Masterpiece

That's what your ancestors think of you

Del Romerillo al Blanco (1981) by Tomás Sánchez

I walked outside and unknowingly interrupted the trees during their time of prayer. All the oak trees in unison, bowing against the gusts of wind. They bow in sync with each other, gracefully and respectfully, likely the few who know that mother nature is the true altar of God’s church. They have no Bible and no sermon, they just use the expression of their own existence: their bodies, and their life’s story. Yesterday, a long and weighted branch that stood at the top of one of our oak trees, probably eighty feet above from where I stand, snapped and made a dramatic tumble onto the ground. A cannonball from the sky, making loud thumps and snapping sounds on its descent towards earth. An eerie stillness followed. The entire world stopped briefly. I placed my palm underneath my collarbone and felt the warmth of my hand, the widening of my chest.

My grandmother told me in Cuba there’s a saying, “if you’re afraid of the wind then you’re afraid of living.” My mind fantasizes about the palm trees along the island’s coast, violently pushed by the surges of island weather. I can only imagine how loud the vast valleys of sugarcane can become when they are relentlessly steered by a hard breeze. Perhaps she is right, perhaps my ancestors had a lot to fear, and I’m not just talking about the wind. I remind myself of that and walk against the strong winds to take in the fallen branch a little closer. It’s so windy, dust particles got caught in my eyes, and debris by the garage gets picked up and starts to make whirling motions. A scene from a movie and I'm playing the part. So I trudge forward, towards the massive fallen branch. 

When I think about trees, I think about my ancestors. I read The Inhabited Woman almost two years ago and it’s a book I think about almost daily. Trees are the eyes of the earth, they’ve seen much more than we have, paying witness to many generations. My body bears witness to a small semblance of a certain history, but the trees have paid witness to most of history. 

Within close proximity of the branch, I take in its cracked and textured wood, faded and old, almost something that’s been fossilized. Slick looking leaves, resembling fat shamrocks, but dry to the touch. I gaze outward and notice wood chips of all sizes scattered amidst the grass. Maybe a slow decay. My wiry limbs reach for the branch, ornaments of gathered dust in comparison, this old and majestic tree is a testament of strength and resilience. They have wisdom and sensory memory, yet they don't have language to express it. I wonder how long it’s been providing our bodies with shade. I wonder how much it remembers.

I compare my body to this old branch. We are a large organ of skin with heaps of stars and science living inside it. Our bodies are miracles yet we’ve completely forgotten our ancestors, moving further and further away from the memories of how we were born, of how we all came to, of what they had to do so that we could be here. We are masterpieces of anatomy, but failures of language. Feelings live in the body and most of the time, it stays there. What would happen if we used words to say the things our ancestors never could? Can I stand for all the mute mouths?

Two weeks ago I sat in on an editor’s panel. Three literary agents stood on top of a podium and answered questions about the publishing process. It was a hot, humid day. My hair was alive and unruly and couldn’t be put up or clipped back. I let it be as an act of acceptance, even if it will knot and stick to my neck. I wore my new glasses and ironed a vintage chambray J. Crew button-down before leaving the house. I arrive a few minutes late and upon sitting in the first empty seat I find I could feel the crowd of students were eager, inspired, rows of pens being gripped by right hands. After an hour of them parlaying amongst themselves, going over their daily duties, what their inboxes look like, their advice on what can get us on the first table of Barnes and Noble, the editors took questions from the audience. One student got up and asked “what are you bored of? What have you seen enough of?” The three editors looked at each other and the only male of the group cleared his throat, looked to the others on each side of him, then took a pause as if to think about how to gently express his thoughts.

Ultimately, he said: “I am bored of domestic writing, the mother-daughter relationships, the children.” He says this with a monotone voice. Perhaps he is so bored of it all, that he’s bored to even talk about it, to even muster up the words to convey his message. So, he elaborates, in a monotone, bored way:

“No offense, but there are more important things going on in the world than being a parent,” he elaborates with his eyebrows raised. A tired exhale quickly followed his statement.

Immediately, I look down to my notebook, and reach around for my pen. It is eerily still and silent, but maybe that’s just my own sensory experience. In that moment I decided not to write down his commentary, and put my pen down. I tap my phone so I can see what time it is, my two kids on my wallpaper eating chicken wings. My peers jotted every word as the room filled with the noise of pens swooshing to and from. The good thing about getting older is that when I was younger I used to find safety in being in agreement with what was being said, amenable to shifting my thoughts to cater to someone else’s perspective. Now I find the opposite to be true, I find safety in resisting, holding firm, listening to my own emotion as opposed to the defensiveness of others. 

Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps these topics are overused and tired. Perhaps there are more important things happening in the world. Perhaps I am getting a little fired up about this. Is he mad about it? Am I mad about it? Instead of continuing to listen to the panel, I spend a few moments trying to engage in how I am feeling. The room begins to feel stale, my joints start to feel rigid. Ocean Vuong says that “cynicism does not equal intelligence” and for some reason, recounting that sentence in my mind brings me relief. I’m not saying this editor isn’t smart, I’m just saying maybe he’s not being as sincere as he should be while on a panel in front of 50 or so hungry writers. 

I walked away from the panel not knowing anything about that editor other than what he dislikes. I don’t know what gets him out of bed in the morning or what his favorite snack is. I don't know what brings him to the empty page every day. I don’t know what made him pursue a career in such a relentless field. I heard a lot more defensive-talk and a lot less wise-talk. I kept listening nonetheless, it was all that was expected of me that day.  

I remember the branch that fell, I remember the silence. Does he know that my children connect me to the trees? To the earth? To my ancestors? Our lineage is growing and expanding. Does he know that language connects me to my past? Does he know that as a parent I can connect with a world I cannot even see? Does he know that my children have helped me liberate myself so that I can liberate others? I went from having nothing, to a parent that still has nothing, but now a deep longing to understand constructive suffering so that I can selfishly, make myself into a person that my children want to spend time with. I went from living in darkness, to still living in darkness, but now my kids hand me a telescope and remind me that the stars burn relentlessly each night. I saw a picture of myself from this weekend smiling eagerly in front of a plate of sushi, my kids on each side gripping their training chopsticks tightly. My smile suggests I don't know all the good that’s yet to come. I’m grateful for that.

During my short time as a writer I am learning that we think as a collective. Our species is the only creative species in this world, yet we want to look and think like everyone else, chasing trends relentlessly. So, I constantly ask, what do I believe in? What do I have to fight against today? We are a system based on patterns, and at the most extreme level, these patterns can destroy creativity. If my triumphs die, then I am lost. If an editor is bored of my work, perhaps it is not about the work. We invented these patterns, just like we invented good and bad, angels and devils, our culture constantly expects us to look inward and reach a state of inefficiency. May every page I write reject that. 

The business of what’s trending is a reality I have never been able to solve. So, I don't care to be too definite about anything. I use a lot of Maybes and a lot of Perhaps. I don't use a lot of Certainty, because I, realistically, don’t have much of it. It’s enough for me to know that I was raised by a mother and father, then married my husband, and now mother two children. On the outside it is too familiar, and it is the foundation for where all of our problems originated. But what about our inner worlds? My innermost self is a theatre, replaying every memory, reprocessing every emotion, revisiting everything that hurts so that I don’t pay it forward. God bless the theatre of the mind! Because in this small journey of my soon-to-be 38 years of life I can now feel blessed towards my notebook and my pen. It’s thanks to my domesticity that I can write what I feel, what I think, and what I see. It is with much gratitude for the graciousness of the Earth that I get to be someone’s mother, daughter, wife and granddaughter. I am at the same time, what is to be expected and the exception.

If I were a building, the first floor would be relationships. Nothing can get to the next floor without walking through the first floor first. Everything I do is influenced by my relationship to others, to the world and to myself. My interiority is a constant flow of gratitude, constructive suffering and time. All of this passes through the first floor first: everything that flows in me is a reaction to the relationships I have. It’s not wrong and it’s certainly not boring! It is essential to my functioning, my learning. Another day in this building, in my body, means another day spent loving my children to the point of disdain, rolling my eyes at my mother without her noticing, giving my grandmother her daily medications after her breakfast in the morning, convincing my husband that the olives in the fridge aren’t expired. The feelings that come as a result of these things, it’s what makes a life worth writing about. We know that ordinary life is full of virtue, but we forget that it is also the foundation for every juicy story ever told.

I thought about all of this after the panel wrapped and as I made the walk back to my car. 

At that point the back of my hair was knotted just like I suspected. My button down was wrinkled but at least I had the sun on my face again. I don’t mind that I am sweaty. I reached for my sunglasses because I hate to squint. I headed to the coffee shop on the corner of my university to treat myself to a macchiato. I had just come out of a room full of writers with not enough ego and too much longing, trying to change their art into something that’s amenable and maybe lovable. I accept that I’m just a mother trying to figure out what to do with all these breaths I am given each day, hoping that each one brings me closer to understanding what to do with them. Because if I don't, I fear that I’ll end up taken by the winds that muted my ancestors. Because if I don’t, I fear that I’ll become a person that sits on top of a podium to tell future artists that I am bored of something I don’t care to understand. The problem with his statement is that a lot of domestic and familial writing has a lot of “unseen” power, and if you’re worried about being defensive, then there’s no way it will ever reveal itself to you.  

Back home, I am reencountered with the oak trees. They help me realize that I am dazzled a few times each day: through trees, through flowers, through coffee and through little menacing laughs heard throughout my house. These are the most beautiful things that live here. I don’t know what makes something good. The good thing about being someones mother, daughter and grandaughter is that you find a little bit of good in everything. I used to be full of mistrust, doubting every impulse, every thought. Perhaps what I know isn’t good enough? Mistrust was a fundamental part of my experience. I danced to the drum of apathy and conformity, accommodating myself accordingly to its rhythm. That was then. Now I will look into the eyes of someone who is bored and make it their problem, not mine.  

When you think about it in this way, it’s sort of a romantic gesture to myself, to quiet my inner restlessness with words, my sincere attempt towards some depth. There is a sense of being pushed in a certain direction, and I succumb to it, like the waves being pushed violently to the shore, at the whim of the moon. I am at the whim of my domesticity, because now I remember all the important things. I allow my domesticity to do what it does best: everything lasts here, almost forever, because I am brave enough to write it down.

If I stand for something let it be this: I let my ancestors speak to me through the trees, I honor my children by liberating myself, I liberate myself through writing about the small moments that make up my regular life. Death is a certainty, but how do you live? If you open yourself up to the wind, maybe it’ll move you towards something. I hear the trees every morning chant: “We are what we are, you are what you are, love us if you can.”