Foreign Romance (from June 2012)

I was standing against the rail that surrounded Klub Lavka, letting the breeze from the Vltava River run through my hair and cool me down. I had left the club, telling Pedro, “I need some fresh air.” A lie that he recognized as a subtle way of luring him away from the groups of friends we each came with. He followed me outside, and stood behind me, one arm wrapped around my waist. We gazed at the Prague Castle, which was perched at the top of a hill, overlooking the city. It was a sight that in my three weeks of staying in Prague, I could not grow used to. Pedro had been living there for a year, and I could see the way the scene completely captivated him, shifting his attention away from me. The view was relieving. It was proof that something beautiful could stand past the brutalities of war and time. The gothic and renaissance structures were physical remnants of different rulers, and the towers precautionary marks of a state once at war. However, the illuminated castle reflected in Pedro’s eyes combined the elements common to most fairytales, creating a perfectly harmonious portrait.

Inside, we had spotted each other instantly, locking eyes when I walked onto the overpopulated dance floor. The group of girls I was with saw him too, hoping to spark his interest. He came up from behind me and asked where I was from, the Spanish rolling off his tongue in a romantic serenade. For weeks Czech speaking natives and German tourists had surrounded me. It was comforting to have a language that I knew. It wasn’t just the Spanish though, it was the brush of a hand, the flirty smile, and light caress that I understood and had once been familiar with. 

He was from Portugal, but spoke a little Spanish. I was flattered that he might have thought I was from Spain, but then again, we were at a Latin Festival. The girls and I had wandered in the winding maze-like roads of Old Town, searching for a new club or lounge before we found Klub Lavka. Like Prague, it was a hidden gem, standing among the larger music clubs adjacent to the Charles Bridge. For hours we walked on uneven cobblestone roads that left our feet sore with pain. We had stopped at local pubs, and self-medicating with pints of Bernard or Pilsner Urquell. The salsa music lured us in, but was only appealing with a partner.

After our first dance, Pedro and I were a couple. Dancing only with each other, and cautioning each other when we were going to take a break to the bathroom or to talk to a friend. When I returned, I was looking for him and he was there waiting for me to take on the next song. He showed me dances from Portugal, never laughing as I struggled to match the smooth movements of his hips. The Spanish made it difficult to communicate since it was both our second languages, but it put us on a level playing field, comfortably emphasizing our immersion in a foreign place. 

On the terrace, we rapidly covered every topic, as if in an interview. He had moved to Prague after falling in love with the city on his semester abroad there. I was taking a summer course at Charles University, but contemplated making the same, impulsive move. He smiled and said, “You should visit Portugal.” It was the first thing I thought when I saw his long slender frame, when I found myself fighting to turn away from his big brown eyes. I replied, “Take me.” He smiled at that, revealing dimples that carved into his sun kissed skin. 

Our bodies were two opposing magnets gradually pulling each other in close. He asked if I knew the history of Prague. It’s stories and myths of love that gave rise to the Locks of Love over the canals, where couples engraved their names on locks, dispensing of the key. Of course I visited the sight, and saw the viral romance around the city. Although the Czech people did not greet you on the street or indulge in superficial conversation, lovers were posted everywhere, entangled in their affections. I’d seen teenagers making out on the metro, and middle-aged couples tonguing on benches. The city was romantic and overtly sexual. It was one of the greatest factors in my culture shock, but as I grew used to it, I also grew envious.

The sun began to peak out from behind the castle, painting the sky with light pinks and orange. Daylight replaced the light posts that accompanied the statues of saints lining each side of the Charles Bridge. Crowds of people poured into the streets and gravitated towards the food stands that awaited them. Groups of friends and newly found lovers passed by, yelling to overcome the hearing damage caused by overblown club speakers. The clash of languages, German, Czech, Spanish, and others I couldn’t identify, formed the dissonant sound of chaos. They migrated towards the metro station, Staromestska, dragging with them the aroma of freshly cut rotisserie chicken that filled their gyros and kebabs. It was clear that the clubs were closing. How much longer could we hide from our friends?

Before we parted, we had merged into one moving figure. My back was pressed against the rail from the pressure of his weight. He asked, “Why did I meet you three days before you're leaving? Where were you last week?” I didn’t answer, not because it was a rhetorical question, but because before I could his lips were closing in over mine. We were dancing again, moving our mouths in a smooth rhythm that he guided. It was our first kiss, but unfortunately, it said good-bye.

As my friends pulled me away, our romance ended. We did not exchange Facebook info, email, or phone numbers. We did not taint the night with the next day’s small talk or the complications of a relationship. 

For my remaining time in Prague, I would scan the crowd in pubs and on the tightly packed trams, wondering if fate would reunite us. The thought of seeing Pedro in the day made me nervous. Maybe the light would expose my distorted perception of this "perfect" man. The mystery of him that I enjoyed could be lost in the idleness of conversation. This was just a vacation, just a small exploration of a foreign territory. Would I have enjoyed Prague the same if I was consumed by the every day hassle of work? I fell in love with the city, and with the idea of Pedro because of their aesthetics, and that was enough for me.

Ride to Zion (Journal Excerpt 4/20/16)

Dawn rings through my body with the gentle nudge of sunlight. Birds chirp frantically and the cool breeze carries dew onto the open areas of our sleeping bags. I am awake. It’s probably quarter after 5 or nearing 6, I can’t be sure. Today’s our day to road trip to Zion, and the earlier we’re up, the better.

I stumble lazily out of our $30 K-mart tent and perch by the nearest tree. I haven’t yet mastered the ability to pee standing up, with urine either landing on my boots or splashing back to may ankles and pants. At this point I don’t really care; it’s masked in the stench I carry from the past 2 days. Kim and Joe rise and collectively we break down the tents and clean up Campsite 4. With us we carry food, trash, and our own waste. Our lives get crammed into Chief, our once pristine and uninsured Chevy Impala.

The route through Arizona resembles every road trip movie I saw growing up. The freeway winds and inclines in segments, its wide arms wrap around erected mounds of red, jagged rock. At eye level there are acres and acres of bare land, of red clay littered with mounds of hay and asymmetrical cacti. I’m behind the wheel now, my arms rested on the open window sill, and eyes focused on the multi-tiered mountain range. From top to bottom the colors shift from white to pink then red to brown, each representing centuries of molding and erosion. 

This is freedom. Without realizing it, I’m going 90MPH. My adrenaline rises and my fears and anxieties fall behind me. I’m flying. In the valley I feel small, like a tiny element that could be projected at any time. I grip the steering wheel tightly like I was 5 again, bike riding with my dad. It’s shocking to think I was once small enough to fit on the bar at the center of his bike. I sat there, feet dangling, cradled between his giant arms as he biked up and down East Mountain Avenue and South Side Park. At age 9, I don’t think he could even carry me anymore. 

“Seven Years” by Lucas Graham comes one. We’ve hit a rare spot where there’s actually FM signal. I sing a long with it, it now being one of my favorite songs. “Soon I’ll be 60 years old, my daddy got 61. Remember life and then your life becomes a better one…” The soothing melody fills the car. I think of my grandfather, of my dad, of my life flying past me as fast as the shrubs lining this narrowing road. I picture Papa hiking down to Skeleton Peak with me, he’d always join any adventure .He’d be proud of me going 90MPH right now, just as he was when I handled the wheel at 14 with steady hands and fearlessness. 

I don’t have many older memories with him since he started to slip from us around that time. My dad would be here too if I’d let him come. “…Soon I’ll be 60 years old, will I think the world is cold or will I have a lot of children who can warm me up?” I wonder now, as I have before, if my kids will have limited memories with their grandfather, or if my dad will teach them how to throw a ball, like he did for me. I think of late night karate sessions with my dad twisting my arms to escape an attackers grasp. “Body weight forward,” he said, “keep balanced, and elbows over fists if you’re close enough.” I’ve never fought before, but I’ll always know how. 

I see my dad gripping the fence wires behind home plate in what my mom calls his “weekend uniform"; a gray Nike tank, blue cargo, shorts and loafers. Every game he’d stand there watching, bouncing between stillness and anxious pacing. I wonder how many games he’ll catch, or if he’ll be there to bitch out coaches for benching my kids like Papa had complained to Coach Goodale. “I came here to see her play,” he said in his broken English, “and you have her here on the bench.” I don't fully remember how the conversation ended, all I know is that I was on the field the very next inning.

Pulling into Zion was like driving through “A Land Before Time.” Long patches of green lay between orange, conical shaped mountains. Goats stood awkwardly on tree branches to either side of us. Directing the car around the sharply curved cliffs was a challenge, since my eyes constantly diverted to the scenery around me. This is not real,  I thought. The gates of Zion National Park resembled those from Jurassic Park, sealing the outside world from this preserved ancient land. I honestly expected a dinosaur to pop out from behind the trees. 

We passed the main campground and Visitor’s Center. We actually passed everything, missing all directory signs due to our distractions. The campgrounds were flat even beds of grinded red rock covered by a large wooden canopy. Older couples lounged on fold out chairs, reclining after a long day’s hike. I could see my mom and dad vacationing here, foolishly decked out in wide brim safari hats and knee high hiking socks, lost and frantic to make it back before sundown. “It’s all a part of the adventure,” by dad would say laughing while my mom would curse to herself, to the trees, and to everything around her. 

I laughed to myself while Kim freaked out about not having a campsite. This would be the funniest family vacation. I thought back to our night at the monastery in Sorrento. My dad mocked the nuns and Jesus sculptures, leaving Albert and me rolling in laughter until our stomachs were sculpted and sore. My mom wanted to laugh, we could see it, but she held back in her dedication to Catholicism. This was our ongoing family dynamic; mom serious and grounding, dad testing our self control in public. Mom giving us lectures on drugs and alcohol, dad slipping us tequila shots at the New Years party throughout high school. It was a balance, and it worked. Right?

Zion’s beauty swept around me and left me with a sudden wave of clarity. Suddenly I felt light. Time formed lines down the sides of each mountain peak, breaking it into solid pieces marked by periods only known by those who’d been present.  I thought of the segments that I’d formed and broken up by years and random phases. They stood sturdy in my memories and radiated in my character, my work ethic, and my daily habits. I thought of dad, who channeled Papa’s fearless, adventurous, “in-the-moment” attitude. I channel it too; that’s what got me to Zion in the first place. Somehow, I knew, at that moment, that my kids, nieces, and nephews would have so much of my father, whether they knew it or not. I could see myself twirling around in a laced white wedding dress, laughing with my dad at our lack of rhythm. I imagined him throwing his crocs at my mischievous brats, him telling them stories of their crazy grandma and rebellious mother. I could hear him calling them bambini after juggling through a list of wrong names, and him giving them their first beer around 7 years old, just like Papa had given me.

El Campo

It’s been six months since I stood in the mud. I had been on this road hundreds of times as a child visiting my family. The town had a name, but I knew it as El Campo. It’s the deep countryside in the Dominican Republic where most of its plantains are grown, along with tobacco, coffee beans, and cocoa. I was there with my brother, parents, grandma, and uncle. I had convinced my parents to go on a vacation since it was spring break and I hadn’t seen the sun in months, or my family in years. 

We traveled down this narrow road, the same road that my cousins and I turned into a baseball field when we were little.  We stopped at several houses, first at my Tio Heriberto’s to see the new addition he’d been working on. His house was a mansion in this area, made of cement, with two floors, and several acres of prosperous land. Most of the homes were made of stacked cinder blocks and tin roofs.  They still used the earth as their foundation, the sun as light, and barrels of stored water for drinking and bathing. There was no source of heat, but then again it was mid-March and the short distance we walked already had me sweating.  

Next, we went to Tata’s house. I didn’t know her. She isn’t a relative or family friend, just a neighbor I guess. My mother walked up to Tata, who looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Mi niña,” she cried. She hugged my mom, who started to cry, too. They tried to talk, but Tata was sobbing heavily as if she’d lost a loved one. I guess she had, in a way, since she hadn’t seen my mother in twenty years. When she left, she was still swaying between adolescence and adulthood. My father had taken her away from here, returning to the U.S. with the medical degree that he came for, and with a family. When I was growing up, she’d tease me about living in the Dominican Republic, saying we were moving just to see how I’d react. I never considered that she might have wanted her old life back. Suddenly, I started to cry too. 

Our last stop was at my great aunt and uncle’s house. This is a place I remembered from several family gatherings. Joining around the fire, breathing in the smell of smoked pork and burnt wood that would stain our clothes for hours. I was seven, watching the swine rotate over the flames with my uncle’s guidance. He turned the long, wooden skewer that penetrated the pig’s mouth, awkwardly dislocating its jaw, and then piercing through its back. Slices of limes were cut to top off slabs of fresh meat that my family hastily devoured. My mother asked me if I wanted to have some. Although cut up it resembled the oregano and garlic flavored pork roast that my mother made every Christmas, I couldn’t. Not with those eyes still fixed towards whatever had last captured its attention, or with its hairs still on end, poking up through its now crispy skin.  I knew that meat food came from animals, but I had never imagined eating it off the corpse like a predator in the wild. At seven, I asked, “How did that pig swallow such a large stick?” And they’ll never let me live it down. 

My mom went into this house alone. Several of her aunts and uncles had become physically or mentally ill, so it was a better idea for us to stay outside. That didn’t matter because they all came outside anyway, barefoot and covered in mud, and bombarded her. They hugged her, kissed her, cried, and pulled her, each trying to get their own alone time in. Many of them were wearing clothes I recognized: my mother’s old dresses, my dads sweaters, my t-shirts. It reminded me of the boxes in my living room that my mom was constantly filling. I’d clean out whatever didn’t fit me every year, and this is where it ended up. 

As my mom reconnected with her family, my dad told my brother and me about each of them. One of her cousins had been born with deformities, and two were mentally disabled. Problems he associated with their poverty and lack of care. I stood in the middle of the muddy road, watching my mother through the wired fence that separated us. My mother, who was wearing jean shorts and a new Calvin Klein shirt, who wouldn’t let me leave a bathroom without washing my hands, who couldn’t go to work with her nails chipped, was home. She grew up here, on this road, with these people.

I had heard all of the stories, every parent tells them (right?)– I walked ten miles to school each way, all my clothes were hand me downs, etc. I remembered how my mother told me about the nights she went to bed hungry, and how she picked coffee beans to help her mother buy dinner. I thought of these stories all as one in the same, as if parents took a course and were directed to say that. Here I was, though, in El Campo, which was so familiar to me, watching my mother as if she were a stranger. 

There were times I thought my mother was evil, literally meant to prevent anything fun in my life. Why would she pick me up at midnight at every slumber party, or call me in before sundown on summer days? Why couldn’t another parent bring me to a concert, or to anything? It wasn’t fair. That day in March, on our long, silent car ride back to my abuela’s house in Santo Domingo, I wondered if the answers were hidden between the cinder block walls of that house, or somewhere in the fields of El Campo. Is it why, at nine, I could perfectly replicate her arroz con pollo, or why in college I would continue to do clothe drives?  

The next day, my mother, who had a bag for clothes and a bag for shoes, who wouldn’t wear the same dress to two different events, who had been strolling in the mud a day before, took us to a resort. We lay by the pool, like the other tourists, absorbing the rays from the blazing, tropical sun. Breaking the silence, my mother said, “You know, that’s where I used to go when I came here on vacation.” Feeling a flush of guilt as I thought of El Campo, I responded, “Well, we can go back if you want.” From behind her dark, round sunglasses, she scanned our area. There were groups of college students sitting in the pool with drinks in each hand. Kids ran towards the beach, followed by parents carrying buckets, shovels, and bottles of sun block.  In a soft, low, tone, she simply answered, “No, I’ve spent too much time there already.” Instead, for the next few days, we took advantage of the pool, free drinks, and buffet, uncertain if we were enjoying ourselves at all.