FENÓMENOS ATMOSFÉRICOS SIN TI

Llueve...
Y no estás aquí para brincar sobre los charcos
para besarnos bajo la lluvia
y exprimirnos en un abrazo
para llegar a casa
y bañarnos
para escuchar las gotas golpeándo las ventanas
mientras las empañamos con nuestro calor.

3. Niece.- When you are born to the youngest sister of six sisters it is as if you have five other mothers who love you and criticize you the same, only not all day and not everyday. You learn many other things. From Carmen, the eldest I learn it is a good idea to spend big money on houses; from Rebeca I learned the importance of children; from María I learned the importance of cleaning your face before going to bed and of never ever going out without being perfectly made up and brushed; from Magdalena I learned that it is nice to get everyone together at least once a year and from Lydia I learned the art of independence.

2. Granddaughter.- Now, this was one of the coolest roles in my life! Being a granddaughter is being doubly loved, just by being born! You are loved because you are the daughter of a child and because you are you. There is no grade of acceptance compared to this greatest love!

And, I was lucky, I had three grans: my great grandmother, two grandmothers: my father's mother and my mother's mother.

My great grandmother was my father's gran. She was very old, very wrinkled and very thin, but she was very serious, very mysterious and an imponent authority. She is the image that comes to my mind when I think of mathriarchy. The sole support of her family after her husband was killed in the Revolution. She saw that my grandmother and her brothers received some education, a work and a means of earning their bread. She saw that my grandmother married my grandfather in a tough way, the only way to be certain it was for real. She was never weak, nor emotionally, nor physically. She taught me through her example that you are never too old for anything, you are always strong and able. She taught me the importance of earrings when she had hers welded when she saw she was terribly ill. She was not very demonstrative of affection, so when she tried it was awkward.

My father's mother was my personal favourite. I was her only granddaughter, her only female close relative. She had many nieces, but I was her direct descendant. I was like her, dark-haired, brown-eyed, same face shape, same eye shape. She loved me dearly. She always bought flowers for me in my birthday. She told me stories from the Revolution and from her youth and all about her life. Always the same, always fascinating. She was always busy --ladies of past time were always busy-- mending socks with a wooden egg, or praying, or sewing things on her sewing machine, which is now in my bedroom, or cooking, or washing dishes, or washing clothes, or folding clothes, sometimes she read the newspaper and on the evening she would watch a couple of sopa operas on TV. She was a simple woman and she was happy just because when I was born I was born a woman, someone who would understand her, someone whom to share her stories, someone to pass on her secrets. And when my daugher was born, she loved her trice.

My mother's mother had many grandchildren, so I was just another one. She had granddaughters and grandsons, I didn't represent a huge difference for her, but still she loved me as she loved all of us. And I had my moment of glory, just as I was born. She even moved to the house next door with my grandpa to be close to my mother and me. She knitted a blue blouse just for me. And I loved staying at her home to listen to her stories about the Revolution from a different perspective than my other gran. I loved listening to her young years, to all her life. She was a very tender and loving woman, also a very happy one, she was always in a good mood and she never let anyone ruin it. She would just erase bad moods around her. It was like not allowed to be in a bad mood when she was there. She was alwyas so jolly it was unavoidable to be the same. She was wise and had a very simple philosophy: "If you can change things why worry? If you can't change them, why worry?" and it worked fine. Quite Buddhist in a way.

So, my grandmas were cool. I learned I was worthy, I have a strong and creative inheritance I can't deny :)

THE TWELVE ROLES OF ME

1. DAUGHTER.- That's something I achieved just by being born.

It's not easy to be a daughter because you are supposed to understand your mother just because you are a woman and that does not mean a thing. Women share the monthly cycle of the blood, only. And even that is different, some suffer, some don't, some are regular, some aren't (like verbs).

The point is I am very different from my mother. To start with I am a firstborn and she is the youngest of a long thread of children. I am tough and she isn't, I am spoiled and so is she, hehehe.

Ok, I may not be that different, I know, we are similar, but we are not clones, ok?

Being a daughter is a difficult job. When one is young and obedient, everything is or can be charming. Mother is the role model and there is no one to compete about anything. I only hated the fact that I love my hair long and my mother loves short hair, so while I was under her orders I was subject to having my beautiful and luscious hair constantly chopped. You would think it was out of laziness from her part, but no, she also has her hair short (maybe for the same reason, who knows?) Anything else was just fine. No, she had me eating disgusting things such as liver and fish (she always prepared it the same horrible way) and she wouldn't let me stand up from the table until I had finished. Of course I would stay there until about 19.00. I am perfectly stubborn and I guess she is too.

Being a daughter is about being subject to your mother's ideas of what is good and bad while growing up properly, her ideas of what being feminine implies, her ideas of what happiness should be for you. Living up to her expectatives. And then failing unavoidably because yours are not hers, or because hers are hers and not yours. Anyway, there's no escape.

But being a daughter is also being brave, and with time it also brings understanding and tolerance because no, you are not your mother, but you learn to bear it. With time, many daughters become mothers and then they understand, some others don't, but they also understand.
Being a daughter entails knowing many secrets that are not necessarily spoken, things men will never be able to access to.

EIGHT

I had intended to post an entry on March 8th, having been the International Woman's Day, but I didn't. So here I propose the eight women who most deserve a tribute:
1. Mother Theresa of Calcutta
2. María Montessori
3. Marie Curie
4. Virginia Woolf
5. Each of the dead women lying under the lands of Juarez
6. Digna Ochoa
7. My grandmothers
8. My mother and my daughter

PARENTHESIS

Life is a parenthesis between birth and death.

CRAVINGS

Lately I discovered I had put on weight. I was worried, not about weight, but about my clothes not fitting. During the past three years I've been up and down the scale with terrifying speed. I was even on a diet to gain weight after none of my clothes fit. On one side I felt gorgeous, like a runway model, but on the other I missed filling my clothes and the lack of whatever I was lacking showed on my hair, my skin and my nails. I started filling up. I thought, "Mm, so if I am underweight I should eat well and might even overindulge once or twice." Now I'm over-filling my clothes and I don't like that either. I started thinking what I did to lose weight the first time and I realized I was so sad and then so happy I simply didn't care for food. Then the thought of not being able to fatten started me on the eating track, and one day I had a craving for bread, but luckily there was none. I thought, "Am I really hungry? I just ate, and it was very satisfyng and I'm really not hungry, I just have a craving." But the key was that I was not craving for food, but for company, I was craving for sex, not wild and unridden, but kind, soft and loving. I am eating on an impulse, not because I'm really hungry, but because I'm really lonely. So, that stops my "hunger". I generate my endorphines with moderate exercise, with work, with writing, with friends, and of course with Sean, whom I miss most, for whom I crave, he is what I really crave for, for his company, his touch...

A woman's diary is secret, not so her soul.