Concurso de CartasDeAmor

Este año decidí participar en el Concurso de Cartas de Amor presentado por MontBlack. Hoy recibí un email en el que me informan que el concurso fue suspendido hasta el 2015 por los acontecimientos que han nublado a nuestra Venezuela por los últimos meses. Y justamente cuando Amor es lo que más necesitamos! 

Escrita el 28 de febrero 2014, 2:36 AM

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Ya te fuiste, pero te dejo ir

Escrita por Julia Carrasquel

Yo sé que ya no eres mío, pero no sabía que ya eras de ella. Te lo dije, me lo dije (varias veces!), pero no lo quería saber. Y es que tener la razón es una vaina: la quieres, y cuando la obtienes quieres regresarla, como aquel sombrero anaranjado pálido que me trajiste de los Barbados hace años. De tantas cosas bonitas que uno puede encontrar en esa isla del Caribe, me traes un sombrero que ni me queda... pero me rio porque igual me encantó. Por ser de tí, claro.

Yo sé que ya no estamos juntos, pero sigues siendo ‘Bonito’ en mi celular. Sigo usando esas botas marrones que un día me compraste, cansado de saltar y saltar conmigo de una tienda a otra. Sigo marcando el 7 de cada mes, aunque hoy solo sea un numero más. Sigo imaginando tu mano agarrando la mía mientras pasábamos por ese restaurante cuyo nombre nunca me sale bien.

“Regata no, Julia”, siempre me decías con una sonrisa entre dientes. “Se llama Trattoria Florentina”.
Eso eso, Bonito.

Yo sé que debo, pero cómo botarlas si por casi cuatro años fuiste mío. Dos cajas y media llenas de ti siguen debajo de mi cama, tratando fuertemente de olvidarte, de enterrarse. Es que además de los recuerdos, las cartas de gatitos, y globos de aniversario, las cajas emanan esta energía indescriptible que por tanto tiempo me llenaba y me decía buenas noches. Que me entendía sin yo decir una palabra. Hablabas perfectamente el lenguaje de mis silencios.
Pero ahora, cada vez que algo se desliza entre el espacio de la pared y mi almohada me da taquicardia. Qué monstruo sentimental me esperará en esas cajas llenas de amor expirado? Mi profesora de Antropología, tan sabia ella, explícitamente recomienda que todo aquello que te recuerda a un pasado sin presente (ergo, a ti) debe ser eliminado.
Qué agallas las de ella!

Yo sé que no cabía, pero igual traté. La música es tu mundo y no es lo mío, pero yo igual soñaba con acompañarte entre notas y toques. El talento lo reconoce cualquiera, pero por alguna razón nunca pude convencerte de lo que veía en ti si los demás no lo hacían. La música me quedó grande.

Yo sé que no debería, pero quiero. Quiero recordarte bonito. Tengo tantas cosas de ti en mí hoy, que sería un desperdicio dejarme llevar por estos nudos en la garganta y espadazos a mi ego. Con los años la motivación me la multiplicaste y la indecisión se fue con paciencia y cientos de “tu si puedes.” Y es que para qué olvidarte? Si te conozco tanto como tú me conoces a mi. Si sé que a pesar que tu amor propio siempre ha sido mayor que el mío, y que mi sentido de independencia es mucho más sincero que el tuyo, vales la pena recordar.

Yo sé que es difícil, pero tengo que aceptar que esa casa californiana, llena de gatos y perros y de una isla enorme en la cocina, no era para nosotros. Era para una pareja dispuesta a trabajar los sueños propios por un futuro nuestro. Una pareja que no entendía que por más que quisiera, no estaba hecha para siempre. Por eso hoy, agarro todo este cariño, estos recuerdos, tus sonrisas y sorpresas, mis besos y los tuyos, y te dejo ir.
Ya te fuiste, pero te dejo ir.

New Moms are Better than Old Moms

ENG 111: Creative Non Fiction

Prof. Michael Carolan

Draft Three

New Moms Are Better Than Old Moms

New Is Always Better is the motto of children all over the world. As adults, we know very well this is almost never true. Diamonds are irreplaceable precisely because they take 1 to 3.3 billion years to mature. Nothing is more precious than the first, oldest, edition of a book. Malted, milled, mashed, fermented, distilled and carefully matured for twenty years Glenlivet Whiskey, is undoubtedly better than Old Smuggler, or Jumbo Jim’s Grape Scotch. Yet, at age six, gleaming, unopened, new toys instantly replaced the old ones; the ones I, as a kid, was obsessed with until the newer ones came along. Toys were only exciting at first, before they got stained, dirty, wrinkly and predictable. Before they became boring and ordinary. Toys, and people, were replaceable. Easily disposable.

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She is technically not my mom, but I liked to think she was. She is nine years younger than both my parents, has long fabulous hair, perfect manicure and big breasts and behind. She is a great singer and salsa dancer. Overall, newer, and thus better than my oh-so mundane mother.

At age 6 I couldn’t wait for the weekends to come. Those were the days I knew I’d see her (and my dad, I guess). We would go to nice restaurants, the movies, the circus, and during vacations, to the beach weeks on end. I would spend hours watching her get ready: she always applied her black eyeliner first, then her Aplum toned blush and finally, a crisp red lipstick that contrasted charmingly with her caramel skin.

She taught me how to make kissing sounds without the ticklish aftertaste. The trick was to make the gesture quick and smooth. Just like waxing, she said. I copied her coquetry and social faculties to flirt with boys. Boys would cede me their place in the water fountain line for me to go first. I would never have to carry a heavy bag if I played my cards artfully, she promised. I copied her music taste: I was obsessed with Olga Tañón, a Puerto Rican salsa singer, just like she was. We would go to the beauty salon together, a place that my mother wouldn’t dare to go, “so much estrogen,” she says, and spend hours getting our hair done. We would pretend to be mother and daughter when strangers approached us –“how do you have such a beautiful daughter and still look that stunning?” Our names were both Julia and since I mastered her facial and body expressions, no one ever doubted our association. She twitched her nose, I twitched mine. She crossed her legs, I did too. It seemed naturally choreographed. She would laugh embracing the compliment, and I blushed, honored.

I would order the same as her, Cesar salad and diet coke. I wanted to be as pretty and thin as she was. I was her companion in cigarettes breaks, making sure my little brothers didn’t notice that ungodly habit my dad disapproved of. I hated the smell, but never said anything. In fact, I hated the salon and hated the dried taste of diet coke, but she fascinated me. Her teeth were still so white, despite all the caffeine ingest and nicotine. She had no crows feet, her face was wrinkle free. She matched her bracelets with her purse and the occasional eye shadow. My mom wore gray suits for work and same pointy heels everyday. 

When I was in the first grade, our big project for ceramics class was to design, build and paint the greatest, most beautiful Mother’s Day gift our 7-year-old selves could make. We had six weeks, twelve in-class workshops, to complete the mission. Since I was the promising artist, I decided to make a gold teddy bear dressed in a suit that would turn into a jewelry box. Brilliant.

I worked on it passionately, delicately crafting my masterpiece with keen determination. I finished it two weeks in advance. After we were done, the teacher gave us a pre-made card she had prepared for all of us. Our only job was to add our mother’s name in the blank space and voila! Recess time.

Astonishingly, I didn't know what name to write down: Belkis, or Julia? I made the teddy bear/jewelry box for her and not for my mom and it troubled me for that entire recess. Do stepmoms have a Stepmom’s Day too? I wanted to ask, but Ms. Ariela would know I was up to something. She would see the discomfort and guilt in my eyes. She knew who Julia was, she was always in school meetings with other moms. My mom would always answered me with a sharp “I have things to do,” whenever I asked her why she didn’t spend time with other stay-at-home moms, like Julia did. Julia seemed to be a better match. She and her mom friends chatted, stayed for soccer games, brought the occasional cupcakes to class. Everyone liked her, she was fun. My mom only went to the trimestral report card meetings, and only because she had to. She could only remember the name of one of my teachers; she’d forget the other one. Embarrassing. Ms. Ariela knew both my stepmom and mom, which meant, I had to go back and start a new teddy bear if I didn’t want her to notice, tell my mother and thus risk my television privileges back home.

I had never given my mom a Mother’s Day gift before. I mean, purposely, independently. In past years, my father would have either made me deliver the chocolates or earrings he had chosen for her, or my teachers would have simply done it for me. I just had to sign the gift with my name and love. And so, at age seven, I made my first genuine Mother’s gift rather guilty and slightly uninterested. I had no choice but to give the prettier and carefully crafted teddy bear to the fun mom. The second teddy bear wasn’t enough to impress her.

My enthusiasm for the new persisted for a while. I chose to spend Christmas eves with Julia’s family and my new little brothers as soon as I found out Santa would find me wherever I went. They were my family too after all. She taught me how to drive, irresponsibly without a seat belt. She intoxicated me for the first time in a trip to the beach my dad couldn’t go. We laughed for weeks about it. I was growing up to look like my mother, but I believed I was just like her in the inside. I was adventurous, careless, exciting. I loved her. I cared enough to ask her to be my Confirmation godmother. She said yes, but for some miraculous reason I never went through with the ceremony. God spare me that one.

Our birthdays are one after the other. June 6^th and June 7^th have always been national holiday days in the Carrasquel home. Turning eighteen was a big one for me: I could vote, buy a drink and feel like an adult when people asked for my age. I was graduating high school, moving to another country for school and out of my house. I was growing up. But turning forty is apparently a bigger deal: Drinking is not drinking until you collapse in the bar’s floor, or in the neighbor’s back door. Throw monogamy off the window! You are still young and lively: boys, younger sweet boys, become suddenly interested in your expertise and sexual prowess. There’s no bedtime, you are allowed to get home as late as you please, even better, there’s no need to go home nights in a row or make it to your sons’ soccer games or music recitals. Why bother go to your stepdaughter’s graduation? It is not like she wants you there. Forty, Julia thinks, is your last chance to turn eighteen, to feel young and act wild. And so she did. And so she does.

It turns out I grew up very differently. I am straight forward, independent, and ambitious. I learned how to read books, not skim magazines. I found comfort watching movies and drinking wine, not beer. I know where my limitations lie and when the appropriate time to leave a party is. I hate diet coke, whinny drunks and pretending to find a boy’s joke funny. I got older and appreciative of honesty and curly hair. Just like my mother. I admire her (my real, biological, only mother that is) for keeping my teddy bear in sight for all these years. For using it at least to place the earrings she rarely wears. I respect her for not getting mad at me for postponing movie nights and for playing Olga Tañón for the longest time in the car. I respect her for turning fifty and remaining fifty.

Oh what a surprise it was to find her unused, unappreciated, perfectly assembled teddy bear with no left ear inside a dusty box after the divorce.