30 nov 2017

Si ahora mismo saliera corriendo aún llegaba a la clase de Zumba Fitness. No. Abro Mad Woman in The Attic y me encuentro con Anne Sexton justo de pensar en lo que hago con mi tesina sobre Ann Radcliffe. Cuando escribo de Radcliffe escribo sobre qué le paso a las mujeres. Porque en las dos antologías de poesía que llevé en la carrera todos los editores eran hombres (¿había poetisas?), por que en cuatro años de carrera sólo leímos a seis mujeres: Woolf, Emily y Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Christina Rosetti (sólo el poema Remember me, para una tarea) y a Jean Rhys. Y bueno, Eliot quedó fuera del programa porque "no daba tiempo" y porque, finalmente, parecería que las mujeres no existimos en la historia. El canon occidental de Bloom, es un canon masculino "de padres contra hijos"... but as a woman you feel motherless. En fin. Regresando a Sexton: a los 19 se casó y fue madre. La depresión post-parto le pudo y casi se suicida. Después la poesía la salva y escribe sobre la experiencia femenina:

and this is no dream
just my oily life
where the people are alibis
and the street is unfindable for an
entire lifetime.

La calle que no puede encontrar es Mercy Street. Is there mercy for women? Bueno. Cuando leo a Sexton pienso en mi. Ella estaba enojada pero también confundida y  no pretendía mas que confesar esos sentimientos, qué se sentía ser mujer y que nadie te escuchara. Personalmente no me encanta Sexton como poeta, así como no me gusta Bukowski ni nadie que escriba párrafos, quiebre sus lineas, las agrupe en estrofas y decida llamarlas "poesía" --pero como alguien que se confiesa y habla de lo cotidiano, de las calles y la desesperación, sí.

Ahora: Do women talk back to men? Ese hombre/voz masculina que dicta como es una mujer: o Blanca Nieves o Reina Malvada. Le dice: no, espérate...yo no soy como tu dices que soy...yo soy más, tanto que nunca me entenderías del todo. Y por eso la mujer se vuelve "otredad". Anyways, divago. Mejor leo a Gilbert y Gubar y releo el italiano. He decido: en dos semanas volver a escribir de él. Udolpho puede esperar a las vacaciones navideñas junto a Simone de Beauvoir. Eloisa: no pienses en la tesis solo piensa en que otras cosas dice El Italiano, la respuesta de Ann a Matthew.

27 nov 2017

Qué hice cuando estaba en Amsterdam


  1. Me gasté 60,000 mil pesos porque en euros parecía menos
  2. Tomé buses a Francia y Bruselas
  3. Desayuné huevos estrellados con jamón y una tostada por primera vez en cinco meses y me supo a gloria
  4. Me acordaba de qué lloré en un tren de Liaocheng a Beijing
  5. Me acordaba de Angie y de Liaocheng
  6. Me deprimí porque el cielo Holandés era muy gris y en China hacía calor
  7. Llovía mucho. Eso me gustó. 
  8. Hice amigos de muchas partes del mundo.
  9. Canté Despacito.
  10. Canté en italiano.
  11. Viaje a Rotterdam con Gamily
  12. Escuché secretos.
  13. Miré muchas obras de arte. 
  14. Pasé mucho tiempo en museos.
  15. Escribí dos ensayos sobre Franz Hals y sobre otro Holandés que no recuerdo el nombre.
  16. Pagué los lattes más caros de mi vida.
  17. Disfruté las calles y los canales Holandeses.
  18. Pensaba en China.
  19. Pensaba mucho en China.
  20. Lloraba.
  21. Dormía.
  22. Amanecía muy cruda.
  23. Estaba cansada de hablar en inglés.
  24. Escuchaba Kpop en mi cuarto
  25. Disfrutaba de la University of Utrecht y sus hermosos salones y sus residencias
  26. Salía al SPAR a comprar provisiones porque siempre tenía hambre (¿tal vez era por la marihuana?
  27. Bailaba con los chicos de Morocco
  28. Me saltaba clases
  29. Fui a la feria
  30. Esperé trenes a media noche.
  31. Leía a Ann Radcliffe.
  32. La vida era divertida.
  33. Quería mucho a todos.

20 nov 2017

Suchmos – PINKVIBES


"Pink Vibes I feel like be there" I also feel like being there. No sé como encontré esta canción, pero cuando la escucho, ay de mi, casi me pongo a llorar. Dicen que la música es un lenguaje universal, yo digo que nosotros somos un público "afectado" y que afección es la causa de que algo nos guste o no, en parte. Solo en parte. Pero bueno. No sé muy bien cuál era la intención de Suchmos con esta melodía, pero que pieza, en serio. Tiene una mezcla de carelessness, de jazz y de Eiigo que remontan a mi corazón a los felices días asiáticos.
Llegue a Tokyo con ojeras, cansancio, la espalda rota después de cuatro meses durmiendo en un futón de mala muerte en Beijing y toda la felicidad del mundo. Después de Londres, nunca había estado tan ansiosa de conocer un lugar. La vida después de Tokyo se me hizo poca cosa. Estuve cinco días ahí y fue suficiente para:

  1. recibir la sonrisa más linda del mundo
  2. platicar con un chaval ruso 
  3. conocer a Jamie y a Alex de Nueva Zelanda y tomar sake felizmente con Kazumoto, nuestro guía
  4. entrar en el paraíso de Rilakkuma
  5. enamorarme de Motohiro, un cantante que toca por las calles de Tokyo y notarme en su público nipón as I was the only foreigner there. Una sonrisa --no la más linda del mundo, pero linda--y un arigato especialmente dirijido a mi ¡Ay que emoción!
  6. Un regalo de la tienda de Hello Kitty
  7. Todo un día en Akihabara entre merch de Yuri!! On Ice
Por mencionar lo más notable. Mientras caminaba en Tokyo pensé..."vivir aquí...que esto se vuelva mi día a día...que difícil sería pero...me gustaría" Y esto claro, a sabiendas del estilo de vida mandarín, donde la cosa no era sencilla. Así, cinco días más tarde, me despedí de Japón, de un Tokyo futurista y sus rascacielos de colores y volví a la gris y roja China.
En fin, pero esos son sólo recuerdos ya... ahora, al escuchar a Suchmos recuerdo mis caminatas por Shibuya, Harajuko y Ginza. Su sonido encierra ese misterio del estilo de vida en grandes ciudades ¿Si no te vas por una gran aventura entonces por qué te vas? Pink Vibes...que desprenden esos rascacielos, y los cielos japoneses en un buen día. Sigo pensando en japón, el konbini, cenar manzana y cervezas en la terraza que daba al Ueno Park, en no querer entrar al hostel, ni irme, seguir por siempre caminado hasta perderme y encontrarme... con un perrito, con Motohiro o con el chico ruso que se puso a platicar conmigo en ese lugar tan extraño para cualquiera que no es japonés.
Quiero volver, aunque la vida no sea un sueño. Pasan los días and I just think, pink vibes I wanna be there...



13 nov 2017

I'm jealous,I'm happy, I'm nostalgic and what not.

"I want to keep going with my chinese lessons" I tell my brother. I tell him that more often than not, so often that I slap myself casually after saying that trying to remind myself "shut up, no one cares about China!" He just nods or laughs. It is crazy to think life was happening there. It was more than 13,000 km away from home and as the days pass I just think "I would never change that decision".
It is not that living there was easy, it hardly was, I'm not totally sure why I liked it there. I try to think about it as I hear the typical mexican sound of the man who comes selling hot sweet potatoes --it is like a flute, a very annoying one -- and I drink my coffee. I'm in my room. It is a peaceful morning, I see through my windows the buildings, the imperfect blue sky... a view nearly impossible in the often grayish Beijing. The sun too, here it is warm and friendly, there it was too hot and it burnt bad. As a side note, it is 11th November and the weather is still perfect while I know in Beijing it starts to freeze. Anyways, my heart longs. "Why I liked China?" I ask again... well... Maybe because of the feeling of adventure. Now, every time I talk to someone, even a driver or a cashier, I appreciate it so much --- finally speaking spanish, my dear and beloved language, and the best one. But then I think "I sure miss asking for 're cha' in the boba tea store outside my University". I also miss the faces of China. People with daring fashion styles, haircuts many Mexicans would be afraid to try, feminine girls, adventurous boys and of course those almond eyes you can hardly find here. Needless to say, you stand out there. Some people looked at me with curiosity or surprise when I was there, I was 'the different one', another feeling I never really experienced before --not even in my time in the super cosmopolitan London -- I was the laowai, the foreigner. I know many people do not like being labeled like that, for me, it was just a new experience and a new adjective for my identity. Here in Mexico I'm just a Mexican, as well as the Japanese kids born in Mexico or the Spanish friend who has been living here for fifteen years so he or she prefers tacos over paellas. I've noticed that after living here a while and if people really embrace the culture we don't have problems calling 'the foreigners' 'Mexicans' or even 'half-mexicans' or 'almost Mexicans', maybe literally speaking they are not and never will be -- like my Swedish teacher who was in Mexico for maybe ten years and spoke a very fluent Spanish. I remember one day, without him being present, we said "Oh but I think he is more Mexican than Swedish now" It is not that he ceased to be Swedish, but a part of him belonged so much to Mexico, we, bornt and raised Mexicans, already considered him a part of the society...something impossible in China. There, you and me, we would forever be foreigners. But I digress.


The food was also hard to swallow at times. To many species and a lot of oil. But after a while I got used to it, I enjoyed it. And my life without rice seemed so lost. And then talking to people, oh god...no one spoke English there. So instead of being stubborn, I learnt some Hanyu -- Mandarin -- You know, even though Spanish is my first tongue, after learning English at a quite fluent level you become lazy. A part of me understands why most English speakers don't learn another language. I remember when I started French lessons at the age of 12, I was like whyyyyy, this is so boring, "I already speak English! Why do I need to learn French!?" When you speak English you feel life will be fine, because English is the international language, isn't it? If you go to France, speak English, they must know! If you go to Mexico... Mexicans have English lessons so it's fine we speak English too! and in China, it has to be the same right? Well, that's a horrible way of thinking to be honest, but at twelve I was an entitled little brat. So even though I took on the adventure of learning Swedish after French, and I already spoke English and Spanish, I went to China thinking "okay but Chinese is super difficult so no one must spect me to speak it, right?" And chinese people actually don't, if you say something in Chinese they are fairly surprised. But still, you should arrive at least knowing the basics. That is: xie xie = thanks; i ge = one; zhe ge, na ge = this/that ; duo shuo qian = how much does it cost? Well, I only knew ni hao was hello and that is not of much help. But later I was amazed at how well I handled life with just a few words and some phrases. I took the metro, I asked for food, I walked around Beijing and I even traveled both in China and overseas and ooooh I was so happy and surprised when I arrived to Hong Kong and discovered people --even elders -- spoke English fluently there! I was never so grateful about the ability to communicate with others. There were many feelings and many surprises there. Sometimes I was lonely and I learnt how to be happy with myself, how not to depend on others ... do you want to go to The Temple of Heaven? just go! Are you dying for visiting Tokyo? Take the flight...oh yeah, I was also so financially careless...what a blessing. I didn't have to worry much about money back then because the school gave me an scholarship that seemed endless. So yeah, China has its ups and downs, but I was very amazed with the daily views, the asian aesthetics, the sounds of the language and that feeling that traveling gives you. It's joy, amazement, sadness, happiness, frustration and then accomplishment. Of course, mostly, I think gratefulness. To learn how wide this world is, how different we can be from one another but lastly, how similar too, since we are all humans always asking for a wifi password, mei-fai mima, wifi mot-de-passe, wifi lösenord, la contraseña del wifi, or the wifi passuwodo.


So now, I see on Facebook posts of friends who are living their exchange semesters or traveling for reasons. I feel a bit of jealousy, I miss my days as a "foreigner"--and a very standing out one. I'm also planning and saving money for my next trip. But I'm also very happy to be at home, in my little part of earth, that part where I belong, where everyone looks mostly like me, where everyone speaks my tongue, and my slang, and where we can make jokes of the accents and sayings among the country and where I understand every single peculiarity. Mexico is not perfect, Mexico is a difficult country, even more if you are a woman. Mexico city is a big city, complicated, messy, bizarre and even surreal according to the surreal father Dalí -- maybe the surreal mother, Remedios Varo would have a different opinion, but will we know? she was a woman after all, so even if she differs, no one asked.
Anyways, a woman in Mexico...it takes guts. but it is still my place, my colors, my flavors, my sounds, the way to dance, argue and even fall in love... I've notice the differences, believe me. Or maybe I'm like Jean Rhys, thinking, overthinking, about places and spaces... but for me, well for me it is like this. Somedays I love Mexico so much, i feel like I don't ever want to leave...then my ears listen to 'Tian Mi Mi" or watches a picture of the Tokyo Tower...my heart longs for the other side of the world, for the foreigner adventures, the Asian cosmovision, so, so distant from the Latin one, the Western one, ah.... what a wonderful world we have to explore, and how many meetings, how many goodbyes that will tear our heart and will make us appreciate more what we have had and what will come...

China, eras complicada, rara, no siempre te entendí y sin embargo... dejé tanto de mi en ti y trajé algo de ti conmigo. Patrick Rothfuss, uno de mis escritores favoritos dijo algo, y ahora lo entiendo perfecto, después de China: "to love something because, that is easy, but to love something despite...that is the true beauty."


9 nov 2017

Memories from July 12th, 2017

Happy days in my life:

  1. July. I made a trip to see you. Although short and fleeting, a feeling I will never forget. 
  2. The night in Mexico City when Joaco Vitola jumped off stage and sang to me. 
  3. 5:30 a.m. A common morning in my hometown after being gone for quite sometime. It was chilly and quiet. Breakfast was milk, homemade bread and honey. 
  4. Shoreditch park. I saw Cavan McCarthy and he was soooo pretty. I was able to see Swim Deep playing live and that was a dream come true 
  5. Yesterday in the Hutongs, being away from home. Very far away, a lovely afternoon. 
  6. I was 11 years old. I read The God of Small Things. I couldn't understand it but I knew I loved it. 
  7. Days when I realize things. 

Trying not to cry. Life is full of so many things. You are beautiful. I miss you. I'm happy. One day you will realize it too. Wish we could have gone to Paris together. I send you love. Thanks for taking care of my plants. The world is awful but we have been lucky. I will always write about you.

    8. You never called me back. A feeling I'll never forget.