![Picture](/uploads/4/3/5/0/43506379/1279406.jpg?275)
It would be so easy – to align myself to the good, to the worthy, to the vibrant. In the wishful-thinking-iest moments that is our tendency.
Even in the scarce few, scattered clinical nooks of my non-new-agey, non-metaphysical thinking, I gave a loud internal laugh at the Universe’s humor in placing us in each other’s way. It probably took 5 conversations into our newfound courtship, and there we were: he, “My mom’s name is Virginia.” I, “My mom’s name is Virginia (veer-HEE-nee-ah, rolled out fully in Spanish), Virginia Leo.” First names and even the roots of our mothers’ King of The Jungle last names: Leo – Lyons. Yes, Universe, I understand that he is my soulmate. I feel it every day. He has been part of my Life for half of my years, plus 1 – a strong majority now. Steadfast, tender, steady and hilarious. Beautiful man. And to align my soul to his would mean that I wish any of those qualities echoed back in me.
A plain Saturday morning and just rustling in bed, freshly awake. The alluvial flood of little thoughts and wonderings take over my morning head. I decide to text her a pressing question. 7:33am. Within seconds, her nice and long reply, hitting all my points, and I marvel, “Man! She is fast at text typing!” Separated by our three-hour time zone divide but never too far in our spirits, this is a rare instance in which she and I have not talked or written in two weeks. And the phone rings instantly. Her surprised voice, “How did you do that, Tía? I hit ‘send’ and your text came in at the same time.” We realize, neurons now exploding, that we both wrote to each other at the same exact moment with a random topic asked and answered on either end, on this random early morning, out of all the early mornings of the year. Sometimes I tell her that maybe she and I just think about each other all the time. That has to be it. And that by the rules of averages, that is why we always manage to reach out when the other most needs it, but I know that there is more to the bewildering frequency of our ‘I was just thinking about you!’ accidents. She was born on an Easter Sunday, and in that moment my sister aligned her to me with a middle name, Denise. She has a lyrical spirit that shines best when art or music or good cooking are before her. She loves deeply, and fights for those she loves with a fierce power and a large side order of wildly fun Peruvian-Cuban humor. Yes, I would love to be the soul-mirror of this young, infectious battery pack of joy, who sees Life in ways that can make anyone sign on.
He wasn’t all bad or all good.
He just made so many suffer.
I once, horrendously and cruelly, said that being loved by him was like being loved by Hitler.
I said that one year ago; you have been gone from this world for 28. Hopefully, wherever in the Universe you are, you will understand the inner tearing that engendered that comparison.
He wasn’t all bad. He grew up tormented and exited this world the same way. His domain of depression and oppression could wither those around him.
A few years after he had left my mother and our home, he was living somewhere in the city with a tall redhead – a sweet, stout woman that I did not know much about. I remember the afternoon that I called for him, and she answered the phone. “Your dad isn’t home.” Something in her voice was mournful; she timidly intimated that things had not been that great – that she wasn’t feeling well. And I remember closing the telephone call with a “Take care” like people do, when they don’t know what to say at the end of awkward letters, or seldom, when they maybe actually mean it. That was the last time I spoke to her. She became a casualty of his world, his angst, and in a surrender to secret frailties that I will never know, and that perhaps existed prior to their broken love, that evening, she gave up. The mournfulness…was for the premeditated authoring of her own Life’s end.
It is unbearable to align oneself to such suffocating force.
But he saw so much of me in him.
Although one afternoon in that tiny apartment in Los Angeles, enraged over our disagreement, he threatened that he was my father and would “break my face right there, no matter how old (I was).” He never got to. I stood firm even at 21 and rushed out of the room never to see him again.
He was never able to hit me, like he was able to abuse my sister.
He couldn’t. I know that he saw himself in me.
No, he was not all bad.
I remember pink afternoons in Lima, him holding me in his lap, gently, calling me his ‘princesita.’ I remember that he taught me how to draw a roof properly on my little, remedial stick figure houses. He showed me that if I angled the back outline, instead of the verticals I had been churning out, the gabled roofs would look like they made sense in their axonometric.
I remember Sundays, with Boleros and Tangos wafting through the air and him commanding our whole back yard full of guests with his story-spinnings and jokes – holding a wood-handled barbeque pincer on one hand and gesturing with the other, all while cooking up mountains of Argentine parrillada. Gesturing and more gesturing, his stories were always over-grand and always the focus of any party.
He once told me about the way-back-whens in his youthful days in Buenos Aires. He and his amigotes (his big neighborhood buds) got in their cars and headed for a multi-spoked, major traffic intersection of the city’s heart. Within minutes they had come to the nucleus of it, their cars choreographed to each face the center from each of the arteries. Loud and boisterous, they halted traffic and made chaos by faking a fender bender involving all of them, flailing arms at each other in theatrical frustration. There stood the flow of automobiles, in the middle of major, metropolitan Buenos Aires, fully stopped by their prank. I always remembered that story - the height of irreverence and foolish fun but also of daring, even if for a misguided and bored-fueled young men’s fun. Good, stupid, confident fun.
There, the good and the bad coexist – a bewildering dichotomy, eerily akin to that of my cultural heritage. I am both Inca and Spanish. I have to admit that I am. Of the subjugated and the Conquistadores, I am a descendant of unspeakable blood loss and violence and also of millennial wisdom and beauty. Maybe we all carry some unavoidable spiritual tug-o-war. In Spanish, they say, “Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.” Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.
And so we see those souls that we would so desperately like to be matched to: the solid ones, the great ones, but the truth is that we carry some of the tormented ones along our path as well. And perhaps this is exactly how it is supposed to be. In all wars, the well carry the fallen. To honor a flawed existence – not in the sense of accolades or pride but of witnessing and holding – is to honor real humanity. And to honor is to finally forgive, make amends, and to finally step toward peace.
Interceding with Love rather than sorrow.
To say, I will walk with you, and you will be fine.
Dedicated to my father...two of his favorite songs.
Lejana Tierra Mia – performed by Carlos Gardel, written by Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DbUlNh2HW8
Mi Viejo - written and performed by Piero
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x36zzkUB2t
Even in the scarce few, scattered clinical nooks of my non-new-agey, non-metaphysical thinking, I gave a loud internal laugh at the Universe’s humor in placing us in each other’s way. It probably took 5 conversations into our newfound courtship, and there we were: he, “My mom’s name is Virginia.” I, “My mom’s name is Virginia (veer-HEE-nee-ah, rolled out fully in Spanish), Virginia Leo.” First names and even the roots of our mothers’ King of The Jungle last names: Leo – Lyons. Yes, Universe, I understand that he is my soulmate. I feel it every day. He has been part of my Life for half of my years, plus 1 – a strong majority now. Steadfast, tender, steady and hilarious. Beautiful man. And to align my soul to his would mean that I wish any of those qualities echoed back in me.
A plain Saturday morning and just rustling in bed, freshly awake. The alluvial flood of little thoughts and wonderings take over my morning head. I decide to text her a pressing question. 7:33am. Within seconds, her nice and long reply, hitting all my points, and I marvel, “Man! She is fast at text typing!” Separated by our three-hour time zone divide but never too far in our spirits, this is a rare instance in which she and I have not talked or written in two weeks. And the phone rings instantly. Her surprised voice, “How did you do that, Tía? I hit ‘send’ and your text came in at the same time.” We realize, neurons now exploding, that we both wrote to each other at the same exact moment with a random topic asked and answered on either end, on this random early morning, out of all the early mornings of the year. Sometimes I tell her that maybe she and I just think about each other all the time. That has to be it. And that by the rules of averages, that is why we always manage to reach out when the other most needs it, but I know that there is more to the bewildering frequency of our ‘I was just thinking about you!’ accidents. She was born on an Easter Sunday, and in that moment my sister aligned her to me with a middle name, Denise. She has a lyrical spirit that shines best when art or music or good cooking are before her. She loves deeply, and fights for those she loves with a fierce power and a large side order of wildly fun Peruvian-Cuban humor. Yes, I would love to be the soul-mirror of this young, infectious battery pack of joy, who sees Life in ways that can make anyone sign on.
He wasn’t all bad or all good.
He just made so many suffer.
I once, horrendously and cruelly, said that being loved by him was like being loved by Hitler.
I said that one year ago; you have been gone from this world for 28. Hopefully, wherever in the Universe you are, you will understand the inner tearing that engendered that comparison.
He wasn’t all bad. He grew up tormented and exited this world the same way. His domain of depression and oppression could wither those around him.
A few years after he had left my mother and our home, he was living somewhere in the city with a tall redhead – a sweet, stout woman that I did not know much about. I remember the afternoon that I called for him, and she answered the phone. “Your dad isn’t home.” Something in her voice was mournful; she timidly intimated that things had not been that great – that she wasn’t feeling well. And I remember closing the telephone call with a “Take care” like people do, when they don’t know what to say at the end of awkward letters, or seldom, when they maybe actually mean it. That was the last time I spoke to her. She became a casualty of his world, his angst, and in a surrender to secret frailties that I will never know, and that perhaps existed prior to their broken love, that evening, she gave up. The mournfulness…was for the premeditated authoring of her own Life’s end.
It is unbearable to align oneself to such suffocating force.
But he saw so much of me in him.
Although one afternoon in that tiny apartment in Los Angeles, enraged over our disagreement, he threatened that he was my father and would “break my face right there, no matter how old (I was).” He never got to. I stood firm even at 21 and rushed out of the room never to see him again.
He was never able to hit me, like he was able to abuse my sister.
He couldn’t. I know that he saw himself in me.
No, he was not all bad.
I remember pink afternoons in Lima, him holding me in his lap, gently, calling me his ‘princesita.’ I remember that he taught me how to draw a roof properly on my little, remedial stick figure houses. He showed me that if I angled the back outline, instead of the verticals I had been churning out, the gabled roofs would look like they made sense in their axonometric.
I remember Sundays, with Boleros and Tangos wafting through the air and him commanding our whole back yard full of guests with his story-spinnings and jokes – holding a wood-handled barbeque pincer on one hand and gesturing with the other, all while cooking up mountains of Argentine parrillada. Gesturing and more gesturing, his stories were always over-grand and always the focus of any party.
He once told me about the way-back-whens in his youthful days in Buenos Aires. He and his amigotes (his big neighborhood buds) got in their cars and headed for a multi-spoked, major traffic intersection of the city’s heart. Within minutes they had come to the nucleus of it, their cars choreographed to each face the center from each of the arteries. Loud and boisterous, they halted traffic and made chaos by faking a fender bender involving all of them, flailing arms at each other in theatrical frustration. There stood the flow of automobiles, in the middle of major, metropolitan Buenos Aires, fully stopped by their prank. I always remembered that story - the height of irreverence and foolish fun but also of daring, even if for a misguided and bored-fueled young men’s fun. Good, stupid, confident fun.
There, the good and the bad coexist – a bewildering dichotomy, eerily akin to that of my cultural heritage. I am both Inca and Spanish. I have to admit that I am. Of the subjugated and the Conquistadores, I am a descendant of unspeakable blood loss and violence and also of millennial wisdom and beauty. Maybe we all carry some unavoidable spiritual tug-o-war. In Spanish, they say, “Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.” Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.
And so we see those souls that we would so desperately like to be matched to: the solid ones, the great ones, but the truth is that we carry some of the tormented ones along our path as well. And perhaps this is exactly how it is supposed to be. In all wars, the well carry the fallen. To honor a flawed existence – not in the sense of accolades or pride but of witnessing and holding – is to honor real humanity. And to honor is to finally forgive, make amends, and to finally step toward peace.
Interceding with Love rather than sorrow.
To say, I will walk with you, and you will be fine.
Dedicated to my father...two of his favorite songs.
Lejana Tierra Mia – performed by Carlos Gardel, written by Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DbUlNh2HW8
Mi Viejo - written and performed by Piero
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x36zzkUB2t