Bemvindo
I´m here.
Yes, here I am. Wasn´t it said that wherever you go, there you are? Or that you can´t run away from yourself? All of the above.
Strangely enough, though. I am not. Not fully. What I mean to say is that I am here, but at the same time it is not me that is actually present. Momento, momento... me explico.
We are who we project ourselves to be, an amalgamation of the way we see ourself and the way others see us. Our identities are shifting constantly based on the people with whom we interact. And yet, one becomes accustomed to a certain identity, a certain set of identities and the markers of those identities are donned and shed with the style and grace required. Mother, student, lover, social outcast, liberal, libertine (?) and the likes. But here?
Here I am something different. A foreigner, to be sure, but not one that is easily placed. I have been mistaken for Italian and Spanish, and even Portuguese (by a Spaniard) but not pegged as an American, not yet, or not to my face at least. I am not a mother here. Nobody looking at me assumes that, in fact, most likely they assume the opposite. (What would be the opposite you ask?)
I had forgotten. Forgotten what it meant to be a woman traveling alone, with eyes wide open and an only somewhat discreet camera in hand. I had forgotten the eyes. Neither kind nor unkind, precisely, but the eyes that pass by and undress you, tear each piece of metaphorical covering from your (admitedly not well-enough) covered body. I had forgotten the way that men group together and leer, imposing their opinion of you, or ripe with expectation, or disgust, or a mixture of the two coupled with wistful fascination. The women that look from shoes to head, pausing only briefly with their disapproving gaze as you try to inconspicuously speak in another language on the phone.
Ah yes, isn´t it all wonderful, the strangeness? The difference, like bathing in bright blue otherness, as a way to realize that what you consider self to be is only one way of looking at things, one way of looking at you.
The city expands out beneath my feet, cobbled pavement promises to be a danger to ankles and steep inclines with slippery smooth stones provide just enough excitement and insecurity to force one to watch her own steps as she ascends or descends. In the center of the city, the commercial plaza, littered with the requisite pigeons, sidewalk cafés, street vendors, and men in hats is set up with a mini football court and a large screen on which the world cup matches are being broadcast for the town. I sit shivering, after a few too many glasses of red wine, taken alone, on the far edge of the riser and ignore the incredulous stares. I watch France beat Spain, and remember that it was here, not so far away, in 1982 that I first picked up a ball and began playing. It was in a plaza, in the center of Madrid that I first asked my mother why little boys could play with their shirts off and little girls had to suffer through the heat. I still wonder about those things, but perhaps for different reasons.
The air of propriety is not so much oppressive as amusing and I decide, smiling to myself, in cahoots with the devil, that I will thumb my nose at it all and let people think what they will. After all, it isn´t me that they are seeing anyway.
Yes, here I am. Wasn´t it said that wherever you go, there you are? Or that you can´t run away from yourself? All of the above.
Strangely enough, though. I am not. Not fully. What I mean to say is that I am here, but at the same time it is not me that is actually present. Momento, momento... me explico.
We are who we project ourselves to be, an amalgamation of the way we see ourself and the way others see us. Our identities are shifting constantly based on the people with whom we interact. And yet, one becomes accustomed to a certain identity, a certain set of identities and the markers of those identities are donned and shed with the style and grace required. Mother, student, lover, social outcast, liberal, libertine (?) and the likes. But here?
Here I am something different. A foreigner, to be sure, but not one that is easily placed. I have been mistaken for Italian and Spanish, and even Portuguese (by a Spaniard) but not pegged as an American, not yet, or not to my face at least. I am not a mother here. Nobody looking at me assumes that, in fact, most likely they assume the opposite. (What would be the opposite you ask?)
I had forgotten. Forgotten what it meant to be a woman traveling alone, with eyes wide open and an only somewhat discreet camera in hand. I had forgotten the eyes. Neither kind nor unkind, precisely, but the eyes that pass by and undress you, tear each piece of metaphorical covering from your (admitedly not well-enough) covered body. I had forgotten the way that men group together and leer, imposing their opinion of you, or ripe with expectation, or disgust, or a mixture of the two coupled with wistful fascination. The women that look from shoes to head, pausing only briefly with their disapproving gaze as you try to inconspicuously speak in another language on the phone.
Ah yes, isn´t it all wonderful, the strangeness? The difference, like bathing in bright blue otherness, as a way to realize that what you consider self to be is only one way of looking at things, one way of looking at you.
The city expands out beneath my feet, cobbled pavement promises to be a danger to ankles and steep inclines with slippery smooth stones provide just enough excitement and insecurity to force one to watch her own steps as she ascends or descends. In the center of the city, the commercial plaza, littered with the requisite pigeons, sidewalk cafés, street vendors, and men in hats is set up with a mini football court and a large screen on which the world cup matches are being broadcast for the town. I sit shivering, after a few too many glasses of red wine, taken alone, on the far edge of the riser and ignore the incredulous stares. I watch France beat Spain, and remember that it was here, not so far away, in 1982 that I first picked up a ball and began playing. It was in a plaza, in the center of Madrid that I first asked my mother why little boys could play with their shirts off and little girls had to suffer through the heat. I still wonder about those things, but perhaps for different reasons.
The air of propriety is not so much oppressive as amusing and I decide, smiling to myself, in cahoots with the devil, that I will thumb my nose at it all and let people think what they will. After all, it isn´t me that they are seeing anyway.
posted by ilana at 1:49 a.m.
3 Comments:
"Mother, student, lover" Good for you supergirl, that's all you needed to be to get that perfect life you always wanted. Libertina indeed, but it's all right I guess, it doesn't really matter what the others think about you isn't it you queen of hearts.
"Libertina" wasn´t that always your favorite thing to call me? Though actually, I´m not. Don´t you realize that all of these titles exist purely in the realm of things hypothetical? It would behoove you to desist stalking me as it is a violation of several important restraints. That is all I will say, and no more public nor private commentary will be tolerated.
No worries at all. I will not talk to you ever again in my life, you be sure about that.
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