I Make Myself

I am not your perfect Mexican daughter

--

I wouldn't necessarily use the word perfect. 

But I can definitely say that being a daughter who would not bring shame to the family was one of my top priorities growing up. 

By shame I mean not complying to a mix of religious and conservative society standards. 

In the meantime I gave up the possibility of having an open and authentic relationship with my parents. Especially my mom. 

To say "I am not your perfect Mexican daughter" hit a cord would be an understatement.  

Julia, the main character navigates a family dynamic that constricts, their expectations feel restraining. 

She deals with it the way I dealt with it, by writing.

A path that finally leads her to herself. 

Part of the magic of reading is that the borders of our differences are blurred out.  I forgot Julia's family was Mexican and mine is Salvadorean, how she was born here in the U.S.A and I was not and the fact she is fictional while I am not. I stayed with the character until the end. When I finished the book I was left with the impression of having read a thriller novel. 

Growing up I tried to live in a safe middle ground, a place of trying to be myself while not disappointing others. It has been a painful process to peel myself off the expectations of loved ones, sorting out what does not feel true to myself. That is what I value most from this book, the way it shares that pain. It is the book I would have loved to read as a teenager. Even now as an adult, it makes me feel seen and also brave. 

It highlights the importance of telling our stories. As latinas and as women. Using our voices disrupts the culture of silence. 

Julia and I may share a few things in common but my favorite one is that we both judge books by its cover. This one in particular was love at first sight with a title that is illicitly perfect.

 

 

 

My love affair

A bookstore is one of my favourite places on earth.

I would lo-ho-hove to say it was the library but libraries here, you see, are scarce.

I was born in El Salvador and on top of that I received a religious education. I grew up...isolated. "The library" for me was a tiny room at the end of the hall at school. No chairs just half-emptied shelves holding a few classics, a dozen New Testaments and gospel pamphlets in bulk.

The one rule: books were not allowed to leave.

So the bookstore it was. 

Unlike that nothingroom at the end of the hall at the bookstore I could find entire walls, top-to-bottom-filled halls of books.

Mazes of halls with walls of books.

Books!

Book heaven, hallelujah! It was every little girls' dream come true (because this is what other girls referred to as castles, right?)

My parents are not readers themselves so my love for books is not a hereditary condition. They are both doing fine and not seeking professional help at the moment.

How or why I made my way into a bookstore is still a mystery. My bet is on my grandfather though.

Anyways I'm telling ya', this place had it all! I'm talking categories and even a couch that seemed comfy and inviting although I swear I never saw anybody sitting on it.

My personal theory is that Salvadorians are profoundly conditioned by the "mayugar" fear. 

"Si no compra no mayugue" is the Salvadorian equivalent of  "if you brake you pay". 

This sentence is a reproach you get as a potential costumer when -within a trading context- you make any energetic shift or body gesture that may imply your potential desire of asking the price of a certain product in order to consider buying it.  Gestures such as but not exclusive to 'eye contact'. Anything that can be interpreted as a manifestation of interest by a sales person. 

Trust me "mayugar" is not something you want to do, it is something you should be afraid of. A disgrace of some sort.

This is why I think no one liked to use the couch because no one wanted to be perceived as that person who came and flipped through the books but never bought anything. (I understand decorum is something that dates back to Colonial time)

I was in High School and I used to ask to be taken to the bookstore after school. I -the rebellious teenager that I was- sat on the floor where I would spend the afternoon flipping through pages, half intrigued and half amazed at the twitches in my stomach. Something I had only read of when being used to describe the symptoms of being in love. 

Never underestimate the power of the Babysitter Club. Those books were the founding pillars of what later expanded to become my small but cherished collection. I demanded a bookshelf, inside my room please. A bookshelf to hold the books I was allowed and could afford to buy.  Each of them becoming my roommates. The best-friend kind.

And I'm talking friend in the pre "bff" era. Back in the day not everyone was your "best friend forever". That was like marriage. Something you wouldn't commit to lightly. It was a pact.

That is exactly what my book collection started to shape into. A mature, consensual relationship of mutual respect where no book would be left behind. Someday I'll tell the stories of the multiple times I've had to pay over weight penalties because my luggage was too heavy from traveling with my books and maybe one day I'll talk about the time I carried two 60lbs luggage cases from Charles de Gaulle to Montparnasse and from Montparnasse to Gard du Nord  all while taking the metro. Don't you just love Paris? I didn't have to take a single taxi, not once! I did lose one of the handles and one of the cases lost its shape.

It was not until I lived in France and then Spain that I learned how to use a public library and it was while living in Madrid that I got to enjoy living two blocks away from one.

On Saturday mornings Heinz and I would wake up without setting the alarm. We had found the one place where we could get decent coffee (good coffee was a struggle) and empanadas. This place was owned by a guy from Argentina. That meant alfajores for dessert.

Breakfast then the library. I could take out three books at a time, no questions asked. I was given a return date and was entrusted with the goodies. A fix to satisfy my book addiction that complied with my living-with-minimum-posessions pledge.

Now that I'm back in El Salvador I don't miss the library in terms of access. I still, even if it's because I buy them, read a good amount of books. What I can say is that I miss having books as basic commodity. Free access to books is currently unimaginable. 

Such are the disillusions of a love affair. There may be love but it's hardly ever fair.

I daydream of bookshelves. 

The only reason I want to own a big house is for the high bolted ceilings, ceilings  that will hold my sky-high bookshelves.

And one of those little ladders.

To all of you book lovers, word-devouer bookworms reading three or more books at a time, carrying the weight of hard-cover books on your back, I will confess that I've done it too...

I too bought an an e-reader! I too filled it with e-books, divided them into categories only to end up traveling with both books and my Kindle.

There's no shame my friends but there's also no way out. You can't tame the curiosity in you...and why would you?

Support the reader, feed the seeker.

It doesn't matter what format they come in, it is always wise to surround yourself with a good support system.

Don't listen to what everyone else says, you do need more books! Humberto Ecco says so.

There will always be more space.

It is also wise to find a space for you too, somewhere you can pour your own thoughts. Whether it's in the arms of an understanding partner or the quiet pages of a journal. Speak up your mind. Your words are just as meaningful as the ones you read and they deserve to be written, spoken and shared.

I'm signing out giving a final shout out to the The Babysitter Club. You got a few of us hooked to the good stuff. Sitters, you did a pretty good job. You did a fine job.

 

Book Update

I mean...in terms of the "update" part I can report that I am still, just like I have been for the past 20-something years, the slowest reader ever.

I can't keep up with everything I want to read and all my books keep piling up and my wish-list on Amazon is a never ending queue.

The picture at the end shows what was supposed to be my reading material for January. February has started and I'm not even half way done with the first two on the list:

1. Guns, germs and steel and 2. Pride and Prejudice.

Long story short I received a somewhat mediocre education. Growing up in El Salvador can be limiting. The education you get is as good as the one you can afford and my parents couldn't afford something different than what I got.

Mostly I feel like I need to catch up on so.many.things! I'm talking basic Geography and History. It wasn't until recently that I learned the whole Cro-magnon, Neanderthal and Homo sapiens thing.  I do take my reading very seriously because it's been the only way of educating myself on what I wasn't taught in High School. Getting to learn some side things like spells and how Amy Poehler got into Saturday Night Live are, of course, perks that come with the job. 

I don't find that there's something wrong with being a slow reader it's my ambition to know everything what drives me crazy.

The more I seem to think I know, the more I realize I know nothing and that keeps me wanting to learn even more.

I want to know how people think. What can make someone laugh or cry. I want to know who Jane Austen was and why some people claim she was so witty. I want to know why some countries are more industrialised than others. How Lena Dunham became a writer. Why Cheryl Strayed walked the Pacific Crest Trail. I want to understand what the Odyssey is! What a myth is. How time works. Who Arjuna Is.

Questions are my thing. What spells are to Harry, what jokes are to Amy...that's what questions are to me. I realized one day that my Questions were my Quests. 

People have asked me if I question e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Although it may seem like the opposite the answer is actually, no. I don't think I question everything I'm just...QUESTing.

I'm questing. I'm wandering through life, each quest(ion) at a time. No destination in mind. Like a lost city girl walking in nature, being amazed by the harmless wilderness she once thought would be scary.

Questing won't get you lost. It will take you to the most extraordinary places on this earth and beyond.

Wandering won't get you lost and I didn't come up with that, Tolkien did. So, there.

Question, quest, wander and be amazed...one step at a time, one page at a time.

Eventually I'll get through this pile.

 

 

Too little, too much

Maybe I should confess that a lot of times I get the impression that I don't quite fit in.

I'm too liberal to be considered a Christian. I'd like to think that I am Christian but not a religious person. 

A yogi that's not into the yoga world. I mean, I'm not even vegetarian. 

A runner that doesn't run too often. A wanderer that likes stillness.

Bits from here and there that some may call an inability to decide but I like to call it labeless.

A labeless approach that can cause endless and -for some- irritating discussions. 

What is yoga? What is right? What is a real? I can argue all sides. I try to censor myself and refrain from these type of discussions though, I think no one wins in these type of arguments. They are, most of the time, a platform to showcase a series of I'm-smarter-than-you condescending statements.

I annoy the hell out of  Heinz by saying everything is debatable. One of his famous quotes is "Ruth not EVERYTHING is relative"  (Oh yes, he did call me by my first name).  I guess this is his way of saying that I may need to pick a side on certain things.

I refuse.

Why should I choose between this or that? Even worst when did concepts become a package of pre-combined ideas? Why the all-or-nothing imposition? 

What's wrong with being a mélange, embracing and creating our own version of things. What's  wrong with being a little geeky with a hint of goofiness, a careless soul with an addiction to taking things way too seriously. A seeker of spiritual practices but promoter of non-religious ways.

It's like that with cable companies. Why do I have to buy the whole package when the only thing I want is Internet service? I don't want a telephone line. I don't want cable. I want just one thing. I don't care if its cheaper,  let me choose!

Now, do I have to use labels to make it easier for others to interpret?

Nah, not interested.

It's certainly not easy -this labeless path- but things are not black and white, at least for me they aren't. Life is made of layers and shapes and depth and why make it boring and uninteresting by simplifying things to a mere label, a generalization or even worst a judgment.

This is the reason why I've always turned myself to  books. Together we don't fight but build concepts, we don't destroy but create realities.

I've spent countless hours reading through travels, adventures, love and loss stories thinking it was to give my mind a break from over thinking day to day trivialities like why is the world  such  an evil place.

But it was in this pages that I found the exact words that could describe my feelings, my thoughts and my discomfort. Beautiful words that I would narrate to myself through quiet nights and noiseless pages. No arguments, no discussions just silent but loudly written words.

This is where I feel most comfortable, amongst covers. Hard-cover books that are too heavy to carry but too addictive to leave at home. Too uncomfortable to hold but too good to put down.

I mean pocket books are ok too.

Stories that show you that weather it is through a vengeance scheme or a wizardry spell, books are the place where you can make your worries simply evanesco!

I love being my own narrator both in the books I read but mostly in the life I live.

This is an homage to those I call MY books. They have been with me during insomnia-filled nights where the impossible was achieved: holding a book in my hands while staying comfortable on my bed.

This is a list of not my favorite books because God forbid I commit that literary genocide, but a list of books that I've re-read or  wouldn't mind re-reading. 

As you will see just as life, just as me these too are labeless creations that can't and must not be framed in one simple category.

 

//LE PETIT PRINCE, Antoine de Saint Exupery

A children's book for adults. Every time I read it I discover something new.

 

//80 DAYS AROUND THE WORLD, Jules Verne

The story of an adventureless world wanderer.

 

//COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, Alexandre Dumas

An example of how the good always wins by letting evil win.

 

//HARRY POTTER, J.K. Rowling

An unrecognized piece of classic literature. 

 

//HYGIÈNE DE L'ASSASIN, Amelie Nothomb.

A beautifully written gross book.

 

//SIDDHARTHA, Hermann Hess

A non-secular religious book ;)

 

//THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, John Green

Young adult adult young novel.

 

//ANYTHING WRITTEN BY JUNOT DIAZ.

What Junot writes is the outcome of a Dominican turned New Yorker turned Dominican in New York.

The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao

I also found this book in a second-hand book sale. After looking thoroughly I was ready to give up...

Ok, maybe I need to elaborate more on this.

There is this second-hand EVERYTHING store I normally go to (normally as in once a week).

I find it soothes my soul to go treasure hunting. I've bought old liquor bottles, furniture, plates, pots and well even clothes. But they never had books. Until one day...there were tons. As if I needed one more excuse to keep going now they sold books, normally at 2$ sometimes at .50 cents.

Since I got my Kindle I've been reading on my electronic BFF but I do miss -oh how I miss- flipping a page and going back and forth and folding the corners and the smell...that smell of yellow pages and dusty words. It is my go-to-place.

End of the elaboration part.

I was ready to give up on the search. That day in particular I hadn't found anything worth spending .50 cents on but as I was searching the last pile I found Junot.

Junot! I'll dare to say that I don't think his books are available here. Well, in the two bookstores we have in this country that is and also, how many copies of Twilight and the Hunger Games does one country need!

I'd heard about Junot and his Pulitzer Price which of course is something that always makes heads turn. I saw him on an interview on "Página 2" (only my second favorite TV-show ever....right after Here Comes Honey boo boo). This Spanish TV show is exclusively and totally about books. And books turned into movies. So some movies too.

This and "Días de Cine" are the only two Spanish shows that we keep watching after we moved back to El Salvador.

So back to Junot. I saw him on an interview and he seemed pretty nice. Which is always a plus when it comes to writers. He made it to my Kindle wishlist but there.are.so.many.titles on my waiting list that it would have been a while before I read one of his books.

But life and its magical ways gave me POSER and then Junot through The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

How I've loved and laughed with him. The book is about a Dominican family and the story, just as the family, goes back and forth between New York and the Dominican Republic.

If I would have to describe the book in two words I would say it was: freaking awesome! that's what I would say.

From the very start he manages to give each of the characters their own voice. I could hear each of them out loud. Oscar, Lola, Beli, La Inca.

Oscar speaks slowly, his voice is deep and he thinks way more than what he says.

Lola, she has a dry voice and sharp and proud tone.

Beli...I'm just scared of her.

La Inca has a wise, old and slow voice.

It took me a lot of chapters to figure out it was Junior the one who was narrating the story.

Junior makes me think of Junot but I can't dare say there is any real life resemblance between the two.

As I read, one question kept popping into my head: how will a non-spanish-speaking reader read it?

The book has sooooo many words in Spanish and they make so much sense. They're not uber complicated words and they are sporadic -think spanglish- but they're crucial! So this is an official shout out for help. Will anyone out there discuss this with me? Anyone? Junot?

The book is simply exquisite. I had never read anything like it and this goes for both the story and the story telling.

The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz was not a brief read but it was definitely wondrous.

 

(Links are affiliate, opinions are my own.)

Letting things find their way

Poser

The book with the soul of a blog.

POSER is the kind of book I would expect from a blogger but this is not the case. Claire is not a blogger, she's a hard core writer but her book only leaves you with the desire to keep peeking into her world, her journey. I really wish she had a blog!

I found this book in a second hand book sale. I inmediatly thought it was destiny. There I was taking my time reading each of the tittles each of them piled up in a mountain of hidden treasures. It read POSER. I reached for it, read the back and knew I was meant to read this book. The book is even hard cover! HARD COVER! that is the greatest form of book. Not traveler friendly, not couch friendly. They are the real deal.

Claire tells her yoga journey through a series of life changes or the other way around. You can't really tell.

I mean you can but the story is so well thread together that you can't tell one from the other.

She's funny but most of all she's honest and that my friends, that, I'll buy that anytime.

I can see people saying that some stories are forced into fitting a certain yoga pose but maybe its because I've felt it. I have felt something make sense without even knowing how I connected the dots. That's why I get it. It doesn't have to be linear or logical, yoga and its consequential offsprings are yours and yours only.

The book is her journey, her life, her story of how she tackled yoga and its consequences.

I loved Poser. It's a funny yoga read without being pretencious.

If you don't take yourself too seriously give this book a try.

Here is the Amazon kindle link if you want to download a sample.

Next Up: Junot Diaz <3 ...also a second hand treasure.

1Q84

by Haruki Murakami. 

  

I'm on Vine now.

For me books are a treasure and I used to compulsively buy them until I decided I would only buy a new book after I was done reading whatever I was currently reading. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that while growing up I didn't have access to a public library and my school's library was, well, nonexistent. 

Books, or good books, are a rare item here in El Salvador. You can get your hands on classic novels and trendy stuff (Twilight and blah) but everything in-between is literature delicacy.

When I moved to France I took all of my books with me. It was pretty much the dumbest idea ever. My luggage was so heavy I couldn't go up or down any stairway and -long story short- when I had to move again I donated a lot of books to the school's library where I worked. If you are ever Bretagne there's a little town called Lannion which now holds a great collection of spanish literature :)

I moved to Madrid with only my favorite books under my arms and while I lived there I knew I couldn't keep adding books to my collection. That is when I discovered the joy of what access to a public library was. It's no joke when I say that Heinz and I used to go every weekend to pick up new books and movies. Our Saturday routine was to wake up, go to a local coffee shop to have breakfast (one of the few places with decent coffee in Madrid) and then head to the public library which was a couple of blocks away from our apartment...argh Chamberí sometimes I miss you.

Their movie collection was outstanding! But of course I focused on books. Floors and floors of books. During that time I discovered one of my favorite writers Amelie Nothomb, I also met Herman Hesse and Milan Kundera and I re-read other spanish authors I had read before.

Then, we had to move again. I still have books in Spain you know. They were still too many to bring with me to El Salvador -again- so some of them are safely stored at my in-law's house...for now. 

When I went to Madrid last year to run my first marathon one of the first things I did was to slowly drag myself -post-marathon-walking- to one of my favorite bookstore to stock up on reading material. I never learn my lesson I know.

Heinz warned me about traveling with too many books and he was right, so I had to be very selective in what I bought. I only got four books and one of them was "What I talk about when I talk about running" by Haruki Murakami.

Murakami is a Japanese writer known for his novels Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the shore -to name two-. I had never read something by him before buy I had definitely heard about him so I decided to start by reading his running-related book.

This book is something of a journal and I cannot recommend it enough to those of you who love to run and read or just run or just read. I loved how unpretentious he was about his running and how honest he was about what he thinks is the formula to become a good writer.

After I finished reading his book I knew I wanted to continue reading his novels. That is when Heinz got me 1Q84 as a present.

Somehow he thought it would be a good idea to bring a 936-page book as a traveling book...even after all we've been through.

Nonetheless I was excited when he gave it to me in Costa Rica as a Yoga Teacher Training graduation present.

I started reading the book in early December so it took me 4 months with a one-week-reading-only vacation included to finish it. If you want to know what I think just click and continue reading.

Lately

Sometimes it seems (to me) like I eat, breath and dream about yoga.

Yes,  I am in love with the practice but I am even more in love with everything else that blossoms from it.

So naturally yoga is all I want to talk about..lately.

But not today. 

Today I want to talk about everything else that has been going on...besides yoga.

  

1) My Kindle, 2) the Salvadorean version of a Happy Hour, 3) family breakfast, 4) late-night date, 5) new high chairs, 6) new old wooden table.

 
I particularly want to talk about my new BFF:  my Kindle paperwhite.

I was one of those books lovers that refused to make the e-reader jump. How could I trade the flipping-through-pages experience for a scrolling down device right? Well I did and I love it.

I am reading a whole lot more now. It's more practical and like I've said before, now I have access to many books I couldn't read before. 

The first book I read was The Great Gatsby and now that I've read it I can't wait to watch the movie! Normally I am not that crazy about books turned into movies. There are just a few that I believe are narrated better in moving images than in words.

I get it, a great book is supposed to make a great movie, but I find that is rarely the case. Some recent examples are Life of Pi, the Millennium trilogy and some of the Harry Potter films.

And I have a strong opinion about this subject because I believe turning great books into movies is a way to feed a make-it-larger-than-life mentality: make it bigger, shinier, sparkly...and now blow it up and make it 3D!. Well, books may not be that visually appealing but they can be an amazing experience. Everything you see in a movie still happens when you read a book, it all happens with the help of your imagination.

Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with making the movie, my main problem is substituting one for the other. 

But I will stop here because I could go on and on about this movies and books thing.

Anyhow, my expectations for the Great Gatsby movie are really high. I love.love.love Baz Lurhmann. I love his movies except Australia. I think Moulin Rouge is one of my favorite movies. I know every song, every line and cry every time I watch it.

The Gatsby story is not that long so I don't think he'll be cutting out parts from the book. He didn't in Romeo & Juliet...another reason why I love him.

He did Romeo and Juliet (Leo Dicaprio and Claire Danes) and I loved how he used the original written language. But that may just be me and a handful of reading geeks, I know of people who couldn't stand the use of  the "thee" pronoun throughout the movie.

This was my first time reading Fitzgerald. Now, I may read particularly slow  but this book made me read s-l-o-w-e-r. English is my second language and I may be fluent but this book had a lot of new words for me. Luckily the Kindle comes with a dictionary and whenever I found a word I didn't know I just tapped it and it immediately gave me its definition.

The other books I am currently reading are: The autobiography of a Yogi, Daring Greatly, The case for God and (still) 1Q84. 

Disclaimer: This post was not, in any way, sponsored by Amazon and/or Baz Lurhmann. Although I wish they would send me books or movies to review this post comes from my experience with a Kindle my husband got me as a Christmas gift. 

Tell me..what is currently on your reading list?