s prescribe it to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, as well as AIDS patients)
• Reduction of intraocular pressure (which is why it alleviates the pain and slows down the damage caused by glaucoma)
• Reduction of muscle spasms (which is why I use it to magically heal my menstrual cramps, and why it's also a viable treatment for multiple sclerosis and epilepsy)
• Relief from chronic pain.

Each of these applications has been deemed legitimate by at least one court, legislature, and/or government agency in the U.S. But many patients report that marijuana is also useful for treating arthritis, migraine, alcohol and opiate addiction, and depression, anxiety and other mood disorders.*

Cannabis sativa L was classifieds in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule 1 drug, right there with heroin and LSD. This defines it as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision. As I hope you are realizing while reading this, if you don’t already know it, this definition simply does not apply to marijuana.

In 1972, a petition was submitted to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — to move marijuana to Schedule II, which would allow doctors to prescribe it to their patients. After 16 years of court battles, the DEA's chief administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, ruled: “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known… The provisions of the [Controlled Substances] Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance. (September 6, 1988)” Nevertheless, top DEA bureaucrats rejected Judge Young's ruling and refused to reschedule marijuana.

Since 1996, a majority of voters in 10 states have voted in favor of ballot initiatives to remove criminal penalties for seriously ill people who grow or possess medical marijuana. Polls have shown that public approval of these laws has increased since they went into effect. Nevertheless, patients in these states can and are still being federally prosecuted for consuming marijuana. Nowadays, many people are pushing for Congress to force the DEA to place marihuana in schedule II. Actually, a national poll released November 1, 2005, found that 78% of Americans support “making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering.” In fact, for over a decade, polls have consistently shown between 60% and 80% support for legal access to medical marijuana. Some of the organizations that support some form of physician supervised access to medical marijuana include the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Nurses Association, and the American Public Health Association.* Furthermore, a 1990 scientific survey of oncologists found that 54% of those with an opinion favored the controlled medical availability of marijuana and 44% had already suggested at least once that a patient obtain marijuana illegally. (R. Doblin & M. Kleiman, “Marijuana as Antiemetic Medicine,” Journal of Clinical Oncology 9. 1991: 1314-1319.)The fact is, currently doctors can prescribe cocaine but not marijuana, and many patients would choose to be treated with medical marihuana instead of other much more addictive drugs, such as morphine, if given the legal choice.

The “Except 7 People Myth”

Did you ever hear that the federal law allows only 7 people in the U.S. to use medicinal marihuana? It’s not an urban myth. In 1975, Robert Randall, who suffered from glaucoma, was arrested for cultivating his own marijuana. He won his case by using the “medical necessity defense,” forcing the government to find a way to provide him with his medicine. As a result, the Investigational New Drug (IND) compassionate access program was established, enabling some patients to receive marijuana from the government. The program was grossly inadequate at helping the potentially millions of people who need medical marijuana. Many patients would never consider the idea that an illegal drug might be their best medicine, and most who were fortunate enough to discover marijuana's medicinal value did not discover the IND program. Those who did often could not find doctors willing to take on the program's arduous, bureaucratic requirements. In 1992, in response to a flood of new applications from AIDS patients, the George H.W. Bush administration closed the program to new applicants, and pleas to reopen it were ignored by subsequent administrations. The IND program remains in operation only for the seven surviving, previously-approved patients.*

Stand up for your rights

So we have economic, medical, family, and community reasons, besides, of course, freedom of choice and religious liberty, to legally regulate the use of pot, weed, ganja, whatever you want to call it. Furthermore, Marijuana prohibition subjects those of us who choose to use it to added and unnecessary health hazards, such as adulterants, contaminants, and impurities. Marijuana purchased through criminal markets is not subject to the same quality control standards as are legal consumer goods. Illicit marijuana may be adulterated with much more damaging substances; contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers; and/or infected with molds, fungi, or bacteria… and we would never know it! By making the laws that illegalized marijuana obsolete, we would be eliminating from the root a whole gigantic chain of social problems: from the illicit farms who employ illegal immigrants under inhuman conditions; to the unlawful import of non-regulated marijuana; including medical conditions affecting innocent people who are forced to, at best, recur to illegal marihuana sources; all the way to common underage consumption, black market violence, and waste of tax-payers money and police resources. Will you take a stand?

Irak and Saddam Hussein's death (or... as if we don't have enough media violencie with the Saw trilogy, we now enjoy TELEVISED hangings)

I received an email from a friend today who was outraged by the fact that his very Christian family thought that Saddam Hussein's televised hanging was "the best thing ever." He was indignated 'cause he thought he lived in a civilized community respectful of human rights. But he lives in Kentucky, where the death penalty still finds a stronghold. He said: "It's bad enough they hanged the man, let alone televised it ... come ON...that's a bit ridiculous, don't you think? Who are we to pass such judgment...and then SHOW IT ON TV!!!...what are your thoughts?"

I am sure it had to be filmed because there had to be proof, a lot of people would need to see proof, and a lot of people would demand to see his hanging cadaver, or at least like to see it. To tell you the truth, since it wasn't notoriously televised here, I didn't feel personally 100% positive that it was true, that they did indeed hang him, until I saw the pictures on the NY Times. Before I did the research for this post, it felt like "yeah, right, I would have to see that with my own eyes to believe it." Yet, I don't think I want to see him or anybody truly being hanged. Here's when the dehumanization I always talk about comes in.

Let me fill you in. My mother was very particular about allowing me and my sister to observe violence on tv or otherwhere. We had a strong curfew and censorship when it came to what the media brought to our brains. We never owned a video game, and Barbie was frowned upon. The results where impressive. We should be a case for a psych study. I mean, we were always busy with gymnastics, dance, music, etc. and didn't watch much tv anyway. Nowadays, there is only one old tv (cableless, as always) in my mom's room, so I assume my sister doesn't watch tv. I don't own a tv, haven't for years. I had one for a while over two years ago and I found I'd rather spend my free time reading and writing than staring at it. Do you know anybody who's never played a video game? I'm gonna raise my hand: us. Well, ok, it's not like NEVER, our neighbor had a Nintendo 64. Since it was forbidden fruit in our house, we went through this period, over 10 years ago, when we were very exited about getting to play with it. But as unaccostumed as we were to videogames, it didn't last at all. I am incapable of coordinatedly playing with a control that has more than four buttons, let alone two joysticks! I feel uncomfortable just holding it. I have a lot of difficulty playing a movie in a playstation. Makes me feel like an alien how unfamiliar I am with the damn things. But the interesting thing is that I cannot even watch other people playing games where they kill other people (which is most of the games.) I close my eyes and shriek with old two-dimensional computer games where the little man falls unto a bunch of sticking blades, producing a paint-like red pool. Imagine modern, horribly realistic, war games with real shotgun noises and disgustingly depictive deaths. Goodness, I can't even take ... whatever the name of that video game with the dreaded "fatality" was. As you may already suspect, I have a lot of trouble watching any sort of action movie. I appreciate my bliss, when I truly think about. Imagine, for example, exposing someone from, say, X indigenous tribe in Y part of the world, who has never watched tv to the oh-so-typical image of the bad guy being shot in the heart, and falling down with a horrific cry of pain, bleeding. You really think he wouldn't be seriously shocked? Of course he would! Problem is we are exposed to such things so often since so early in our lives, we don't think anything of it anymore.

So the point is, I would get the creeps from watching someone being hanged in a movie, knowing that it's not true, imagine a real hanging! But most westerners are so used to watching this stuff on TV, their brains probably couldn't tell the difference and they could have been peacefully eating popcorn watching Saddam being hanged, or a serial killer being electrocuted - whether it was real footage or a movie-, or Saw 3.

Everyone seems to agree, that out of all three, the last Saw is definitely the most violent, abominable, bloody, outrageously death-filled, and dreadfully shocking - and I tried to watch this movie! [pause... I'm not saying the movie sucks, they've got a good point with the story behind it ... but for gods' sake, the images! After The Passion of Christ, I didn't think I was ever going to find another movie from which people found as much morbid pleasure in watching other people's suffering.] So, I started eating my popcorn during the commercials and the beginning credits. One minute into the first scene my right hand (the one that usually goes automatically from the popcorn to my mouth) stopped moving. I put the popcorn in the floor and didn't touch it again (I know, the waste!) I could barely watch the screen, let alone eat while watching these horrid images. I'd close my eyes/cover my face/hide in my date's chest for every fucking-hard-to-watch scene. Twenty minutes into the movie, I had my eyes closed more than they were open. I got up and left the theater. But it was too late to save me from the nightmares that night. I was too impressed.

So, learning from experience, I have refused to watch the hanging footage that is apparently available all over the internet. Nevertheless, here is a written detailed description of the hanging.

He was put to death to fulfill a death by hanging sentence over the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys, a minor crime compared to many other important genocide cases, such as that of the Anfal military campaign against the Kurds, in which he is accused of unleashing mass killings and chemical attacks that killed tens of thousands of villagers; or the crushing of an uprising that killed thousands of Shiites. These trials will have to go on without his testimony, and he will never be judged for those crimes. Needless to say, there was strong Kurdish opposition in Iraq to the hasty hanging. “The truth of what happened in al-Anfal and who took part in it has been buried,” said Abu Abdul Rahman, a 38-year-old Kurdish taxi driver.

Besides this political logistic reason, there was also opposition for a religious reason: Islamic and Iraqi law forbids hanging during the holidays, and Eid, the Islamic holiday which marks the end of Ramadan (the month of fasting,) started Saturday for the Sunnis and Sunday for the Shiites. Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “No one can deny that Saddam should have faced justice for his crimes against the people of Iraq and also his invasion of Iran and Kuwait. However, the fact that his trial took place while Iraq is still under occupation by foreign forces may mean that his execution, on the blessed day of Eid al-Adha, will be regarded as an insensitive and provocative act by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government and that far from contributing to a so-called healing process, it may serve to further intensify the sectarian divisions in Iraq.” According to the Al’JazeeraNetwork , many Muslims, especially Sunnis, making the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca were outraged by the symbolism of hanging Saddam on the holiest day of the year at the start of Eid al-Adha. On the other hand, some Shia also said his death was a suitable gift from God. The New York Times quoted Ms. Abdul Aziz, a Sunni woman, saying: “Actually, I felt angry. It’s not a proper time. I assure you, those who are feeling that this is a good time and a good judgment, they are not Iraqis.” Those statements clearly represent the dichotomy that weighs on Iraq fragmented society.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the NYT puts it like this: “Iraqis of both sects attempt to draw circles around the chaos in their own minds. As a result, they tend to generalize about the other, coming up with conspiracy theories, to make the violence easier to explain and accept.” By both sects they mean, the Sunnis and the Shiites. (If you know your shit, you may skip this part.) The difference between them stems as far back as Mohammed’s death in 632 and to who should have been his successor in leadership. The Sunni Islam follows the line of nominated Caliphs; while Shi’a Islam follows a hereditary line of Imams. Iraq’s population is mostly Shi’a, but Saddam Hussein and his party where Sunni. We had a case then of an ethnic minority in power, and a very unpleased and suffering majority. Now the Shiites hold the most power in Iraq’s new “democratic” government. Nevertheless, the current Shiite president, leads a “unified” government which is supposed to represent all of Iraq’s sects and ethnicities. As such, he has had to make concessions that deviate from Shiite traditional stand points, and is, therefore, regarded by most Shiites as a traitor. Of course, he is not liked by the Sunnis either, who now feel repressed and blamed for all of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities. The result of this has rendered him and his government powerless while vengeance runs wild in the streets and thousands of innocent lives are lost. The hatred between the sects it’s grown to the irrational point that when asked about a bomb which exploded in a Sunni neighbor, Shiites will reply that the Sunnis put it themselves killing their own people to be able to justify bombing the Shiite neighborhoods – and vice versa. Consequently, neutral neighborhoods are no longer safe, because they are easily accessed by both militia, so people are having to move to purely Shiite or Sunni neighborhoods where the civilian armies' presence are strong enough to protect them. The vicious cycle will only continue as the sons of the adults who saw Saddam’s military assassinate their parents, now watch their own parents attacking the defeated Sunnis, and then killed in vengeance, and feel rencorous and responsible for avenging them in turn. The number of guns and bomb explosions, and the amount of violence and hatred in Iraq’s streets, just like but much worse than our media, is dehumanizing.

Outside of Iraq, the countless voices that rose to oppose the hanging throughout the world echoed human right rationales. Politicians of the many countries that have outlawed capital punishment shunned Saddam’s death sentence. In a statement issued an hour after the execution, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, said: “I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people. However, the British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else. We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime. We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation.” So, now they respect Iraq’s sovereignty! Erkki Tuomioja, the foreign minister of Finland, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said, “The E.U. has a very consistent stand on opposing the death penalty and it should not have been applied in this case either — even though there is no doubt about Saddam Hussein’s guilt over serious violations against human rights.” Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said: “A capital punishment is always tragic news, even if it deals with a person who was guilty of grave crimes. The killing of the guilty party is not the way to reconstruct justice and reconcile society. On the contrary, there is a risk that it will feed a spirit of vendetta and sow new violence.”

Besides the death penalty issue, the other international concern regarding Saddam’s death is the ill-fated consequences it may have in Iraq's already viciously violent sectarian urban warfare. The situation will most certainly be aggravated by the increased tension. The New York Times reported exactly that: “In one major insurgent stronghold, Ramadi, American troops were reported to have fired in the air to scatter demonstrators, who were marching through the streets hoisting portraits of Mr. Hussein and firing automatic weapons into the air. In Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad, witnesses said crowds of angry men took to the streets within 90 minutes of the hanging, attacking a police station and a courthouse and setting them ablaze.” All in all, the death of Saddam Hussein will only add to the cycle. In such a difficult situation, it is hard to believe he received a fair judgment, and Sunnis around the world will definitely think he didn’t. In fact, a spokesman of Hamas, a radical Islamic movement, condemned the execution as a “political assassination” that “violates all international laws.” “Saddam Hussein was a prisoner of war,” he said. He called the trial “unjust” and said the date of the execution was insulting, stating that “the Americans have launched threats to all the Arabs.” Go figure! They have gone and turned him into a martyr capable of rallying yet a lot more resentment and violence.

People celebrating








People protesting

Click here for more NYT images

He said “You look gorgeous in the morning light.”

“You look gorgeous in the morning light,” he said.
I was glowing happiness, cuddled in his arms.
We had watched the sun rise, stared at the bluest sky.
He said: “you look gorgeous in the morning light.”

“I want to hear your stories,” I whispered.
So, we filled the daybreak hours with words,
and the world slowly awoke as we talked,
‘till the morning sun shone high and bright.

He said: “Come lay by my side”,
“I want to see you naked”. I stripped down,
then dressed back up. But we had fallen,
could not pull away from each other.

He said: “I’m intoxicated with your scent.”
But he smelled of wine, and felt like dawn.
We hugged under the influence of cold.
“I’m inebriated with your love,” I thought.

He mumbled: “I could stay like this forever,”
as I settled in his arms, smiling satisfied.
He gave me kisses, butterflies, pleasure,
goose bumps, shivers, hickeys, orgasms.

He said: “I would love to worship you,”
his eyes onto mine, my back pressed to the wall.
From above the altar I knelt to him in weak ardor.
“I would love to obey you,” I thought.

“The wind is going to blow you away”
“Of course not, you’re holding me.”
I didn’t want to let him go, I was
ready to turn in my world with a gift bow.

“I found some of your letters,” he had said.
We were a living, throbbing, knotted, complex,
bittersweet, cyclic, ludicrous history of us.
I had answered: “Apologize to me in bed.”

“You look gorgeous in the morning light,” he said.
We spent the night talking, the morning making out.
We had watched the sun rise, stared at the bluest sky.
He said: “you look gorgeous in the morning light.”

Plenilunio

Quisiera que esta noche me esperaran los mios inútilmente, pues estaría contigo hasta la aurora. Y si me agrada madrugar no he de preocuparme: saldremos de estos sueños entre suspiros y repiques de júbilo. No le pongas límites a la libertad, ¿por qué evitar los besos?, no encierres la pasión, no decapites los aullidos antes de que puedan ser pronunciados: aunque no sería por falta de inspiración, tan sólo expresaría la tragedia interior de un mundo en llamas huyendo de sí mismo. Tu cercanía es como una melodía de acordes extraños y placenteros, evoca a mar y a pinos, semeja tormenta, ¿campanas?, ¿truenos? Y me estremezco de pronto bajo tu cuerpo entre gemidos y sollozos … el presagio de una tormenta pronta a estallar. Busco en la memoria las formas del recuerdo; distingo imágenes, sonidos, olores, sensaciones … lágrimas, savia, sudor, rocío, humedad y consecuencias … polvillo de estrellas, reflejo de luna … ambientes que embriagan. Cuando avanza la noche, borrando los contrastes y difuminando la silueta de mis curvas, espacio y tiempo nos son propicios, en el cielo nuestros complices. Provaremos un pícaro juego nocturno, escondiendo y descubriendo … a veces frío, a veces caliente. En el mar de penumbras en el que naufragan las formas, flotará apenas el lecho, y la luz difusa nos invita a zambullirnos en este lago tibio, de donde resurgiremos inundados de luna y de luceros. Como pasando detrás del espejo, crear nuestra propia dimensión de besos. En tantos momentos juntos, mil y un retazos de pudor hechos ropa han cubierto mi cuerpo, pero tú me has visto únicamente desnuda iluminada por la luz de la luna, y sólo así eres capaz de reconocer en mí al blanco adonde se dirigen tus miradas y suspiros de enamorada juventud. Porque tú me haces resurgir grácil, etérea, sublime, contenta de vivir; y de tu cuerpo nazco romántica y me siento poema, retoño de jazmines regados con caricias, forma abstracta, desnuda, réplica pura de la creación. Rítmicamente respiro y tus calladas miradas se adhieren a mi cuerpo y se plasman en mi piel, embelesado como un escultor frente a la obra que ha hecho surgir del mármol. Y si, agotada, me tomas en tus brazos, me llevas a la cama y me haces dormir acariciándome como a una niña, seré feliz, mientras tu sueñas que me susurras al oído los gritos de tu alma: “¿Recuerdas? tú estabas sobre el césped húmedo, desnuda, iluminada por un claro de luna. Te quejabas, te retorcías ansiosa. Me acerqué y sentiste mi respiración sofocante como mis deseos, abriste los ojos, me viste. Nuestras bocas se funideron en una… nuestros cuerpos. Y fue necesario que le abrieras un cauce a mi torrente de fuego, que es un océano de lava, encarcelado, que se iba abriendo paso hacia tus adentros.” Destapando ilusiones, nos extraviaremos en nuestro propio laberinto de pasiones y vagaremos a tientas tropezando con nuestra poesía hecha gritos. Y ya desesperados, tal vez terminaremos preguntándonos en qué esquina de la cama se nos perdió la realidad.

Nov. 14, 2001

Parafraseado de/Inspirado por la obra “Plenilunio” de Rogelio Sinán.

FOR HOW LONG?

For how long? For how long have u been around?
You were indeed not hiding in the shadows,
why were you then so dim to me?
What sort of magic kept me from seeing,
from seeing beyond the tip of my nose?
Far away or tightly close, spectator or lover,
you have always been around, but
how long ago? How long ago did u become
the ideal blue-eyed prince that rode my dreams?
Time measurements serve me not,
for love is not good with numbers,
and I'm not good with words when I try
to show you what has been hidden,
hidden inside my heart, out of sight.
You were always in my picture, but
most of the time I saw straight through you.
There was always something morbidly shining
beyond your spectrum that caught my naïve attention,
and stole the focus you deserved,
sometimes fairly earned, sometimes not so well.
And we went trough cycles,
and cycles went trough us.
Focuses shifted, hopes wandered.
The momentum came and vanished.
We cried and laughed, but mostly lusted.
Sometimes you were sure you owned me,
sometimes I love you's escaped unexpectedly,
some others they were very conscious.
Perhaps we tried to force the right angle,
perhaps we tried to avoid the risks.
The ocean roared through many nights,
and the moon smiled at many moans,
since pleasure was invoked more than anything.
The perfect lost clue always laid with us in bed.
After nights together, life tried, once again,
to pull us apart, would the joke ever have a final laugh?
The cup slipped from my hands,
the mead was spilled like blood,
and, finally, the glass broke.
Then suddenly my tears tasted like truth,
bitter sweet facts that seemed suddenly obvious.
Light came to be, freezing the moment
when love was all that existed in the universe,
in my universe that speeded in circles,
dizzily fast, it suddenly had an axis.
It only took a random twist of perspective to make me realize,
that my universe had always turned around you.

La Fiesta de la Luna at Miami Beach - A joyful drumcircling party and ritual for the moon

The full moon conjures up headaches and menstrual pains on some women, and gathers the ones that call themselves witches to celebrate the Esbat and chant. Some believe it awakens the werewolves, or at least some howling dogs. The atmosphere is definitely charged with airs of frolic soaked in sexual connotations, dripping suggestive undertones of mystery. In Miami Beach, the full moon brings La Fiesta de la Luna.

The full moon is just an excuse for the gathering, and yet it’s also its motivating cause and soul. A couple hundred youth, and many of those forever young at heart, gather up by the ocean to contemplate the reflection of the bright moon on the flickering waves. Although the clouds hover over the celebration, sometimes hiding the intense, captivating moon; not even the occasional bursts of rain stop the fest. Drum circles spot the sand for blocks and blocks. Tonight, women dance in bikini tops and flowing skirts belted with coins. If you are already wearing a swimming suit, what does it matter if you get wet?

Bonfires, candles, and the occasional flash of cameras, illuminate the night, already cleared by the moonlight. People drink and smoke – cigarettes, and marihuana, and god knows what else. Couples lay out mediating in stretched out pareos. The rest of us look for romance in nearby smiles. The passionate, rhythmic drilling of the drums is hypnotizing. We breathe in the mild, harmonious collective hysteria of the moments in which nothing else truly matters but the moment in itself, the beat of the music, the movement of the hips.

The occasion celebrates freedom in its simplest form – that of a space and time for non-judgmental enjoyment. Each person is free to decide in which side of their own concept of liberty and libertinage to stand. It is a justification for behaviors we would otherwise not engage in for fear of rejection, such as playing the drums recklessly or dancing as in a trance. We are allowed to plunge in the web of deep communal intensity; to be part of the momentary community that moves freely and independently, but at unison with the collective beat, holding hands. We are also allowed to stand by ourselves, among all the people who dance by themselves and for themselves, in the sea of individual waves, saturated with heartbeats and drumbeats. We are even allowed to calmly seat and watch, listen to the dancing waves, feel the drops of rain, contemplate the life bubbling out of everybody else – and write, if we so please. To think that I could walk in the ocean, and bathe naked in this moonlight, suddenly breaks locks that were forced closed in my mind – those that delineate what is socially acceptable and what is not.

The people that were here tonight will wait another twenty-eight days for another chance to experience, to cooperate with raising the energy that is, la Fiesta de la Luna. Once again, we will leave our names at home, and ignore the pungent smell of consequences. The full moon is just an excuse, but it is also the heart and moving force for this monthly energy renewing ritual of joyful spirituality – rain or not.

BOHEMIAN MANIFESTO (how come we are bohemian artists and why)

Bohemian living, or consciousness, if you will, has always been provocative. There’s just something about the freedom, recklessness, scandal, artistic vision and spiritual splendor that makes it tantalizing. Bohemianism is not a trend; it’s a timeless movement, a way of life that reappears every now and then as a backlash against our bourgeois, mass market, easy access culture. Bohemianism is more than an attitude. It’s the freedom of ideas, clothing and behavior gently outside the norm. Bohemians wear contrarianism more liberally than ordinary people wear polyester. Bohemians break the rules, set the trends, destroy the art and reinvent the art that everyone wants, or will, eventually, want. Bohemians start movements, they stay up all night talking, and change the world. The Bohemian is not a follower of the virtues espoused by bourgeois society: routine, convention, mediocrity, materialism and respectability. Bohemians despise authority, the status quo, and, because they are often happily broke for not giving up their art in exchange for comfort, capitalism and consumerism. They love all that ignites poetry, music, paintings, and magic. Ingenuity and free-thinking are required for their type of creativity. Giving up security takes the courage to reject mainstream society, to follow dreams and “be yourself at whatever cost”, to shock, revolutionize, to take risks. It takes audacity and confidence to champion unpopular causes, to disregard decorum and morality, to be rebellious against established traditional living arrangements, archaic moral codes and business hours. Bohemians are expatriates that create their own gypsy nirvana wherever they go, making their own music and art. They don’t own a watch, they scatter like seeds, naming things: songs, paintings, poems, characters, movements, children; inspired by gods and goddess, flowers, seasons, rivers. They love colors, melodies, textures, feelings, experiences, sensations. Today’s young urban bohemians are full of vitality, play with their hairstyles, pierce and decorate their bodies, and express eccentricities, poetic anarchy, revolution, creativity, deviance and defiance, with their globally conscious street-smart unique flea-market-ridden personal styles. They create their own aura of smoky mystery and fill their atmosphere with swirls of real smoke like a surreal blanket of edge-softening fairy-fire haze, the residue of mind-altering acts: candles, incense, fireplaces, bonfires, weed, hashish, imported cigarettes, cheap cigarettes, cloves. Like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland that smokes a water-pipe and becomes a butterfly: transformation and mind expansion delight bohemians. Light is a bohemian’s passion for its power to create mood, romance and drama, more than for utilitarianism. Modesty has never been part of the bohemian vocabulary: nudity is a liberating beauty, free of class, inhibitions, pretense, an opportunity to return to the earth, to create a utopia uncomplicated by buttons, buckles, zippers and ties. Bohemians are always more comfortable naked than normal people with their decency, traumas and embarrassment. The human form, proportions, skin, body, mind, and soul are the greatest inspiration to the Bohemian. There is no shame, and sometimes even a little glory, in experiencing altered mental states whether they are trance, ecstasy, inspiration, insanity, or drug-induced. Bohemians live traveling inordinately, incessantly, observing, learning, teaching, sharing, freeloading, freewheeling, free-loving, freedom bound, drinking, bartering, smoking what comes their way, taking jobs, notes, photos, fueling up with tea, wine, coffee, absinthe, and other elixirs; moving through a world with few inhibitions, with non-conditioned love-lust that inspires, provokes, evokes, invokes and bursts art, open marriages, soul-mate partnerships, ménages a trios, a bed full of lovers, and any other intimate and romantic, encounter that may end up in a poem, song or painting. They live (oh they live!) truly and deeper than most mortals, dedicated to liberty and often overlooking jealousy, immune to taboos. For life is art is life is art, and Bohemian artists like to be challenged, provoked and disturbed by art (alternative, underground, independent music, cinema, theater, dance); playing in the streets and the parks, dancing on the grass; expanding horizons, minds and music tastes, redefining reality, constantly on the look for something new… always living on the edge.

Schism

If you have a space with a structure in it, there first has to be an obliterating schism for you to be able to use those same materials to make a new structure in that space.
For there be a new order, I must not avoid the destruction of my status quo. Without things ending there will be no things beginning. Beyond the devastation of this wildfire,
rampaging through my forests, new seeds will flourish. I have to accept the pieces of my current puzzle collapsing, so I can shuffle them around and build with them a new picture.

No Birds in Cages

Infinite abundance of love.
There’s always enough,
And yet there never will.

A boomerang of happiness.
Only our beloved’s joy
Will bring us ease.

Open, clear, peaceful truth.
No bitterness from jealousy,
No guilt from lies.

Deep acceptance and respect.
We honor each other’s feelings,
We love ourselves for who we are.

Compromise and commitment,
We don’t run away, we face.
Freedom doesn’t mean no attachments,
It just means no chains.

Vuelve a casa y tendremos

Vuelve a casa y tendremos
domingos de hacer el amor
y permanecer en la cama
cómodos y acurrucados
hasta que nos levante el hambre.

Vuelve a casa y tendremos
lunes a viernes de rutina
estable, de lucha diaria,
de almuerzos con música
y planes mutuos y
pensamientos compartidos,
de lavar platos interrumpidos
por saciar deseos ligeros
y regresar al estudio o trabajo
como quien despierta de una siesta
o de un chapuzon de agua fresca,
de seis buenas noches por noche
tras dos horas de charla y
"debemos dormir",
de mañanas de turnarnos la tarea
de cantar y tironear del abrazo
cálido de la cama al adormecido
compañero de aventuras.

Vuelve a casa y tendremos
sábados,
sábados de colectar
semillas de sueños de las nubes
y sembrarlas en la tierra
para cosechar realidades!
de construir bloque a bloque
nuestras verdades,
de crear nuestras vidas
y re-crearnos
eterna y constantemente
el uno al otro.

There is a thrill of love and fear
that keeps me up at night,
and when you ask what I’m thinking,
here’s what goes through my mind:
Thank you
for making me constantly aware
of the pleasure wells
held within my body,
for keeping me conscious
of the spots that trigger
goose bumps and pleased smiles,
for reminding me of
the flowing rivers
that innervate my skin and flesh.
Thank you
for always making sure I remember
how enjoyable it is
to be spoiled and cuddled,
to fall asleep hugged,
to wake up kissed,
to be looked at with eyes
that water “I’m falling for you,”
to be wrapped in arms
that hold “Don’t go away,”
to be brushed by lips
that don’t pronounce
the words our bodies shout.

Todos Juntos

Abro la puerta del apartamento, adentro Andrés y Jorge juegan playstation, Facundo toca en la cama, y Miguel esta sentado a la compu al fondo. Entro y Brandon me sigue unos pasos. Mira alrededor del cuarto, pero nadie lo determina. "I had a really good time, Malena. Thank You." Sonrío. "What a wonderful woman!" exclama en un intento de interacción que le reafirme que existe. Los cuatro responden a coro "a la orden." Pero el único que desvía sus ojos de lo que está haciendo para decirlo es Facundo, y en seguida vuelve a su guitarra. Cierro los ojos y ahogo una carcajada. Brandon también sonríe, una sonrisa extrañada, si no un poco incomoda. Me abraza y me da un beso. "I'll see you Friday, then?" Yo asiento con la cabeza y él se va. Me zambullo en la cama y se me escapa un suspiro que se hace eco en el silencio. Escucho que Miguel deja de teclear por un segundo, y me parece ver que sonríe. Andrés y Jorge siguen jugando y Facundo me pregunta "enamorada, ya?" "Comieron?" pregunto por respuesta, mientras me incorporo y voy hacia la cocina. Abrazo a Miguel y le doy un beso, quizás maternal, en la cabeza. "Uy, hace un hambre!" dice. "Hazte algo rico, nena" reacciona finalmente Andrés. "Es que yo ya comí, ahí hay jamón y queso, háganse unos sanguches." Desde el espejo del baño me miro risueña. Cuando salgo nadie se ha movido un centímetro. Hoy estoy de buen humor, y se aprovechan. Yo les sirvo sanguches.

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Malena sueña con algo a mi lado cuando despierto. Esta hablando dormida. Andrés y Jorge duermen en el colchón. Me encuentro con la mirada de Facundo desde la cocina. Malena vuelve a hablar, pero no se entiende lo que dice y nos causa mucha risa. Puta, ya son las tres! Le tiro una almohada a Jorge. "Huevon! Vos no tenias que estar en el teatro hace media hora?" "Hmmm," es todo lo que responde. Me levanto y pongo música mientras Facundo calienta agua para el café y el mate. Cuando Bob Marley está por empezar su segunda canción, Jorge se levanta como una flecha. Se oye el portazo del baño, el inodoro, el portazo del baño. Yo prendo un cigarrillo y Jorge se pone unos pantalones que son de Andrés y no le cierran, se los quita y los tira sobre una de las pilas de ropa, se pone otros, una camiseta, un gorro rasta que en realidad es de Facundo. Se sienta a mi lado a enchufarse las medias y las zapatillas. Le paso el cigarrillo, y él lo toma preguntando: "Parse, no hay ganja?" "Igual no tenés tiempo, boludo" le dice Facundo desde la cocina. "Apúrate, hombre!" le digo quitándole el cigarrillo. Se amarra los cordones con rabia, traga agua, sale corriendo con un portazo. Malena da vueltas en la cama. Esta despeinada y tiene los labios manchados de vino. Se tapa y se destapa la camiseta que lee "Latina & Proud," la tanga, esas piernas de bailarina. Finalmente se levanta, y va a acurrucarse con Andrés. "Hay que pagar el alquiler," murmura medio dormida.

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Nomás es que abro la puerta del apartamento y me choco con las piezas de la batería. Que fucking escándalo! Me cayeron todas encima! Ya no se aguanta vivir en esta puta casa! La mierda se derrama por todos lados, las cosas nos invaden el espacio. Las pintura y demás materiales de Miguel se han apoderado de la cocina. El barro con el que esta haciendo esa estúpida estatua y el yeso de las máscaras han tomado posesión del baño. Comemos esparcidos por el piso, porque Andrés ha declarado la mesa su área de trabajo: computadora, scanner, impresora, cuanto aparato se le ocurra a uno! No se puede sacar ropa del armario sin tropezarse con mis zancos y vainas de malabares - Malena habla muy literalmente cuando dice que esta casa parece un circo! Levantarse a media noche al baño es toda una hazaña, porque a uno se le puedo tropezar el pie con un zapato de baile o un amplificador, se le puede estrellar a uno en la nariz una guitarra, un tambor, mi bajo que siempre anda siempre con la mala maña de esconderse, o uno se puede dar de pleno en el estómago con el teclado de Andrés que tiene la manía de moverse constantemente de lugar cuando nadie lo ve. Se mezcla la ropa de todos y ya no se sabe cuál es limpia y cuál es sucia, se enredan los cables y no se sabe qué es de qué, se pierden los encendedores y las llaves...por esos estamos siempre todos tarde a todos lados... si alguien colgara las llaves en la fucking puerta, o las guitarras en la pared! Para que me habré martillado yo el maldito dedo poniendo esos clavos? Y para acabar no se puede ni dormir en paz! Siempre hay alguien activo, es cuestión nomás de que uno se acueste y cierre los ojos para que otro justo llegue y se ponga a hacer ruido. También con los horarios de cada uno! Con el tiempo que estoy pasando yo en el teatro, no he podido ir a ver uno solo de los recitales de Malena! Y desde que Facundo y Miguel se consiguieron ese trabajo viven en ese bar de mala muerte! Andrés es el único que siempre está en casa, pegado al monitor de la PC. A mí en el teatro me hacen trabajar como un perro y me pagan una miseria! Y a ése le pagan el doble pa que esté todo el día sentado con las paginas web! Quisiera saber yo cuando vamos a ensayar! … Puta! Hoy había que pagar el alquiler!

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"Mierda, Jorge! Dónde te habéis metido? Hace horas que fuimos a pagar el alquiler!"
"Puta, parse, se me pasó dejar la plata esta mañana. Recién salgo del ensayo."
"'Se me olvidó, se me olvidó.' No se como carajo, pero Facundo puso tu parte por ti, porque si no otra vez tarde y nos cobran por eso. No seas tan irresponsable!"
"Cálmate, Andrés. Tú porque estas todo el día en la casa, y no tienes el lío en la cabeza como el resto de nosotros. No es tan insólito que se me haya pasado."
"Ay no, vale! Otra vez con eso? Que esté en la casa no significa que no trabajo y no ando también con mil cosas en la cabeza. Si me la paso el día entero 'laburando' (como diría Facu.) Por cierto, dijo que ensayamos mañana a las diez en el estudio de ..."
"'Dijo qué?! Quién mierda se cree Facundo? El jefe de quién? Yo tengo obra mañana! Por que no pregunta?"
"Por que se supone que escribamos nuestros horarios en el calendario. Malena no tiene que bailar mañana, y Facundo y Miguel arreglaron para quedar libres. Como que tenés obra mañana? Escribe bien las cosas, tío, aquí marcaste solo viernes y sábados!"
"Get off my back! En cualquier momento se le va a ocurrir armarnos un horario para cagar! Igual en esta casa todo el mundo hace lo que quiere!"
Yo no le respondí porque en ese momento la música que suena en el stereo dice todo lo que hay que decir: "Por eso estamos como estamos, por estamos siempre nos quejamos, y tal parece que gozamos con ver las cosas al revés!"

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Cuando llego a la casa Jorge está preparando algo de cenar. Por lo menos el nene se digna a cocinar, y no lo hace mal. Hoy hubo demasiada gente en el bar, no quiero traer el stress a nuestro hogar. Prendo incienso y un faso - el humo es todopoderoso! "Y los demás?" me pregunta Jorge. "Malena debe haberse ido hace rato al teatro, hoy tenían doble función. Miguel no sé donde está: hoy no le toca laburar" respondo agregando, "che, y Andrés?" El frunce la cara y me dice, mirando para otro lado: "Debe haber ido a ver a la nena esa, si para eso sólo sale de la casa! Hoy discutimos porque yo me fui en la mañana sin dejar pa'l alquiler. Que carajos habla él si estaba dormidote! Como no tiene nada que hacer! Mi parte está sobre la mesa, por cierto, me dijo que lo pusiste por mí, gracias."
A mí me cuesta no apadrinar a Jorge por llevarle diez años de vida, como a Malena le cuesta no hacernos de madre por ser la única mujer. Últimamente, Jorge y Andrés discuten mucho, y bastante fuerte. Pero ya nadie se preocupa, porque enseguida vuelven a ser los mejores amigos. Por suerte, porque si llegamos a tener que tocar, esas malas vibras afectarían la música. Mientras todos sigamos compartiendo la pasión por nuestra música, todo estará bien … Bueno, eso y tener pa'l alquiler.

Desde Miami - Capitulo 5: LIFE FLOWS Y NO HAY QUE DARLE COLOR

Este neo-proverbio es una síntesis de expresiones de mis dos amores, Murli y Cris, mi autodeclarada familia (que por cierto, cursi y todo como la canción ésa "we are family!", se me sale el corazón every time I hear one of them say it.) The flow se refería originalmente a nuestra relación (o sea, eso decía Murli de su relación conmigo, sin embargo me di cuenta enseguida que la descripción se aplicaba igual de perfectamente a mi relación con Cris.) It's both about the Fluidity (as in something that is not solid and therefore is free to change form and mutate), and about Flowing (as is in eternally going, like a river that goes through places and is always and never the same.) The philosophy behind it is also about the "it just flows" (as in nobody tries to dam it or direct it), and about the "let it flow" (as in "let it be", be as it is on its own quality of existence, that is, not as you want it to be.) Claro como el lodo? No sé si aclaro o ensucio el picture con lo que digo, pero quiero seguirlo intentando. El amor y las relaciones fluyen, como la vida, no hay quién la controle, ése es el gran error de muchos: tratar de controlar, label, perpetuate love unchaged. Cuando uno se desprende de esa necesidad (que es más una obsesiva costumbre causada por nuestras propias inseguridades) uno flota en la libertad de vivir el presente. Eso sí, tampoco es cierto que a falta de las piedras que nosotros mismos les ponemos en el camino, las relaciones y la vida fluyen sin obstáculos. Nah, se enreda el tramo a veces, uno pone cara de culo (como se dice en Argentina), pero el único truco es no darle color, punto. "No le'de'color!" es lo que dice Cris ante cualquier "situación." Hay que ser concientes de que las personas únicamente hacemos lo que queremos hacer. Cierto, no todo lo que nos toca hacer nos hace felices, a veces decidimos aguantarnos ciertos sacrificios por un buen final, pero aún así es decisión propia. Si uno sufre desamor, hay que ser conciente de que nadie lo obligo a enamorarse. Yo escojo vivir como vivo y donde vivo, y "sarna con gusto no pica." O sea, aguántatela, decidí ser feliz, y pa'lante! (como se dice en Panamá.) A los problemas no hay que darles color ni importancia, hay que tragárselos con pan y agua. La otra cara de la moneda es la segunda frase que repite Cris a diario, la que se le sale ante la mas mínima sonrisa que le da la vida - desde un vaso de agua fría en el calor de Miami o una comida rica cuando hace hambre, hasta ver pasar por la calle una mujer digna de voltear el cuello o sentirme en medio de la noche acostarme a su lado en nuestra cama (que es tan pero tan chiquita que la bautizamos "el king-size".) La susodicha frase es: "La suerte del vago!", que a menudo se corea simplemente: "La sueeerte!" Es admirable y saludable esta simple manera de apreciar, de ser conciente de todas las razones (grandes y chiquitas) que tenemos para andar contentos por la vida.

Desde Miami - Capitulo 4: BABYLON

Babylon es el problema, porque España le hizo a Latinoamérica lo que Chile le hizo a la isla de Pascua; las dictaduras, apoyadas por E.U. o no, abrieron las venas de América Latina y causaron desaparecidos en todo el mundo, desde Rusia hasta Japón; y la imagen de edificios en llamas en Panamá o Bagdad no es tan diferente de las de las torres gemelas hace cinco años, o de las de Beirut la semana pasada. Quién es, entonces, "el malo"? No es un país, ni un gobierno (ni una persona, ni una política,) es un concepto, un conjunto de ideas en las que basamos nuestras sociedades … éso es Babylon - violencia, ignorancia, conformidad, la supervivencia del más fuerte, el complejo de superioridad de cada nación que se cree "el pueblo elegido", el concepto de propiedad privada, el amor celoso en vez de aquél para el cual la felicidad del otro es imperativa para la de uno mismo, etc. Miami podría ser el ombligo o el corazón de Babylon tanto como lo fue Roma, o como lo podría ser Nueva York, o Buenos Aires, o Bogota, o Madrid. Sin embargo, y he aquí el rayito de esperanza, aún viviendo geográficamente en el centro de Babylon se puede vivir fuera de Babylon, o al menos hacer el intento. Se puede amar libremente. Es posible trabajar sin caer en la rutina. Se vale rehusarse a acumular cachivaches materiales. Se puede vivir en Florida, sin soñarse el sueño americano. Es posible atreverse a empujar los limites, vivir fuera de la norma, romper las reglas; sino aspirar a cambiar el mundo, al menos negarse rotundamente a hacerse el ciego a las atrocidades, a apoyar con silencio las injusticias, a capitular la vida propia a las opiniones de otros, a enredarse en el consumismo. Hay que negarse a vivir Babylon, aunque se viva en Babylon.

Desde Miami - Capitulo 3: DIME CON QUIEN ANDAS Y TE DIRE QUIEN ERES

Hay una canción de Elton John, Tiny Dancer, con la cual siempre me he, o me han, identificado que presagia "you'll marry a music man." Yo no me he casado, pero me gustan los músicos, atraigo músicos, vivo con músicos, me enamoro de músicos. Y es verdad, que sería de la danza sin la música? Cierto que hay algunos avantgardistas que pretenden que el movimiento es suficiente en sí mismo y arman coreografías sin música, pero yo no estoy de acuerdo. Por lo tanto, no me molesta, me gusta, que en el apartamento en el que vivo haya más instrumentos musicales que muebles y más grabaciones de música (CDs, cassettes, discos, videos, etc.) de lo que jamás ha habido ni habrá comida. El apartamento, ubicado a cuadras de la playa, bautizado cariñosamente La Solagozadera y cuyo slogan es, según Cris, "bienvenidos a mi mundo, acá no hay de todo, pero de lo que hay no falta nada," más que el apartamento de nadie es una propiedad pública, una casa comunal. Le gente entra y sale cómo se le da la gana a cualquier hora del día o de la noche. Siempre hay alguien durmiendo en el sofá, y es común que cuando se acaban los espacios acolchonados los cuerpos tapicen el piso. Lo peor que puede pasar es que no haya nadie que tenga cigarrillos ni nadie que venga en camino para pedirle que traiga alcohol. Sobran notas, ritmos y acordes de improvisación colectiva; poesía para leer; aventuras para contar o escuchar; carcajadas y pasiones, placeres e intoxicaciones. Lo que si no existe entre esas cuatro paredes es privacidad. Pero no me quejo, I like the communality y las incomodidades de La Solagozadera. Sometimes I long to live by myself in a clean apartment con vista al mar, but must of the time I like living the struggle. Living at the beach can be a bitch, because of the isolation (sobretodo cuando el transporte se limita a bicicletas y buses). Es bastante simple, en South Beach no hay Walmart, so you gotta do with what you have. Cris, que por chileno le cayó el titulo de dictador de la casa, ha creado una sola ley: "En esta casa está todo permitido, menos enamorarse." Por cierto que el otro día tomándome una colada en el Cubanísimo se me acercó un borrachito, me recitó una poesía, y luego me dijo, en tono de declaración de independencia o juramento a la bandera, "Yo no me enamoro." "Me parece muy bien, se ahorra dolores," le respondí yo - yo que no hago otra cosa que enamorarme (con o sin dolores, pero siempre de buena gana, por que, como diría la Chilindrina, lo que pasa es que sucede que acontece que yo nunca quiero más de lo que quieran darme.) Eso sí, yo estoy orgullosa de llamar a mis amigos míos, porque mientras yo volaba al sur a empaparme de tango y cagarme de frió en Buenos Aires, ellos se fueron al norte, a morirse de calor y esparcirse por los nuyores (New Jersey, Connecticut, Manhattan, Queens,) no con travelers' checks, sino con pulseras, tobilleras y cinturones de semillas pa' vender en los conciertos y la calle, con guitarras, bajo, platillos, redoblante, y esperanzas de ganarse si no la vida al menos la cena a punta de música y sombrero en el subway; no con hotel reservations, sino con números de teléfono (de amigos, familiares, amigos de familiares, y familiares de amigos.) Se fueron a alabar a la vida, representada en New York (Our Lady of the Subways) por medio de rituales tan intensos como concierto de Manu Chao, y tan dispares como Calle 13 y Cerati. Aparte de los instrumentos, llevaban algo de ropa, y los neceseres básicos: condones, cuerdas de guitarra y cepillo de dientes (en orden de importancia.)

Desde Miami - Capitulo 2: LA CALLE PROVEE

No hay que desesperarse tanto, la calle provee. De hambre no te vas a morir, la calle provee. Techo no te hará falta, y si no, para eso están los parques. En Madrid ya había aprendido que cuando hace mucho sueño las bancas en las plazas ni se sienten duras. La calle provee, en cualquier ciudad del mundo. La calle provee muebles, televisores, ventiladores (eso ya lo había aprendido en Kentucky), chocolates, amigos, experiencias - sobre todo experiencias. Hasta saxofonistas provee la calle! Eso es un cuento en si solo. Si mal no recuerdo como me lo contó mi roommate, compañero de ideologías y cómplice de filosofías de vida, Cris, sucedió así: Tocaba esa noche Sabia Bruta su clásico show de sus primeras semanas de existencia: 100% improvisado (sigue siendo un despilfarro de buena música improvisada, solo que ahora ya pretenden que practican, o mas bien: de vez en cuando improvisan un poco en privado antes de ponerse a improvisar en público.) Justo antes de ellos tocaron jazz un grupo de viejitos. Si han escuchado alguna vez un conjunto de jazz formado todo por viejitos, sabrán lo bien que suenan - no es cualquier cosa! Éstos se ponían rojos de vergüenzas sólo pensando en subirse a improvisar después de un espectáculo de esa calidad. Sin saber qué hacer, Cris salió del bar a dar una preocupada vuelta a la manzana. Mientras caminaba, fumaba. Y mientras fumaba, pensaba. Mientras caminaba, pensaba y fumaba, escuchó las notas de un saxofón que parecían poder sólo provenir del talento innato de un negro de Nueva Orleans. El Oso, le decían al homeless, quien estuvo muy contento de ser invitado, así de la nada, a subirse a un escenario. Hasta el sol de hoy todos opinan que ése fue el mejor toque de Sabia Bruta. Pero como el Oso no tenia ni casa ni teléfono, no hubo esperanza de mantener el contacto, y tal cual como suele pasar en episodios de la vida tan surreales como ése, nunca lo volvieron a ver. Existirá el tal Oso, o será que era un ángel de la calle? Yo tengo mi cuento propio de las oportunas e inesperadas sorpresas que provee la calle. Resulta que salí un día en bus a hacer trámites, y hablando por teléfono me pasé la calle en la que tenía que bajar. Me tocó caminar de vuelta un buen número de cuadras y hacía un calor de esos que sólo hace en Miami en verano. Venía maldiciendo porque no tenía nada con qué amarrarme el pelo, que sudado me acaloraba. Llego a la parada del bus añorando la sombrita, pero hay ya tres señoras gordas y un haitiano apretados en la banca. Total que me toca pararme bajo el sol tenaz en la esquina. Me apoyo en un poste de luz y cuando miro ahí en el piso - un gancho de pelo negro! La calle provee. Y además, no caprichosamente y cuando se le da la gana (como a veces hace dios,) sino oportuna, infalible, milagrosa, cuando más se la necesita, como los detalles de una madre.

Desde Miami - Capitulo 1: Señoras y Señores: South Beach!

Cuando estuve un mes en South Beach a fin del año pasado escribí: "No sé en qué momento en la cama con quién o quiénes, o en cuál almohada, o quizás en la playa, en la música, in god knows which chemically induced altered state of mind, se me perdió la realidad. Me refiero a la realidad previa en la que vivía, que fue rápidamente reemplazada, cual inundación, por una nueva. El cataclismo was the kind of thing that slaps you into another world and makes la brújula de tu vida spin. I am very lucky for having stumbled upon yet another soul-mate. We are lucky to have found people that happen to be as crazy as we are, think as open-mindedly as we think, and love as freely as we do."




Cuando estuve allí dos semanas en abril escribí:
"Hay tanta creatividad en el ambiente que la respiras y la sudas.
Me siento productiva.
Recargo baterías."

Cómo no iba a enamorarme de un lugar así? Es un lugar en el que, además, puedo tanto darme el lujo de ir a la esquina a comer yuca sancochada o frita y plátanos en el Pollo Tropical (una cadena de comida rápida muy exitosa), como de ir al café argentino que está en la otra esquina a comer empanadas de carne o de humita, o facturas. Es un lugar donde puedo comprar polenta, dulce de leche o de batata y yerba mate de la marca que quiera en la tienda de la cuadra. In Miami I feel like I am where I'm supposed to be, versus the general feeling of being out of place que teñía mis días en Kentucky.

En Miami he aprendido muchas cosas. En los siguientes cuatro posts, algunas de ellas ...

Argentina - Capitulo 5: Buenos Aires Parte II

A Buenos Aires lo nadé, lo recorrí de cabo rabo y de rabo a cabo, a pie, en taxi, en bus y en subte. Camine muchísimo por Once y por el centro, y fui a dar al Obelisco y al Teatro Colón. Me harté de capuchinos, medialunas, torta de ricota y garrapiñada. Me gasté una fortuna en libros. Buenos Aires me empapó de frío y me llovió lindas sorpresas: las causalidades me guiñaban los ojos a cada rato y en cada esquina. En Buenos Aires perseguí y pesqué regalos para mí y los míos. En Buenos Aires me tatué. En Buenos Aires conviví, un vez más, con un hombre que desde siempre he amado sin razones, ni intereses, ni tapujos, ni condiciones.

Argentina - Capitulo 4: Resistencia

En Resistencia, con mi primo, fume, me emborrache, volví a vivir y a dormir abrazada. El está trabajando en un teatro haciendo las luces. Me hundí un poquito en ese mundo. Volví a tocar un light board, a manejar un spotlight, conocí buena gente (semejantes, como diría mi madre, actores, performers de circo)... baile tango con el cuando el teatro estaba vacío. Nos leímos el uno al otro, compartimos. Es verdad que vivimos dos realidades impresionantemente paralelas. De ahi cruzamos a Corrientes, y seguí comiendo asado hasta que me enferme … y finalmente parti de vuelta a Baires en un bus, medio delirando de fiebre y con un tobillo hinchado por que me lo doble cayéndome de las escaleras. Mauri me hablaba desde afuera de la ventana con letras del alfabeto mudo … las palabras y las lagrimas sobraban.

Argentina - Capitulo 3 : Meditacion Personal en Villa Angela

To my lovers, in appreciation

I miss my lovers. I've been dreaming erotic dreams all night long for many nights. Several of them include, besides my current beloveds, old classmates of mine - Luly is often there. Most of them, last night, had to do with having sex in public. Furthermore, one was about being fucked in an altar, for my birthday, in the middle of a party with all my friends watching. Everybody walked in circles around the altar I laid on, and held my hands. Then everybody started having sex around the room, and screaming "true love is sexual! True love is sexual!". That was the purpose of the ritual: to oppose the general idea that romanticism is somehow more sacred than lust. Que las "calenturas", are never valid forms of love. "True love IS sexual", was all we wanted to state.

Extraño mi gente, mi mundo. Daría cualquier cosa por no pasar una noche mas acá, sola. Estoy tan desacostumbrada a dormir sola! La paso muy mal! Llevo muchísimas noches que a duras penas concilio el sueño. Me hace falta otro cuerpo tibio que me abrace y al que asirme. Me hace muchísima falta la compañía. Me hace falta gente de mi generación, con la que me entienda; amigos con los que pueda hablar abiertamente. Tengo sed de tacto. Me hace falta un cuerpo que me busque, que me reciba, que me abrace. Me hacen falta caricias, besos. Ahora me doy cuenta de la vida sexual de lujo que llevo en Miami! Como puede ser que desde adentro no me daba cuenta de la suerte que tengo? Será posible que ya se me haga tan normal esta vida que muchos tacharian, por costumre o ignorancia, de libertinaje, si no promiscuidad. turnarme las noches con mis compañeros, y tirar con uno inmediatamente después del otro? Hemos ido entendiendo la diferencia entre celos e inseguridad, aprendido cosas tan practicas como tomarse turnos y tan abstractas como compersion. Es maravilloso tener siempre a alguien que se preocupa por ti disponible, compartir la responsabilidad de hacer/mantener a las personas que quieres felices, sin competencia. No nos molesta besarnos unos en frente de otros, ni nos asombra pasarla bien juntos, compartir la cama, y compartirnos entre nosotros. Es todo cierto. Yo me olvido de que es una vida alternativa, suitable for the few. Es común que me asombre que el resto del mundo no entienda lo simple que es. Será posible entonces que con el tiempo se me hagan cotidianos los threesomes? No quiero llegar a perder de vista lo mágico que es, y lo afortunada que soy de, tener la libertad de amar tanto y ser amada tan libremente!

Argentina - Capitulo 2: Villa Angela

Los trucos del transporte público colectivo son un artificio, o maleficio, q no llegué a dominar en la Ciudad de Panamá, donde crecí, pero que aprendí rápida y efectivamente en Miami a fuerza de necesidad. La sensación de independencia que da saberse libre de ir a cualquier lado por las venas del enorme organismo que es una ciudad, es incomparable. You feel somehow "off the hook" when you don't need a car to move around and get to wherever it is you need to be. Además, te sacas de encima la culpabilidad de que el auto propio es el granito de arena personal en la playa de la polución global.

El viaje en ómnibus de Buenos Aires a Villa Ángela, Chaco, donde vive mi familia, fue largo (14 horas,) pero se sintió aún más largo porque pasé mucho, muchísimo frío. Nos dieron de cenar nada más y nada menos que sanguches de miga. Acto seguido, apagaron las luces y pasaron una película. No sé a quién se le ocurrió pasar El Exorcista! Come on! En el ómnibus había chicos, y además uno estaba tratando de relajarse y/o dormir, no buscándose pesadillas! En vano intenté dormir con los gritos que pegaba Emily Rose. Igual, cuando se terminó la película, tampoco pude dormir: pasé tanto frío toda la noche, que lo poco que dormí, lo dormí apretando las mandíbulas tan fuertemente que cuando desperté a la mañana siguiente me dolían tanto los dientes que no podía masticar. A toda hora se subían vendedores pregonado: "Sanguches de jamónyqueso y milanesa, saaanguchee!" o "Aaalmohadones, dos por 5 pesos, aaalmohadoneeee." Pero jamás se subió nadie vendiendo una frazada, por la que hubiese sido capaz de pagar cualquier cosa.

Llegué a mi destino una hora antes de lo esperado y después de empujar un poco y ser empujada otro poco, rescate mi mochila. Llamé a mi tío abuelo con la noticia de que ya estaba en Villa Ángela, y él salio corriendo a buscarme en su moto. No sé para qué, porque la motito esa sienta una y solamente una persona, así que me tocó irme a la casa en remís y él nos siguió. Mi abuela esperaba en la puerta. Poco después aparecieron mis tíos y mi prima. Los días se me han pasado desde entonces a punta de charla, de leer y de escribir. Leí ya una el libro de Isabel Allende que compré en Retiro, El Camino de la Reina, y el Aleph de Borges. En Panamá, curiosa o tal vez irónicamente en Vía Argentina, había un café que se llamaba El Aleph. Hasta entonces nunca había sabido el por qué del nombre, que resulta ser, en la novela de Borges, un punto en el que existen simultáneamente todos los espacios, en el que convergen todos los caminos, en donde reside el universo al unísono. Recuerdo haber ido solo un par de veces, pero por alguna razón siempre asocié ese lugar con mi madre y con los días más bohemios que yo conocí de ella. También leí una colección de cuentos de autores panameños que me resultó muy interesante porque, al conocer a varios de ellos se me hacia más tangible su voz en la palabra escrita. Por ejemplo, leí el cuento de Consuelo Tomas imaginando que lo contaba ella con el mismo tono de voz que le oí "echando cuentos" (como se dice en Panamá) y tomando mate. Recuerdo que esa noche ella hizo alguna alusión a que su matrimonio no funcionó porque se casó muy joven, a los dieciocho o diecinueve años, y no sabía lo que hacía. Mi madre no perdió la oportunidad de hacerme un gesto de "viste?", ya que yo y mis rebeldes quince años pretendía, o quizás tan solo soñaban, con casarme con mi novio de esos días. Yo, y mis rebeldes quince años, opinamos, altaneros, que "a los veinticinco a veces tampoco funciona," aludiendo a la edad que tenia mi madre cuando se casó con mi papa (unos diez años antes de divorciarse.) Recuerdo que ese día, Consuelo apoyó mi lógica.

Entre libro y libros, los días acá transcurren muy iguales. Mis abuelos se levantan temprano en la mañana, el desayuno es una interminable charla de mate y galletitas que dura hasta que ya es hora de cocinar el almuerzo. Como acá el almuerzo siempre consiste de un plato o fácil dos, y después el postre y la fruta, también se pasan otro par de horas comiendo. Después viene la sagrada siesta. Los abuelos duermen hasta las cinco de la tarde. Yo aprovecho, me hago un tesito digestivo (porque me viven atragantando de deliciosa comida) y escribo, o me voy a lo de mis tíos a usar el Internet. A las cinco, a la mesa otra vez a tomar la leche (que sólo en Argentina se vende en bolsa) o más mate con galletitas. He tomado tantos galones de agua (entre todo lo que tomo con el almuerzo y la cena, el tesito diario, y los litros de mate) que seguro en una semana me he hecho una limpieza total de organismo. Además, seguro que regreso verde de tanto mate. El entretenimiento hasta la hora de la cena consiste en el crucigrama del periódico, que los viejos completan con un interés apasionado y al que yo también, debo confesar, me he vuelto adepta. Entre las siete y las ocho se cocina, y a las nueve o diez se ve algo de televisión. Luego, a dormir y empezar de nuevo.

Encontré a mi abuela aún más delgada (no pensé que fuera posible!) y más débil. Duerme más profundo (ella era de las que duerme con un ojo abierto y con cualquier movimiento se despierta,) sin embargo ahora resulta que se levanta tres o cuatro veces a lo largo de la noche para ir al baño. Alguna vez ella me cambió los pañales, y ahora yo se los cambio a ella. Dos veces por día (para la siesta y en la noche), la cambio y la acuesto. Not only that, but I have to read and write in bed, because if I don't go to sleep myself, she'll stay awake until I'm there. Me cuesta mucho hacerle de niñera y enfermera a mi abuela. Me siento culpable, pero lo evito en cuanto puedo y dejo que lo haga alguien más. Será que la fortaleza de mis 20 años se rehúsa a enfrentarse con la realidad de la vejez, que prefiero voltear la cara para no mirarme en ese espejo del inevitable futuro? Me he dado cuenta de que cuando pienso en ella, la imagen que conjuro en mi cabeza es la realidad de hace unos doce años, y no la de ahora. Lo único que permanece igual en la figura de mi abuela, que tiene el pelo más blanco y la piel le cuelga mas, son los anteojos de vidrio verdoso. La otra noche tuve una pesadilla en la que yo estaba toda arrugada, con las precisas arrugas de mi tío en la cara. Vine a la Argentina soñando con la comida de mi abuela, ya que nadie cocina como ella, pero resulta que ya no cocina, por que se cansa sólo de estar de pie. Eso sí, colecciona, en un cuaderno muy prolijo, las recetas de repostería de Blanca Cotta que vienen los domingos con el periódico. Otro cambio que he notado es que se ha acostumbrado tanto a la dentadura, que antes escondía, que ahora ha agarrado la mala costumbre de sacársela en la mesa cuando termina de comer para limpiarle con un escarbadientes los restos de comida que le estén molestando. También noté, no que tiene mala memoria (no me toco repetirle las cosas mucho que digamos), pero que tiene una especie de lagunas mentales. No se acuerda nada de las veces que vino a visitarnos a Panamá. La ultima vez que yo estuve acá, ella todavía me decía que siempre se acordaba perfectamente, y me agradecía, por la vez que se desmayó en el baño en medio de la noche y yo fui la única en la casa que se dio cuenta. Por eso me llamaba su angelito de la guardia. Ahora resulta que no se acuerda del suceso. Querrá decir eso que he dejado de ser su angelito? A pesar de todo, sigue teniendo fuerzas (y además mi tío abuelo le hace coro) para rezongar: "No puede ser que no durmás las siesta!", "Eso es muy poco jabón para la ropa!", "Basta! Eso es mucho dulce de leche en el pan!", "Como vas a andar descalza?", "No salgás sin abrigo!", "Por qué tenés que ir a Resistencia?" No logro convencerlos de que no tengo que cortarme la basta de los pantalones, que si está así es porque tiene historia, porque ha vivido mucho, porque la he arrastrado en muchos lados.

El sábado fui con mi prima y sus amigas a la feria rural. Vi artesanías en cuero, libros, maquinarias de campo, y chanchitos, conejitos, cabritas, ovejas, vacas, caballos … en fin, lo que se te ocurra en materia animal. Comí helado, algodón de azúcar, y pastelitos de membrillo. Aparte de eso, me aburrí. El único momento en el que pude interactuar con las chicas, fue jugando a la pelota. El resto del tiempo, no tenía ni idea de sobre qué cuchicheaban y se reían ad nauseaum. En la noche fui a un bar con mis tíos. Nos tomamos unas cervezas y comimos Carlitos (que son sanguches de miga, para variar, solo que tostados.) Por primera vez en días pude entablar una conversación decente. Hablamos de mi primo, de la universidad, de política, de la vida, del pasado, del presente y del futuro. Esa noche me quedé pensando, que "ser adulto" debe querer significar que uno puede mantener mejor una conversación con cualquier otro adulto (así sea veinte o treinta años mayor o menos que vos) que con un adolescente (aunque mi prima y yo técnicamente seamos de la misma generación.) Por ejemplo, mis tíos copiaron cds y cds de música de mi computadora (desde Juan Luis Guerra, Sui Generis y Sabina hasta Santana y The Beatles); sin embargo mi prima decidió no grabar nada porque sólo encontró un par de artistas que le gustaban y para colmo las canciones que yo tenía de ellos "ya estaban viejas" (porque eran de hace siete años cuando era yo la que tenia catorce años y no ella.) La verdad es que me he llevado mucho mejor con mi tía de lo que me hubiese imaginado. La otra noche cocinando empezó a cantar una canción de Sandra Mihanovich y se trabó porque no sabía como seguía la letra, y yo se la terminé. Era una canción que cantaba mi madre: "Algo esta sucediendo y tiene que ver con todos, ponerse en movimiento tal vez sea el modo." El domingo hicimos asado (no hay nada como un asado con morcilla, chorizo, y carne argentina con chimichurri… terminado con helado de dulce de leche!) En la mesa mi tío y mi prima se pusieron a tirarse una pelota que ella se había ganado en la feria, y la abuela, enseguida, protestó "Eeeeh… en la mesa nooo!"... "chiiicooos!" le terminamos la frase mi tía y yo a coro, y todos nos cagamos de la risa. A los cinco minutos suena el teléfono, y como estábamos todos en casa, nos miramos por un segundo con cara de sorpresa, y enseguida dijo mi tío: "Esa es tu mamá." Y tal cual. "Que haces, hermano?" le pregunta mi madre. "Alimentando a tu cría" le responde mi tío. Si hay algo que he oído en esta semana en Villa Angela han sido frase que terminen en "… como la madre": "habla como la madre", "viste como la madre", "acoge gatos callejeros como la madre", "Y! Tenia que ser! Como la madre!"

Argentina - Capitulo 1: BUENOS AIRES I

agosto 13, 2006

Hace mucho que no estaba en un vuelo con comida de verdad, donde hubiera almohadas, frazadas y audífonos en todos los asientos. Me impresionó que había una pantalla individual en cada asiento, o sea que uno podía estar viendo una película (on demand, con pausa para ir al baño y todo) mientras el de al lado veía videos musicales o cartoon network. Tanta resultó ser la hospitalidad aérea brasilera que a todos los pasajeros nos regalaron unos paquetitos con peine, cubreojos, y cepillo y pasta de dientes - y eso que este vuelo era $500 más barato que el promedio del mismo viaje con aerolíneas gringas! El viaje fue muy largo: ocho horas a Sao Paulo, tres horas de espera, y dos horas y media más a Ezeiza, el aeropuerto internacional de Buenos Aires. Basta con decir que terminé pensando mitad en portugués. Al principio se me lenguaba la traba entre el gracias y el thank you, y al final me salía el obrigada en automático. Además, para decir la verdad, el acento en inglés de la tripulación era tan terrible que les entendía más el portugués. Bueno, tuve oportunidad para practicar las boa noites y otras frasecitas que me enseñó mi roommate en la Universidad y ex-compañera de trabajo brasilera. En Ezeiza me esperaba Murli y un viajecito en remís (Argentina es el único país, que yo conozca, en el que separan los taxis en dos especies diferentes: los remises que se ven como autos normales, y los taxis que están pintados de amarillo y negro.) Total que, después de la charla de bienvenida de la vecina de Murli, no me fui a dormir hasta pasadas las cuatro de la mañana - y yo había salido de mi casita en Miami a las ocho de la mañana del día anterior!

Sospeché, seriamente, que estaba en mi tierra natal cuando, medio dormida, fui al baño y me quedé mirando el inodoro pensando: "how in the world do I flush this thing?" Sonreí de mi propia estupidez cuando se me vino a la mente una imagen: el baño de la antigua casa de mi abuela en Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires, y el botón en la pared. Levanté la mirada y ahí estaba. Argentina, también, es el único país, que yo conozca, en el que los inodoros no tienen tanques externos, sino que el tanque se encuentra dentro de la pared, y en los cuales no se baja una palanca para "tirar la cadena" sino que se aprieta un botón. También es uno de los pocos países (no el único porque este fenómeno lo vi en Italia y me han dicho que existe también en Francia) en el que no hay baño en el que falte bidet (que a los extranjeros les parece otro inodoro, pero que resulta que en vez de tragar agua, la escupe - el chiste de los Argentinos es que el resto de los habitantes del continente Americano son unos sucios porque se limpian el culo solamente con papel, en vez de lavárselo con agua como toda gente decente.) También me pareció estar en Buenos Aires cuando entré a la cocina y vi los azulejos de la pared, tan típicos, y la pava (en la que se calienta agua para el mate) sobre la estufa. Tuve una segunda visión, esta vez del antiguo cuarto de mi abuela, cuando Murli cerró la persiana (externa) de la ventana, tirando de una pesada cinta en la pared (otro objeto puramente Argentino.) Tienen que entender que no estaba cansada, ya casi me arrastraba! Murli welcomed me a su cama como si fuera nuestra, fed me racimos de besos, pressed his need for me against my body, tried to undress me and feel my skin, whispered sweet words to my ears ... and I failed to burst into passion flames. Esa noche soñé que Luly se casaba con un españolito que se iba a hacer cura y quería que yo fuera la sacerdotisa que celebrara el matrimonio. Me di cuenta de que realmente estaba en Argentina, no a la mañana, sino a la tarde siguiente, cuando Murli me despertó con besitos y me dijo "te traje facturas para desayunar."

Ya era tan tarde cuando me levanté que casi enseguida nos fuimos al Internet café donde trabaja Murli. Allí estuve en el Internet y trabajando en mi laptop en unos grant applications. Salí un rato, a dar una vuelta y comprar empandas y sanguches de miga. Los sanguches de miga, que yo sepa, también existen solamente dentro de las fronteras Argentinas. Están hechos como de un pan de molde, mas delgadito y sin bordes. Compré también las empanadas más raras (o exclusivamente argentinas, como se quiera poner) que encontré: de ricotta con verdeo, y de berenjena y cebolla.

Encontré Buenos Aires hecho mierda, como siempre: los niños que te venden estampitas, los autos destartalados que fácil deben tener cuarenta años andando, las veredas (amplias, sí, pero rotas,) el miedo permanente de que pase un loco corriendo y te arranque la cartera, etc. Con el frío y las lloviznas heladas de invierno todo se ve aún más triste, más viejo, más sucio. Eso sí, sobran los árboles. La cantidad y tipo de árboles en la calle, la arquitectura, y los autos (Renault, Peugot, Volkswagen, Volvo, FIAT) me recuerdan que sí, que Buenos Aires no podría verse mas Europeo. Y ... con el frío que hace no se puede ser muy latino tropical que digamos! Recuerdo que cuando vi Madrid por primera vez me pasó lo mismo que me había pasado en Roma: se me pareció muchísimo a Buenos Aires! (aunque supongo que será al revés, no?)

Camino de vuelta a la casa, Murli compró lo necesario para preparar pasta con una salsa de tomate y ají con vino tinto que le salió para chuparse los dedos . Esa noche brindamos "Porque el mundo es chiquito!" con copas de vino Malbec mendocino que nos salio 3.50 pesos la botella. Sobra decir que nos bajamos la botella, y bastó un solo beso que empujara humo de marihuana por mis pulmones, para dejarme hablando estupideces. Nos reímos comparando Argentina y Panamá. Nos deleitábamos con la inesperada presencia del otro, contrastada por la cotidiana comodidad, la certeza del amor, y la invariable confianza. No en vano our memories together span five years and three different countries. Llegué a Argentina arrastrando achaques, cargada de humo, de mala vibra, with a black aura. He cleansed me, nurtured me, hugged me through the very cold nights, and made me feel loved. Me fui al día siguiente, apenas devolviéndole el gesto, agradecida, pero conciente de haber mantenido mi distancia ... aunque sigo sin saber por qué.

En Retiro, la enorme estación de buses de Buenos Aires, todo el mundo se detenía cuando en la tele mostraban imágenes de los bombardeos en Líbano. La gente protestaba frente a la embajada de Israel junto con la iglesia católica y la asociación judía por la paz. Fue una acción interreligiosa (islámica, católica y judía) para manifestar el repudio de la gente hacia los gobiernos Israelí y Estadounidense por el genocidio, así como la solidaridad con las naciones árabes. Un rabí decía que el gobierno Israelí ya no tiene excusas frente a la humanidad, y exhortaba a la gente a sumarse al clamor pacifista, asegurando que hoy en día ser anti gobierno israelí no es ser antisemita. Yo observaba, maravillada, lo que es el poder de la gente reunida. Mientras comía una medialuna y me tomaba un submarino (que en Argentina es un chocolate caliente que se hace hundiendo una barrita de chocolate en una taza de leche hirviendo,) me reconfortaba darme cuenta que no me lo había inventado, que era cierto que fuera de Estados Unidos la gente suele tomarse como responsabilidad propia cambiar las situaciones injustas.

Tuve que esperar más de tres horas hasta que saliera el ómnibus. Pero no se me hicieron largas porque me compré en un kiosco (otra cosa muy Argentina, un puestito callejero, en este caso donde se venden revistas y libros, pero también los hay de caramelos y otros dulces) el ultimo libro de Isabel Allende: Mi País Inventando, pensando en compartirlo con Cris a la vuelta a Miami, ya que en él, Allende habla de su nostalgia, sus recuerdos de Chile, y lo compara con California, donde reside actualmente. Quizás deba también llevarle de regalo, aparte de la camiseta de Sumo que me pidió, no una de Sui Generis u otra de Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, sino otro libro de poesías de Neruda, para que se las aprenda y así yo poder seguir experimentando esa sensación de que me derrito cuando me las recita en la cama. Mientras tanto, mi principal entretención desde que dejé Miami ha sido leer. Cuando viajo siento que voy dejando atrás libros como un árbol deja hojas. No me molesta esperar horas "en soledad" por un bus o un vuelo. Puedo, no, soy feliz leyendo y escribiendo por horas. Ya en el vuelo de Miami a Buenos Aires me había terminado un libro sobre El Chavo del Ocho, escrito por Bolaños. Además, durante estos días he podido poner finalmente en orden todas las notas que tenía sobre Miami, acumuladas ya hace muchos meses, en una redacción más o menos continua y mínimamente lógica. Obviamente, resultó que necesitaba distanciarme para poder escribir sobre lo que he vivido en South Beach. Entre esas memorias y estas notas de viaje cualquiera diría que me agarré una diarrea de letras! Es que me sobra el tiempo y todos los días me parecen domingo. Además, el ambiente me inspira. Argentina me penetra, la respiro, y se me sale en carbón y tinta - me pasa que escribo.

Cristobal

Me pides que te describa
como si pudiese darme el lujo
de improvisar palabras
que hagan justicia
a lo que siento.
Me rehuso a arriesgarme
a caer en expresiones triviales
y palabras huecas
que no sean fiel retrato
de lo que pienso,
que no alcanzen a pintar
lo que veo en tus ojos.
Pero la poesía,
y su inspiración premeditada,
sí alcanzan,
bastan y sobran,
para pintar paisajes.

Me pides que te describa
y quisiera poder escribir
un poema con fondo de tambores,
cuyas palabras estén
acompañadas de bombos y batucada.
Quisiera poder escribir líneas
que sigan el ritmo de un bajo,
de esos que te hacen
cerrar los ojos
y mecerte al tempo.
Quisiera escribir estrofas
que salgan volando
cual gaviotas,
que emigren al sur
si se les da la gana
y regresen empapadas de Caribe.

Para describir
tu forma de vivir la vida,
no basta decir que vives
a plenitud,
ni alcanza con afirmar
que marcas el paso
en tus caminos
abiertos a machetazos,
que paseas
al borde de las costas
de tus horizontes
ilimitados,
que te entierras en la arena
conciente de la marea.

Para describirte
tendría que escribir
una poesía con son y sazón,
con sabor a trópico
y a besos.
Tendría que escribir
una poesía
no tibia de ganas,
sino hirviendo en pasiones.
Tendría que escribir
palabras con eco,
versos tan intensos
que suenen a verdades.

Para describirte a vos
harían falta palabras
en muchos idiomas,
harían falta gestos
de esos que dicen:
"esto es lo que es,
y no hay más nada."
Para describirte a vos
harían falta miradas
de las que se toman y se dejan,
de las que se nadan.
Para describir
lo que vivo
a la sombra de tu aurora,
basta decir que vivo.

Desplegando Alas Entelaran'adas

spoiler: prepare for a cheesy post - first part highly loaded with loveful expressions -
resolved in self-determination

Will I find relief in Cris's hug for my Gustavo pains?

I'm on my way to Miami, high up among clouds, y se me aguan los ojos every time I think I won't be sleeping nested in his chest tonight ... or for many nights to come. It's been a long time since I've been so in love. It's been a long time since the alst time I couldn't stop the tears in public, since I felt this coarse block in my throath, this tangible pain in my chest.

It's been a long time since I've kept a diary.

The napkin that came with the complimentary drink that came con los consabidos manies, reads: Thank you for flying United. We're glad you're here. I don't know if I'm glad I'm here.

I'm delighted to be moving to a bigger city, further south, right by the ocean. I am thakful for the opportunities que se despliegan in front of me. Pero I am not hilariously happy de otra vez salirme con la mia, de hacer lo que quiero hacer. Porque la verdad es que no quiero estar lejos de el. Y me siento culpable por abandonarlo tras mis propias mariposas, pero tambien me siento dissapointed de mi misma. Es el emotional-dependeny guilt-trip we learn to play on ourselves.
I like to be, to think of myself as, an independent woman, with a cultural heritage to form my identity and an experience baggage to help me learn, grow, mature, become, evolve; yet unsettled, unrooted, flying, detached, always ready to pack up what I learned, move on, and pursue further dreams farther away. But why does the glow of stability tantilize me so then? And what is so wrong with being emotionally dependant on a man that can emotionally support me?

I shed another tear and think: Que voy a hacer sin el? Which sounds too close to: Que voy a ser sin el? And I slap myself with the answer: yourself. As I was before him, and as I am with him, too; for I love a man that is not only happy with me being myself, but who loves it too.

La Mara

"Es que la mara es bruta" ... es el comentario que flota en el aire despues de la fiesta de LASA anoche: por ciertas cosas exito total (se lleno, la pasamos a toda madre, el ponche estaba riquisimo, la musica y el equipo del putas); por otras, un desastre (siempre los mismos chiquillos borrachos, y se termina la noche a puños quien sabe quien con quien y mucho menos por qué, se rompen cosas [vasos, botellas, ventanas... mailboxes], so on and so forth)
Esa es una mara ... un grupo de gente... en este caso "los latinos"... los viejos (q tienen edad para salir a los bares [o ID falso, jeje], viven en aptos off-campus ... y los prestan pa hacer fiestas)... y los chavos (q en mis tiempos en PTY eramos los chikis... q x lo general y con excepciones van de fiesta gringa en fiesta gringa, estan en su primero o segundo año, viven en los dorms ... y destrosan las casas prestadas pa las fiestas.)
El peso de la vaina, las decisiones, el trabajo, y tanto la gloria como la culpa la cargamos los "officers", en su mayor parte la generacion que ya va de salida, con unos cuantos de la generacion en training . Pero la junta de LASA no es una mara ... nos reunimos mas como "pa business" una vez a la semana, no es que somos amigazos... no, ahí no cabe la definición de esta palabrita hondureña que se ha pegado al lexico latino de WKU (con su propio menjunje de acentos y expresiones [a huevo! tocó! del putas! pijudo, mariiica...]) La junta somos los líderes, o los que lo intentamos, o los que se tiran de líderes, o a los que los líderes han escogido to mentor because they seem capable ... xq aki se cree q LASA es una democracia, pero en realidad es una monarquía ... ojo, no una dictadura, una monarquía ... los cargos pasan de escogido en escogido, no a dedo, si no con cuidado ... y los plebeyos, cual ganado, nos hacen sudar la gota gorda tratando de arrearlos. Ultimamente, con el elitismo impuesto por la generacion de lideres presente ... nos hemos despreocupado de los "non-active members" y preferimos calidad sobre cantidad... y mejor ser an elite group of the few that can be counted on and have something to show, to stand up and say: these are the latinos at WKU, and look at what they do! ... Eso es, claro, hasta que la mara llega a la fiesta borracha y arma el despije (o trepaquesube, pa traducir a lenguage Panama1990's) y ya no se los puede ignorar... porque en el desmadre se rompen cosas y la pregunta "de quien es la culpa" tiene tantas respuestas como personas a quien se la preguntes... now la junta gotta deal with the shit la mara left behind. xq cuando un grupo de gente actua colectivamente, y mucho mas en estado de ebriedad, nonosshagmostarudos, la responsabilidad individual desparece.
In any case ESA mara ... los cincuenitipico q somos ... con sus grupitos y grupotes... con sus novelas y dramas... con sus peleas y pasiones... con sus memorias y amistad ... no es lo mismo que decir "MI mara". Una mara es ... un grupo de gente; tu mara es ... TU gente, tus amigos mas cercanos ... tu "team", como se decia en panama cuando yo estaba en high school (q ya se no es hace mucho, pero ese tipo de social fads change too quickly.) Y aqui pasa facilmente que sin papases, ni amigos de infancia... la gente con la que vives y/o convives is all you have when you are sick and need soup, when you're drunk and can't drive (or worse, want to drive), when you can't finish that class project for the next day and need help, when you are moving and need a hand with the furniture and the boxes, when you need someone to make sure you get up the next morning and do whatever it is you have to do, etc. etc. etc.... y asi, under the circumstances, tu mara se convierte liter-virtualmente en tu familia.
I guess I consider MI MARA the people I sit down with and eat, cook with, share meals, sleep with (and i don't mean have sex with), share a cigarette in the morning, the people that see me hung-over, in loaned pajamas and with my hair messed up and make-up run, the people I dance with in the kitchen while doing dishes and straightening up, the people that are there for me when i call for help, the people that I know they know they can count on me for whatever they need... fibo, miguel, and julio as once or somehow or current roomates have been all this and more ... yet la mara con la que convivo ahora es otra. Y como sabe todo el que me conoce, cuando algo cambia en mi vida, cuando tengo una noticia, o algo nuevo, siempre tiene que ver con un hombre nuevo en mi vida. That's Gustavo. Honduren'o, here in WKU to finish his 2nd bachelors, divorced father of the cutest two year old, loves tigers to the point he has one tatooed in his right shoulder blade ... yeah, i know... should have started there, shouldn't I? I know relationships are not based on common obsessions and shared passions for a particular totem animal... but hey, it is all I need to say. La mara es: Jose, of whom most of you already know, one of my very good friends here desde hace rato, pa decir eso nomas y no entrar en detalles... the one that picked me up from Brandon's house the night I got hit, was kicked out then begged to stay, packed up and left. What you don't know is that Gustavo is Jose's older brother. Mike, Jose's friend since high school, ex-roomate, third water-brother of mine en la mara (for those of u who know what i mean by that.) Lucas, my ex-temporary-roomate (o mas bien dicho, asilado en mi casa the way yo me asile en la casa de Carito cuando me fui de la casa de Brandon), who is Gustavo and Jose's roomate. Hannah is Jose's girlfriend y supongo que la incluiria xq, como yo, pasa mas noches en esta casa que en la suya. Quizas habria que incluir a todos los que vienen a la casa a jugar poker, tradicion de todos los viernes despues de la reunion de la junta de LASA... y es que Tavo, Jose y Mike son officers.... in fact Jose, ex-activity coordinator (the position I had before y la fija catapulta a la dinastia) is now my co- vice-president. Tavo just joined the board but has been doing more than anybody else lately (and has not missed a meeting yet por culpa de goma-guayabo-resaca de la bar-borrachera de los jueves por la noche) ... Paola (the founderqueen of LASA and my mentor) diria que "ooobvio", xq asi funcionan estas monarquias, x eso hay reyes y reinas, una pareja de lideres es mucho mas efectiva que uno solitario... el resultado no es la suma si no la multiplicacion de nuestras cualidades, esfuerzo y tiempo dedicado... and a leader dating a leader immediately becomes a team... which is what happened with me and Miguel before he changed and collapsed. By the way, Miguel left to Mexico last week and left me his car, a power of attorney, money and bills to pay, and a room full of shit to take care of. And, of course, there we were ... la mara... Gustavo, Jose y Mike vinieron a ayudarme a sacar las sopotocientas bolsas de basura y quinticientas bolsas de chucherías que quedaron en el cuarto de Miguel... como hormiguitas del apto a un carro, lleno, dos carros, llenos, tres carros... llenos. Y luego en reversa.
I'm having a good time, en esta casa, el action-center de esta mara, hay pedo si se acaban las cervezas o la leche para el cornflake de la man'ana, y si se acaban los cigarrillos cualquiera es capaz de comprarle a cada uno la marca y tipo especifico q le gusta, sin necesidad de explicaciones ni listas, o de comprar hamburguesas individualizadas (los hermanitos detestan el tomato, y pa jose ademas sin lechuga, pa'mi sin cebolla o pickles... y lucas, con las hamburguesas nada, pero que ni vea broccoli), la gente entra y sale con ropa para lavar o lavada, se canta Nicho y se baila reggeaton, se cocina taman'o batallon y se pelea por quien lava los platos, y cada uno si kiere podría manejar un carro diferente cada día de la semana dependiendo de que vas a hacer, a que hora sales de la casa, cual carro esta dañado ese día o se quedó sin gasolina, y quien se dejo cual carro a donde xq si vas tarde a clases (y parquear en campus es una pesadilla) mejor que te deje alguien en la puerta y ya te quedaste sin carro y te regresas con alguien mas y etc. etc.

Yesterday I had work in the morning, Graduation Fair at 12:00, had to go buy the costumes, had my yearbook graduation picture takes at 3:45, had rehersal on stage at the theatre at 5:00, and taught Belly Dance at a dance studio fron 5:30 to 6:30, and at 6:30 the show started... until 8:00... the time the party was supposed to start y todavia no habia hielo, ni estaba lista la musica, ni se habia comprado la cerveza, ni armado el bar, ni plastificado la alfombra, ni nada. I'm glad I wasn't alone. I drove Gustavo's car all day (since mine is by the way waiting on mom's credit card to have some space to be taken to the mechanic). I truly felt a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders when last night I had just stepped into the house to fix stuff up for the party, right off the theatre and with my stage make up still half on, and the designatedDJ called and said "alguien me tiene que venir a buscar a mi y a los equipos" ... y Gustavo dijo "yo voy" ... and I smiled. I don't think he has a clue of how much that meant... not the driving and getting stuff and then getting ice ...but the fact that I knew I didn't have to do it all, I wasn't alone, I wasn't the only one running around. He's been spoiling me to death, and this morning waking up in his arms I couldn't help but saying "te quiero".
Anoche la mara tuvo la fiesta del año, bailaron, se emborracharon y destramparon una casa. Anoche los officers nos gritamos unos a otros del estress y luego nos pedimos disculpas en un circulo vicioso que termino con todos apagando/ignorando/destrampando nuestros celulares, nos tomamos turnos en el bar y servimos incontables vasos de ponche, we pulled out a successful party and were left with a mess in our hands. Anoche mi mara hostio una fiesta en casa ajena, Gustavo y yo regesamos a casa temprano por gusto xq detras venian el resto y antes de q nos pudieramos quedar dormidos Jose golpeaba la puerta pa q bajaramos a la sala a terminarnos las cervezas rescatadas de lo que habia sobrado en la fiesta. Esta mañana despertamos, again, a los golpes de la puerta de Jose pa q Gustavo fuera a jugar basketball con ellos, y yo sali volada xq ya iba tarde a mi clase de Latin Work-Out (xq ahora estoy de aerobics instructor) ... y es que esta mara no para!

Spanglish

So how come a word like amapola is translated poppy?
Poppy? ... nah! like a cute puppy? or like poppy seeds? ...

De chiquita leía (varias veces) un cuento que me gustaba mucho xq representaba mi propio amor por las palabras, que se trataba de una niña que encuentra una hermosa flor, breath-taking, en el jardín ... y la señalaba con su dedito curioso, preguntándole a los adultos qué era, cómo se llamaba ... pero los adultos le respondían "flor", y a ella le parecía que una maravilla tan bella no podía caber en una palabra tan simple y tan chiquita... hasta que el papá, respondiendo a su dedito inquisitivo, respondió: "a-ma-po-la". Y la alegría de la niña por haber encontrado una palabra con la cual nombrar esa belleza, una palabra digna del honor, una palabra que dejara el sabor correcto al pronunciarla, empapaba las páginas del librito de cuentos.
Y al final resulta que el diccionario inglés-español me arruina la ilusión del cuento, informándome, sin más ni menos, que la celebrada palabrita se traduce peor de corta e insípida: poppy. Nah, un poema de Neruda que leía hace unos minutos y mencionaba a la amapola, quedaría mejor nunca traducido. Pa eso mejor que se salten las amapolas en los jardines anglosajones (the red roses, the spring tulips, the ... poppies?) O que se inventen otra palabra!
Curiosamente el otro diccionario, el de inglés-inglés, me contó que poppy también significa: a vivid red to reddish orange ... y de acuerdo al diccionario español-inglés, en la lengua de Cervantes no hay un equivalente para el colorido signifcado of that Shakesperian word ... nos vendría bien nombrar a ese color, no?

La otra palabra que ayer descubrí que no tenía equivalente en español es womanhood, que pérdida! el diccionario dice "condición de mujer", femenidad es femininity, y "mujerez"... pues no existe! como puede ser que tengamos un equivalente para adulthood, pero no exista un sustantivo para "la condición de ser mujer"?

Los idiomas son ventanas que nos abren los mundos ... otra cultura, otra perspectiva histórica, otros valores y prejuicios, otra biblioteca nacional llena de literatura. Y qué maravilla cuando podemos saltar de un mundo al otro, sin pestañear, y adueñarnos de ambos, y conocerlos y busearlos, hasta que nos empapan y nos transforman, y se nos añaden ... y cuando falta una palabra, cuando sobra un significado inalcanzable, cuando existe la expresión exacta, podemos echar mano a la otra bolsa ... y seguir entendiéndonos!
Qué siga fluyendo la comunicación y las palabras híbridas en nuestra generación globalizable, en nuestros pensamientos que fluyen esponténeos y typeados en Spanglish!

Identity Care

Assuming full risk for being a bragger, I'm going to start this post by stating that in the past weeks I've been pleased to have been defined as a woman who loves being a woman, a very mature girl, confidence-exuding, very-sexy yet untouched-by-the-need-for-the-approval-of-others, wise ... that sort of things that might seem unrelated but aren't. The point is - there is so much talk now a days about confidence and self-esteem, so much desire for getting to know yourself and reaching self-acceptance. Aaaah! ... but it comes with a price. When you do know and love yourself you are FORCED to walk your talk and practice what you preach. Once you know who you are, you have the huge responsibility of holding onto your principles, and what is often even harder, living up to them. And once you've built your identity, you have to keep on nurturing it. For me, right now, this means making sure I do give myself some pleasure reading time una que otra noche; some cooking time so I can eat polenta to make my argentinian side feel at home, and platanos to please my panamanian side; and making sure I don't fall out of the comforting addiction of drinking mate every afternoon. I know you didn't need to know that, but maybe you now want to make your current list of nurturing needs for your own identity ... they aren't as stable as we'd like them too, they're more like volatile, malleable, shakable little things in their CAUTION FRAGILE boxes, you know? ...