Nostalgia as Family

My Maternal Grandmother's House in Polvo, El Salvador.

Nostalgia has always been another member of the family. It sits with us at every meal, chomping away with its mouth open. It joins conversations without an invitation “...because it brings me back to that one time...” It comes in heavy doses around the holidays. “What year did we stop having a turkey? The same year Tia moved away.” It can infuriate me because it reminds me of the person that I was in any frozen juncture. “Remember when you were small and powerless?” it mocks in its crystal clear form. There’s no logic that my adult brain can break through that iceberg of time. “Yeah, I remember,” as I concede, forever wishing to give my younger self a sip of my adult confidence.

When I was younger, I loathed memory. It angered me to know that there were places I would never visit with people I would never meet. This quandary created an insatiable yearning for what could have been. "You really should have been there," it says in the same subtle elitism as someone who just came back from a semester of studying abroad. "It's not the same trying to explain it," ze says in a souvenir accent. My deceased uncle seemed like an charismatic personality if only his illness didn't end his life 9 years before my birth. My dead great­grandfather could have told me the story of us, the one that set on fire with all the other historical documents during the Salvadoran civil war. The innate nature of the past didn’t allow me meet them. All this knowledge out there and I'm stuck here in the 90's with all these poopy feelings and no internet/social skills to commiserate with strangers. This created in me a resentment for the past.

As adolescence raged on, I learn to take the yearning and morph it into an affinity for all things vintage. Vintage clothes and vintage sounds. Digging into the past was my way to reclaim all the things that were lost upon my generation. I was determined to make up for lost time. This also was encouraged by my impoverished childhood, repurposing vintage clothes as an aesthetic choice versus the distressing financial reality that I could not afford “cool” mass produced clothes. Those Doc Marten boots and I were never meant to be.

By that time, the world wide web began to bloom in its full dial­up beauty. My Dad brought home a found computer by the dumpster and I found the internet. Those modem sounds are forever etched into my subconscious like Mana’s “Sueños Liquidos” because my sister kept replaying it every single damn bedtime. The internet represented this anonymous network of people and places I’ll never meet, all a click away. Anything I ever wondered was within reach and I never had to remember anything again. LiveJournal blog posts carved my identity. Cryptic AIM away messages called my true form. The “cool” way to arrange my top 8 on Myspace was a mantle of who I cared about. I didn’t need memory. I had the internet. All these login accounts were my horcruxes: pieces of me scattered over the http://.

Fast forward to my early twenties when anxiety grows into a new useless organ in my body. The novelty of the internet wore off and I retreat into myself. I deactive my public accounts. I grow insecure. Fixating on the past becomes a need to confirm the present. Did I say the right thing? Am I reading nonverbal cues correctly? Retracing steps so clearly where the mind becomes blurred with imaginary reactions and a million drafts of every message ever sent. The present tense made me tense. The emotionally abusive relationship of my early 20’s was rocket fuel to this anxious combustion. Nostalgia stuck by me, for better or for worse, to remind me of who I used to be to in contrast who I wasn’t at that moment. After the nuclear holocaust of that break­up, memory served to remind me of what use to grow organically on these scorched fields. Which condiments do I like again? What used to be my favorite movie? I took back the power to make my new self, from the ashes of the old one.

Now in the infinite wisdom of 29, I embrace memory for all its faults and for reminding me of who I used to be, for who I am now. I embrace all my former version of myself like humble Salvadoran Matryoshka dolls. I am the sum of my decision­making, the product of the previous generation’s risk­taking, the difference between here and there. I listen more intently to what my older Tios have to say. I soak in every anecdote from my parents. After years of self­work, I no longer cringe at the past. I can sit all my little muñequitas peacefully. Who I am now is enough. I even lay out a table setting for nostalgia at the dinner table now. I welcome it with open arms even if it didn’t call before arriving. “Remember when you were obsessed with Gloria Trevi’s ‘Pelo Suelto? You were so cute when you danced it with messy hair” it starts. “Ay... Yes, I do. But I’m not doing the “Sopa de Caracol” dance,” I smile.

Published in Chiflada Zine, October 2015

Letter to Younger Self

Dear Younger Yeiry,

The author, Yeiry Guevara, at 10 years old.

The author, Yeiry Guevara, at 10 years old.

I’m so sorry to have disappointed you. Growing was harder than you originally thought. Knowledge did not grow on trees. Wisdom found you only after you left the party. Independence was won after an internally bloody war.

You are not where you thought you would be.
You don’t have the square corner office, Ms. Non-Manager.
You don’t have a husband or any children to call your own.
You are not the perfect daughter you once prided your identity on.
You are not the perfect friend you once pictured yourself.
You are a mediocre sister.
You don’t write anymore.

Your creative writing has gnawed its’ own tail, bored from being chained to a tree of procrastination.
Your poetry has atrophied and all your idealism has dried up like the water reserves in California.

Not all news are bleak.

Things are way better than you originally thought.
You acknowledge your flaws now.
You know how to dress for your size.
You now longer have to memorize joke books to develop a sense of humor.
You are vulnerable and you are not weak.
You’ve built your own website and it’s pretty cool.
You’ve made a bunch of stuff and you’re super proud of it.
You have opinions and are articulate enough to be assertive.
You also know so many cool words.
You are funny.

You are self-aware enough to know when you aren’t.
You are a better daughter, sister, friend than you think.
On the outside, you’re a boss; but on the inside, you’re a softie.
You can let loved ones in on your loving, squishy, cotton candy insides.
If you believe in anything, believe that it’s going to be okay.
It will get shittier than now, but it will not break you.
Believe in me.
You are unbreakable.

Eternal Love,

Yeiry

How To Clean Your Apartment With a Broken Heart

Roll up your sleeves.
Throw everything away.
Put the hurt in plastic garbage bags.
Tie it tight and shut your eyes.
No more eye tears. No more bag tears.

Be gentle with the grief as it is as fragile as dust bunnies.
Sweep it up with all the hurting memories,
you know, the ones where you’re both gushing over
the genius of Samuel R. Delany.

From those fragmented moments when
time was an illusion and
you fall asleep talking, 
staying woke AF as pillow talk to each other.

Where did all this intimacy come from?
How much dead skin cells can I possibly shed?

Cry a little
Dust a bit
Don’t lose mopping momentum

Don’t shut out the parts that ache. 

Dale tiempo al tiempo. Diosito dijo que no era para ti.

The nostalgia swims heavy in the air like the fragrant Pine-Sol bucket.
Don’t miss a spot.
Don’t call them.
There’s nothing to say like there’s nothing to make the floor dry faster.

Sit there with your feelings and wonder,
how can a place so small,
fit so many things,
very much like the four chambers of your heart.

YouTube Tutorials I Would Watch

  • How to Sew Your Own Maria la del Barrio Hat
  • How to Apply Eyeliner Like a 60’s French Girl
  • How to Use Contrazoom Shots Tastefully
  • How to Contour Your Face When Your Face Isn’t Shapely
  • How to Make Dinner for One With Dignity
  • How to Make a Succulent Garden With Practical Directions and Little Money
  • How to Be $ocial While Broke
  • How to Sleep Without a Bed
  • How to Wear Pigtails As a Grown-ass Woman

Paths of Life // Caminos de la Vida


 

Tomamos los primero pasos juntos pero la ley de la vida los dio diferente caminos para seguir. Alguna veces nuestro caminos cruzaban y mucha de la vez torcían. Pero antes de irte, no te olvides de despedirte de mí. 

 

We took our first steps together but life gave us two different paths to take. Sometimes our paths crossed but most of the time they twisted. But before you go, don’t forget to say goodbye to me.

 

Commodification of My Idols

I'm getting nauseas by the commodification of my idols. It's as if white people are just noticing how "cute" we are. How our latin@ culture is just "darling". They make products from our images but refuse to maintain eye contact during a conversation. They are profiting a dollar from the art while refusing to acknowledge me and my educated peers as anything beyond "the help".

I don't need a Selena lapel pin.

I really don't need a punk rock envisioning of what Frida Kahlo may look like if she had tattoos.

These women are not yours to own.

The works they creation from their pain is not yours. Our hearts were broken alongside theirs and please stop making them what they are not: products for your Etsy shop, Halloween dress for your baby, or theme for a dance party.

My culture is not a costume.

Cemeteries // Cementerios

Los cementerios me traen una gran paz. No hay chingadera de ruido. No se hablan pendejadas. Solo hay un silencio respetoso que tomó años de formar. Lees de gente que nunca conocistes cuyo sol se había atardecido antes de hoy. Pisando entre los difun…

Los cementerios me traen una gran paz. No hay chingadera de ruido. No se hablan pendejadas. Solo hay un silencio respetoso que tomó años de formar. Lees de gente que nunca conocistes cuyo sol se había atardecido antes de hoy. Pisando entre los difuntos despierta un alto sentido de conocimento con cada paso que tomas; te recuerda de adónde estas, de lo qué eres en este momento. Viva. 


Cemeteries bring me a great sense of peace. There’s no bullshit noise. There’s no shitty small talk. There’s only a respectful silence that tooks years to create. You read about people you never met whose sun had set some time before today. Walking through the deceased awakens the hyperconsciousness with each step taken; reminds you of where you are, of what you are in this moment. Alive.

Tia's Heart // El Corazón de mi Tia

De las miles de veces que fue roto el corazón de mi Tia, incluyendo la operación de marcapasos que tuvo, no se si hay una que se compara con la perdida de sus padres y hermano. No existe otro rollo en este mundo tal como los quien te dieron luz, qui…

De las miles de veces que fue roto el corazón de mi Tia, incluyendo la operación de marcapasos que tuvo, no se si hay una que se compara con la perdida de sus padres y hermano. No existe otro rollo en este mundo tal como los quien te dieron luz, quien te ensenaron de temprana edad lo correcto en esta vida y la sabiduría de lo cotidiano. Ella los tiene tan presente en esta vida que ni la muerte se  puede interponerse a cada oración dedicada a ellos.


Of the thousand times my Aunt’s heart has been ripped open, including her pacemaker surgery, I don’t know if any of those instances compare with the loss of her parents and brother. The role of the people who brought you into this life, taught you right from wrong at an early age and imparted the wisdom of daily life does not exist in any other capacity. She has them so present in this life that not even Death itself can to intervene between each prayer dedicated to them.

Rafa

Empezó a fumar a los 13 años. Por esa edad, ya vivía mas en la calle que en la casa. Por igual partes de pura necesidad y ganas de vagar. Hizó su vida rebuscándose en lo que podía. Cambió la vida de cienes de personas sin tener un título. La verdad …

Empezó a fumar a los 13 años. Por esa edad, ya vivía mas en la calle que en la casa. Por igual partes de pura necesidad y ganas de vagar. Hizó su vida rebuscándose en lo que podía. Cambió la vida de cienes de personas sin tener un título. La verdad es que nadie se olvida de él, ni el tiempo.


He started smoking when he was 13 years old. By that age, he lived more on the streets than at home. By equal parts of necessity and wanderlust. He made his life rummaging in what he could. He transformed hundreds of lives without even so having a degree. The truth is that no one has forgotten about him, not even time itself.

Grandmother // Abuela

La mente de mi abuelita se le hizo humo después del fallecimiento de mi abuelo, su pareja de 67 años y su único amor. Ella  se cazó a los 16 años. Él era mayor 6 años. Engendraron siete hijos y 2 nacido muertos. La pareja vivieron y murieron en la m…

La mente de mi abuelita se le hizo humo después del fallecimiento de mi abuelo, su pareja de 67 años y su único amor. Ella se cazó a los 16 años. Él era mayor 6 años. Engendraron siete hijos y 2 nacido muertos. La pareja vivieron y murieron en la misma casa. Él era del color de frijol. Ella era del color de arroz. Juntos, hacían el perfecto casamiento. Por alguna veces era medio cocido. Mayor parte del tiempo, sustentaba el hogar.


My grandmother’s mind turned to smoke after the passing of my grandfather, her partner of 67 years and her one true love. She married at 16 years of age. He was 6 years older. Together they produced seven children and two stillborns. The couple lived and died in the same house. He was the color of a pinto bean. She was the color of rice. Together they created the perfect casamiento. Sometimes it was overcooked. Most of the time, it nourished the household.

Photos and Memories // Fotos y Recuerdos

Cada hogar en este pulgarcito de este país tiene una pared cómo ésta. Fotos de los hijos grandes, nietos lejanos, padres fallecidos, títulos de bachillerato y retratos formales estremece la paredes como una muralla de familia. “Estas son la gente qu…

Cada hogar en este pulgarcito de este país tiene una pared cómo ésta. Fotos de los hijos grandes, nietos lejanos, padres fallecidos, títulos de bachillerato y retratos formales estremece la paredes como una muralla de familia. “Estas son la gente que hemos querido. Estos son nuestra familia,” declaran los cuadros juntos.


Every home in this pulgarcito of a country has a wall like this one. Pictures of grown children, distant grandchildren, deceased parents, high school degrees, and formal portraits scatter the plaster as a family mural. “These are the people we have loved. This is our family,” the frames proclaim in unison.

Through You // Dentro de Ti

Entraron y salieron muchos por esta puerta rodeada de adobe y tierra. Muchos regresaron. Algunos se fueron de ésta vida por siempre. Pero aquí sigue la casa, de tierra y hueso, con el único dueño siendo la memoria.Many walked in and out of these doo…

Entraron y salieron muchos por esta puerta rodeada de adobe y tierra. Muchos regresaron. Algunos se fueron de ésta vida por siempre. Pero aquí sigue la casa, de tierra y hueso, con el único dueño siendo la memoria.


Many walked in and out of these doors, surrounded by adobe and dirt. Many returned. Few left this life forever. But the house remains, of dirt and bone, with the only owner being the memory.

Buried in El Polvo // Enterrado en El Polvo

“Debajo del ese árbol, está enterrado el ombligo de tu madre,” me cuenta mi Tío José. El tejido que le dio vida a la persona que me dio vida está protegido por este palo. A saber que otros tesoros están enterrados en esta tierra. “…

“Debajo del ese árbol, está enterrado el ombligo de tu madre,” me cuenta mi Tío José. El tejido que le dio vida a la persona que me dio vida está protegido por este palo. A saber que otros tesoros están enterrados en esta tierra. 


“Under that tree, your mother’s umbilical cord is buried,” my Tío José tells me. The organ tissues that gave life to the person who gave me life is protected by this tree. Who knows what other treasures are buried in this land.

House Romano // Casa Romano

Está es la casa de mi abuela materna. Aquí es adonde la matriarca de mi familia dio luz a las leyendas de mi familia. Ésta casa vio sobre 14 nacimientos en vivos, algunos nacido muerto, y niños adoptados sin fin. Todos comieron, durmieron y realizar…

Está es la casa de mi abuela materna. Aquí es adonde la matriarca de mi familia dio luz a las leyendas de mi familia. Ésta casa vio sobre 14 nacimientos en vivos, algunos nacido muerto, y niños adoptados sin fin. Todos comieron, durmieron y realizaron sus destinos desde estos pisos de tierra. 


This is my maternal grandmother’s house. This is where the matriarch of my family birthed the legends of my family. This house saw over 14 live births, few stillborns and countless of adopted children. Everyone ate, slept and fulfilled their chosen destiny from these dirt floors.