Lost in translation

For one of my birthdays when I was teen, I asked my dad to tell me 'I love you'. 

I wrote it in a note in my simple Spanish (at the time, I was nowhere near the level of fluent I am now), I wrote: "Papá, para este cumpleaños yo no quiero nada, ningún regalo ni ropa ni nada, sólo quiero que me diga 'Te amo'" (Dad, for my birthday I don't want anything else, no gifts or clothing, nothing, I just want you to tell me you love me). 

You might wonder, why would I ask him that? Growing up, my dad wasn't an affectionate man. Not really, at least. He used to hit me, just like he hit all my other siblings, and so there was a degree of fear involved. There were his constant admonitions to 'be a man' and 'los machos no lloran' (men don't cry), which in hindsight is a pretty ludicrous thing to say to someone when you're hitting them for the slightest offense. I also got the sense growing up that I wasn't enough, enough of a boy, not manly enough, I wasn't a jock constantly playing sports, I liked them but not to the same extent as my dad. I got the feeling that he thought I was gay because I spent so much time with my best friend Jason. How did I know? At around the age of 15, I renounced my Catholicism in front of my assembled family on the grounds that I felt it couldn't be the only correct religion thus not being right for me, so how could I devote myself to it? My dad's first question was, "Are you gay?!". I was furious at him in that moment, I couldn't understand his logic, I couldn't understand how he couldn't listen to what I was truly saying. I went back to school the next day and told Jason all about it, Jason was mortified and exclaimed, "oh man, you're dad thinks I'm gay", to which I soothingly replied, "don't worry, he thinks I'm gay too". 

There was the drinking, the frustration, my dad was a walking powder keg, one second he could be smiling and laughing and the next he could fly into a rage, yelling at the top of his lungs. It was this mixture of love and rage that I think confused me, how can you love a person that you strike? Now, I've come to terms with that in the sense that it's something from the past and I won't hold it against my parents, especially my dad (since he was the enforcer and I can count on my hand the number of times my mom hit me). I can reconcile that as an adult but how do you make sense of it as a child? You can't, I couldn't, I had all these question marks and no straight answers and so I decided to ask something small of my dad, a gesture. 

When my birthday rolled around, he said that he'd read my note, looked in my eyes and said, "te quiero". I knew this meant something affectionate but it doesn't literally mean 'I love you' in Spanish, it literally means 'I want you' but to a teen who learned Spanish speaking with his family and not having had a formal education in the language it sounded like a cop out. It sounded like another disappointment. It sounded like, "I'm not capable of saying 'I love you', here, take this instead". 

It wasn't until years later that I learned that 'te quiero' is just as good as saying 'te amo', it's more common in fact. And it wasn't until then that I realized that my dad loved me all along, it was just lost in translation. 

The Yankees and my pops

As long as I can remember, I've been a Yankee fan. My dad's pinstripe passion infected me from a young age. He would take me (sometimes drag me) to Yankee Stadium to watch games, riding shotgun to the Bronx, the cool nights up in the nosebleed section.

My dad was a diehard fan back in El Salvador. He would tell me how he used to listen to the games on the radio, imagining the great feats of Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio. My dad LOVED the Yankees and it was fitting, even though I grew up in Queens, that I'd one day love the Bronx Bombers too. 

My early childhood memories revolved around baseball. I didn't play, apart from playing catch with my dad outside my mom's job, but we watched countless games. There are more than a hundred games in one season of baseball, multiply that by years and you can get a sense of how much baseball we watched. And every game was important, every game was life or death, every game had my dad yelling at the screen, "¡Estupido! Baboso!". My hero growing up was Don Mattingly and he was the embodiment of masculinity of that era; he had dark brown hair and eyes and a moustache, he had a stoic look to him, rarely smiling, like a somber general. He was our captain and my favorite player but there were others: Paul O'Neill, Danny Tartabull, the list goes on. I also knew all the statistics, how many pennants the Yanks had won (a pennant is when you win one division, Major League Baseball is divided into two divisions: the American League and National League, the Yanks are in the former). It was the 80's and the Yankees, despite their pedigree, were a mid-level club, almost always in the playoffs but never champions. My dad and I suffered through this era, each time they reached the playoffs only to lose a series. My dad and I suffered a lot with our teams, it wasn't only in baseball, we're Knicks fans ('94 and '99 were particularly disappointing), the Giants and Jets (the Giants wouldn't be champions until Eli Manning came into the picture in the 2000's) and in soccer, El Salvador is the perennial punching bag for the rest of CONCACAF. My dad never wavered in his loyalty, though, he never doubted, each new match was an opportunity to silence the doubters in his eyes. I'm like that, the teams I've chosen to support will remain my teams, through thick and thin, because that's what he taught me it means to be a fan. 

My dad wasn't just a baseball fan, he was a sports fan. I remember a few years back I scolded him for watching golf even though I was pretty sure he didn't have a clue what was going on (and the broadcast was in English, so he def didn't understand the commentary). That's all he ever wanted to watch, sports, I couldn't understand why. My dad played sports growing up, he loved playing soccer and even coached a team consisting primarily of my cousins and family at one point. Maybe it was because it's a distraction, something (arguably) clean and pure in a world rife with corruption and violence. Maybe it was because he loved the narrative, David versus Goliath, pulling for the underdog to pull off the improbable victory. Whatever the reason, the man loved sports!

I, in true Larry fashion, rejected this at some point. In my teen years I started to hate sports, in part because I was physically smaller and weaker than my counterparts and so it was frustrating to keep playing, and in part (subconsciously) because he loved them so much. If you learn one thing about me it's this, I'm a contrarian by nature. It's the reason why I never played soccer growing up even though the majority of my cousins played at some point. It's the reason why I gravitated towards martial arts and shunned team sports. My dad was still there though, he used to take me to my martial arts classes, my Wushu class, he'd drive me to and from Ditmars Boulevard to the Tiger Kim studio that you could see from the subway platform. I remember the first class, my dad had to help carry me down the stairs because I was barely able to walk down them by myself. That was every Saturday and Sunday, I never thought about it until now... but he took me to all those classes before I was able to go on my own. 

And so I continued on this trajectory, studying martial arts, ignoring sports, loathing them, until one day it all came full circle. I love them now, I watch football as often as possible. I support FC Barcelona, Atleti, all my NY teams. I go to watch games live if I can, I've been to the new Yankee Stadium a few times. I play catch, kick the ball around at picnics, yell and shout when my team scores and really feel the game. I got that from my dad.

random 120

Canary yellow, cell fallen 

It's FA cup, no one cares; there, no one cares; here

Travel in the modern age

The first I went abroad in a trip by myself was 17 years ago. I was 19, green and felt in some ways overwhelmed by the moment. I hardly remember the details of that first trip to Paris and Amsterdam, just small details. I remember my anecdotes and I guess that's enough... but what surprises me now is the frequency and normalcy with which we travel. I can go on my phone and within a few minutes can have an e-ticket waiting for me in my inbox. 

A month ago, I wasn't sure whether I'd head back to the US. It was a thought floating about but nothing I'd truly considered, the prices for flights were already pretty expensive and it wasn't looking likely. Armelle decided to give it a look and within moments I was all set. New York for the holidays with my family and friends. 

If I had lived in the 1940's, I couldn't dream about going to another continent on vacation? What would I do for money? What if I didn't speak the language? How would I get back? Even back when I was 19 it was tough, Google Maps wasn't a thing, Google Translate didn't exist and it was difficult to take out money from a foreign bank.

Flash forward to today, I'm hanging out at a cafe in Brussels, uploading pics to Instagram, reading articles on ESPN and listening to music on Spotify. I'm in contact in real-time with folks around the world (back in the days you needed phone cards to stay in touch and dial a long ass pin to connect), life has changed so much (for better and for worse).

Vivaporu

The smell is sharp, minty, immediately recognizable. As soon as the leaves started falling and flu bugs spread like locusts, you could spot the stench. 

When I was younger, my mom would put Vivaporu on my chest before going to bed in order to clear my breathing. She would put some over my lip, just to make sure. And I'd fall asleep like that, my chest feeling like a glacier had crawled across it, it's overwhelming scent overtaking me. 

Every winter, every cold and flu, it was the same thing, the same process, she would tuck me in but, before turning off the light, she'd whip out that inimitable blue jar. I only knew it as Vivaporu. 

One day, around the age of ten, I was looking through my mom's closet (I was a really curious kid) when I found that bar; midnight blue body with an aquamarine top and took a good look at the label: Vick's Vapor Rub. I couldn't believe it, why did my mom call it Vivaporu, that made no sense. Until, it did. 

The American Dream

Today, I was thinking about something my cousin (I'll let them remain unnamed out of respect for the backlash they may get) said to me, that black folks in the US need to learn from immigrants and fight for a better future. Now, on the one hand, I can see his point about striving for something better. On the other, I feel like he's not taking a macro approach to the issues that plague these communities, the institutionalized racism, the neglect and the despair you feel when you see nothing change, when your grandparents grew up in public housing like you did.

I got to thinking about this because I was thinking about my childhood. I was thinking about my parents and what their lives were like: my mom was a secretary at a North American firm in El Salvador, a great job for anyone living there at the time, and my maternal grandfather was a congressman. My dad was a college graduate (he has an architectural degree) but worked as a foreman and accountant at the same firm (IRCA, Intercontinental Railroad of Central America). My dad def grew up as more of a hic but he always punched above his weight and I think it's their middle-class ambitions that they passed on to us. My parents always valued a good education (both at home and at school) as well as creativity, I was always encouraged to read and draw as much as I wanted. My dad, not so secretly, wanted me to become an architect and live vicariously through me (and I know I probably let him down but after six months of architecture class at A & D, I knew it wasn't for me). The thing is, he wanted me to become an architect, not a mechanic, a plumber or construction worker, not that these aren't skilled or well-paying jobs but he wanted something more academic for me. 

To contrast that, I thought about this family that was described to me by my brother-in-law Ruddy. He recounted, after his business trip to India, how he was at a train station there, I think in New Delhi, and there was a family, like many at the station, sitting on the floor. There were three generations present, grandparents, the parents and a small child. The child was sitting on the ground when suddenly he passed himself, creating a puddle all around him. He then began playing in his piss, splashing it around and having fun in it while his parents and grandparents watched. Ruddy watched this unfold, horrified, and reflected on his own past (he told us how he used to pick tobacco at a local plantation when he was 8 just to make ends meet and now he's a mechanical engineer). He'd grown up in the Dominican Republic and thought that he knew what poverty was but, apparently, this is a whole other ballgame. Now, India truly another world, you have an entrenched caste system supported by the hindu belief of reincarnation. Is it right to compare this society to one like the US? I'd argue that you could. 

Let's start with the myth of the American dream. That's exactly what it is, it's an idea meant to prop up a system, to maintain the status quo. Ask yourself, has someone truly ever come from the gutter and become a millionaire or billionaire or have they inherited fortunes and make them greater? Take Carnegie, Rockefeller, these guys weren't exactly from aristocratic backgrounds but they also weren't from the lower classes. Take Trump, the so-called "self-made millionaire". Bullshit. His father was already a millionaire, having made his money in real estate and passing on his fortune to his son. Don't believe me? Pick up almost any biography written about him, I'd stay away from autobiographies in this case, and you'll see. And if what I'm saying is true, that the possibility of going from gutter rat to glitterati isn't possible, then why do we continue to propagate this myth? 

I can answer that question with a story. My cousin, the aforementioned one, once argued with me about increasing rich people's taxes. He was against it, something I found incredulous. What was his thinking? Well, he argued that it would suck if rich people had to pay more taxes because what if he became rich. Why should he have to pay more taxes just because he's more successful? Now, he just went from blue-collar worker to multimillionaire in a heartbeat and all to defend the millions that aren't in his bank account but in some rich asshole's pocket. And that's just it, that's how people think. That's the power of the American dream, that, even though you'll probably end up in the same class as your parents before them, you'll still defend the wealthy's privileges just in case you ever become one. Or just in case you ever reincarnate as one.

A love letter to Madrid

Plaza de dos olores horribles, pis y mierda fresca,
Tus rasgos me asaltan, atracan mis sentidos,
Como cubo de basura, recibes todo lo mal,
Hasta que el cubo se derrama,
Un verdadero vertadero,
Su gentuza apesta a merluza,
La tarde arde con un infierno andaluz,
La luz acaba en este vacío de Malasaña,
Feo, ediondo, así te quiero mi querido Madrid.

Pasé la tarde en Plaza Dos de Mayo y un poeta, viejo, desesperado, me vendió su libro de poemas y, por pena, se lo compré. Inspirado por sus poemas, que me parecían de poco nivel, si voy a ser sincero, escribí este poema.

Capitalism vs Community

Politics have been a part of my life all the way back to my birth. I was born in NY to Salvadoran parents who fled the turmoil, economic instability and, most importantly, the civil war which ravaged our country for twelve years. As long as I can remember my parents, in particular my dad, are the staunchest liberals with leftist ideals. 

The contrast, of course, comes with growing up in the US and, specifically, New York City. New York is not a city for the faint of heart, for the lazy, for the lackadaisical (though that's not to say that they don't also inhabit our city. The Rotten Apple is known for ambition, creativity, the hustle; you betta make moves if you wanna get ahead, getting by ain't an option. Ambition, that most prized quality of capitalism, the force that fuels the American dream, I've always found problematic. Why do we need to work? Why do we need to spend 40 hours of our work week slaving away to increase someone else's dividends? 

I think of my cousin (you can guess which one), with his single-mindedness that I could never attain. (I won't go into detail but let's just say there were many projects that skewed the line of legality.) I remember when he had this idea to buy cartons of Newport cigarettes from a contact in Chinatown, then sell them either by the pack or as looseys (the street term for a loose cigarette). We paraded up and down 3rd Ave, 2nd Ave and parts of Alphabet City looking for customers as they smoked their cigs outside East Village bars, the patrons laughing at our poor choice of product (if you didn't know, Newports are commonly known as a "ghetto" brand, most people opt for Marlboro, Marlboro Lights or Camels). We sold maybe a few packs that night and, with our tails tucked between our legs, returned home. Next time we figured that a ghetto neighborhood would make more sense, so we walked up and down Jamaica Ave peddling our contraband. This was only one of my cousin's ideas and, admittedly, one of the few failures. 

Compare that with Madrid and Europe in general. In my first year in Madrid, and the place where I met Armelle, my wife, I started going to a place called La Tabacalera (the cigar or tobacco factory, more or less). La Tabacalera is a self-run, community center in the heart of Madrid near Embajadores in the neighborhood of Lavapies. It's a magical place and holds a dear place in my heart for many reasons. What is it? It was a former factory that was abandoned and in ruins. Around 2008, or maybe before, I'm not sure, many Spaniards felt indignant about the economic situation in the country. Many decided to organize and form collectives to provide what the government was no longer (seemingly) able to. These people, this movement, became known as Los Indignados (The Indignent) and gained small footholds all across the nation. These footholds were the community centers that sprung up, people went in together, occupied an abandoned building, made the necessary renovations and began offering services to local denizens. At a place like La Tabacalera you can take all sorts of classes, salsa, capoeira, English and many more. They have a bike repair workshop, a welding workshop, a slew of rehearsal studios in the basement, murals that adorn nearly every square centimeter of surface area from noted street artists and graffiti artists and host monthly events. Oh, and they have an art gallery, like a proper art gallery. La Tabacalera is the exception because it's no longer simply a squat, it's recognized by the local government and therefore not subject to police incursions or eviction notices. 

After I began going to La Tabacalera, initially because they offered free salsa classes, that's how my American mind understood, I started going to some of the other centers. I went to Patio Maravillas in its heyday and it was there that I became more active in the structure of the centers. First, i helped when the salsa collective, called Salsearte, would need participants to do bar-duty at the bar / cafe at the center. Then I started attending the monthly meetings and, when the news came that the Communidad de Madrid (the city hall) was going to start a process of eviction, I began to help out in any way I could, sometimes simply going to the meetings and learning more. What I learned is that these centers, generally speaking, aren't inherently heirarchical (though a structure does exist). In fact, in most cases it resembles an anarchic ideal without ever strictly conforming to it. Basically put, there are no elected officials. There are no leaders that are there because they were given a post. You go, you listen, you comment and when it's time to put something to a vote, you vote. 

As a kid coming from NY, it boggled my mind. "How is this possible? This could never last in my hometown ... why don't we have this back home?" I wrestled with these questions the same way I've been wrestling with my very nature. Lately, as I begin to expand my network of friends, acquaintances, colleagues and contacts, I've been thinking about starting a B-boying / B-girling class. I already started a writing workshop, to mild success (though greatly successful as a personal achievement), and have been thinking that it might be time to do something with breaking. With breaking I always felt I got more out of it as a teacher than as a b-boy; I'm a decent dancer but I'm really good at teaching (at least I'd like to think so). What used to hold me back is this idea that I'm good at this, why would I just give it away for free? Why not make some money off it? 

There's a famous quote from Rockefeller or Carnegie or one of those dead fat cats that says (I'm paraphrasing), never do something for free if you're good at it. Maybe that makes sense back home, in the bustling, concrete confines of Gotham's metropolis, but today it's a new day, a new approach and a new country. And, maybe, this requires a new Larry to see it through.

Reflecting on Tuesday's attacks

The past week has seen Strasbourg in grief. You can feel it in the streets, see it in people's faces and sense it as they tell you where they were when the attacks happened. It reminds me of 9/11, where I was and how it affected me but the difference is Strasbourg is tiny compared to New York, my neighborhood back home, Jamaica, Queens, has more inhabitants, to give you an idea.

It's the size of the city that makes a difference. I've been living here nine months and, even though it hasn't even been a year, I still run into someone nearly every time I go out, even in unlikely places. It's like a big town where it only takes two degrees of separation to know your connection. As a native New Yorker, it's a bit unsettling at first, I would crave anonymity but I've come to embrace it. It's this sense of community and how it's been shaken up is what is really jarring.

Tuesday night for me was any normal night. I went to work, taught my classes and was excited that I would be finished an hour earlier than usual. Armelle was going to have dinner ready and then I could watch Barcelona host Tottenham in the Champions League, a good night nice and toasty at home. After dinner, Armelle headed to her tertulia (a discussion in Spanish at the nearby Maison de l'Amerique Latine) and I began to look for streams online. Twenty minutes into the game and one spectacular Dembele goal later, I received a message on Messenger from my friend Morgane. She wrote, "Stay indoors tonight, don't go out or get inside if you can, there are police and emergency services all over the center". Honestly, I didn't think much of it, I thought it was either a joke or an exaggeration. It turned out to be neither.

That's when more and more messages started coming and that prompted me to do a quick Google search of Strasbourg on my phone. As I read about a shooting or shootings I got a phone call from Armelle. She was worried and wanted to make sure I was home and would not go out, though she was still at the tertulia with some friends. At this point, I also notified our couchsurfers to get indoors somewhere and avoid the center. No one really knew what happened or how bad it was, just that there'd been multiple shootings around the city center, near the cathedral and Place Kleber (our main square). Our couchsurfers came back and told us that the city was on lockdown, you could leave the center island but couldn't come back in. They got out on the wrong side and had to walk back along the perimeter. Later on, I went to go pick up Armelle and accompany her home from the tertulia, which was only a couple blocks away and had a chance to see how things were looking. Even though there were people outside the security checkpoints, there was tension in the air.

I forgot to mention, Strasbourg is famed for its Christmas market. People from around the world come to our little Alsatian town to walk along our streets & canals and drink vin chaud (mulled wine) while munching on bretzels (pretzels) and other Alsatian fare. So many people come that our population triples, the city center, already swarming with tourists on any given day, is brimming with them during this time. The center of Strasbourg is an island and so every bridge and entry point is cut off by security checkpoints, big concrete blocks funnel cars into a neat line and only residents can enter, semi's are parked across the road preventing car attacks like the ones seen in Berlin, Nice and Barcelona and security guards check your bags before letting you enter. As it's my first winter living here I have to pass these security checkpoints multiple times daily, seen the chinks in the armor and knew that something like this could happen because it really would be easy to bypass the security measures. For starters, these checkpoints are only active from 11 am to 8 pm, meaning if you wanted to avoid them you could just enter early or wait until 8. Secondly, the tram bypasses the measures and stops in the city center, meaning folks on the tram aren't screened. It seems like more of a show than a pragmatic approach to safeguarding our city and it worried me, to begin with.

The following day more news came in, the gunman was born and raised here, had lived most of his life here and had done a prison stint in Germany (where he was supposedly radicalized), in addition to a long, violent rap sheet. It was the kind of news that's baffling, how could someone that's from here shoot innocent passersby. He killed two people and severely injured several, as of the time of this writing 13 more were injured and there may be more deaths. He did this with a pistol, a six-shooter, from the 19th century, the kind of weapon collectors buy. After his rampage, he commandeered a taxi and headed back to his neighborhood of Neudorf in the south of Strasbourg, a stone's throw from the city center. His name was Cherif Chekatt and he will be remembered as Strasbourg's murderous son, the coward who pulled us out of our Christmas daydream and replaced it with this fever. This Tuesday our little, idyllic city was left battered and bruised but if there's something positive to come of it, it's that I hope people look at how the city has come together, how random strangers sheltered people in their homes  during the attacks, how we're really all one, big community and how this isn't Islam, isn't Muslim, it has nothing to do with religion. The shooter was French, he was Strasbourgois, and he was a product of this country, something that should make us reflect on our society.

This Wednesday I took my bike to work, crossed the security checkpoint and began my meandering path through the center and over to Place du Corbeau. As I started down rue Sainte-Helene I noticed that the street was blocked off by police tape and by police standing watch. I had just passed down this same street the night before, apparently missing the attacks by an hour. And with that, it hit home. That could've been me lying on the ground in a pool of my own blood or lying unconscious on a hospital bed; wreaths, flowers and photos the only evidence of my passing. That could've been me ...

Éclair au chocolat

Today we decided to have breakfast outside because it was sunny and reasonably warm for autumn weather. Armelle wanted to sit at a sidewalk café  but La Rive Gauche stopped serving breakfast at 11, so we opted for grabbing something from a local bakery and sitting on a park bench. I ordered a chocolate eclair as I wanted something special, not just another croissant.

As I sat there and stared down at my eclair, I thought about eclairs in my life. How my mom would buy packs of them at the supermarket, probably the Entemmann's brand. I then thought of how those eclairs were fabricated at a factory; thousands baked, rolled, filled, rushing down assembly lines into a neat, white package for mass consumption. How many millions are produced in a year? In a month? In a week? And here I have an imperfect, fresh eclair made at this local bakery, the taste delectable.

As I thought about eclairs my thoughts drifted to cronuts. About that American pâtissier that crossed a croissant with a donut. That small invention at that tiny bakery in SoHo became the breakfast toast of the town and as the bakery would produce a limited amount each day, something curious happened. Long lines developed outside the store before the bakery would open. High-powered execs; people with cash to burn, would pay people to stand in line, order their cronuts and have them delivered to their respective homes in TriBeCa or Chelsea or any of the other wealthy enclaves strewn about the city. All for the latest trend in pastries. All this led me to think that sometimes the market really does dictate the opportunities. In this case, a friggin' cronut caused people to stand in line in lieu of others so they could cash in on the laziness and exorbitant wages they earn in order to make a living on that. Can you imagine? Some people were paying 35 bucks a cronut (and I imagine more if they were hand-delivered to your home).

The sun, warm, bright, kissed our skin and brought me back as we finished our breakfast and made plans to go to the doctor. That eclair was really delicious... and it only cost me €1.80.

More painful than dying, more loving than fear

I like to obsessively watch YouTube videos from time to time. Sometimes it's football games that I missed. Sometimes it's videos about historic battles. Sometimes it's top tens or Looper. My morbid curiosity led me to watch a Top Tenz video about the worst ways to die. Sure, there was the guillotine, medieval torture devices, the electrical chair, etc. Do you know what the worst way to die is? Dying from old age.

When you're old your body begins the slow process of decline. Your joints creak each time you move, old injuries become excruciating and crucial organs start malfunctioning. Your memory starts to fade. Your vision becomes blurred, cataracts develop. Your hearing becomes muffled, like listening to the world while wearing ear plugs. Your bowel movements are no longer under your sway and diapers become a daily reality. High blood pressure. Diabetes. Everyday ailments turn into life or death battles. This slow process can take years, decades even. Your final moments may come while surrounded by strangers, health-care professionals, who may or may not give a shit about their patients. You may die alone. Honestly, that's scarier than any Rob Zombie flick.

Right now, my dad has been passed out for hours, practically since I came. When I first walked into his hospital room on Tuesday it was his appearance that struck me; he looked gaunt, jaundiced, there was a rash over his left cheek, pocks, scratches and sores all over him, his hands were swollen like two fleshy softballs. The feeding tube down his nose was causing him to speak in gargles, like punch-drunk boxer after three knockdowns. When he looked at me I got the sense we were ephemeral figures of his consciousness, this morning my sis told me that he addressed her as the "vieja bola" (in English that means a drunk old woman, "bola" is Salvadoran slang). Yesterday, when I asked him who I was I just got a blank stare and more incoherent gargles. This is his and my reality.

I tell myself that I've been here before. That I've been at his side when he had his first stroke. That I carried him to a taxi on Sutphin and brought him to the emergency room when he had a diabetic attack. That I cleaned him, wiped his ass, when he was incontinent from a case of diarrhea. I tell myself that he's strong, that he's a fighter, that he survived Hell's Kitchen in the 70's and worked long hours to provide food & shelter for my four siblings and I. I tell myself I can handle it, that hopefully he'll pull through. The reality is, I haven't been here before. We haven't. And I can hardly stomach seeing him like this, in so much pain, weak, each breath a lifetime in purgatory.

At times, he'll cough inexplicably, stare off into nothingness only to smile suddenly, laugh at a joke only he heard and groan and grimace with each movement. I think back on dad when I was younger, how we'd play catch with a handball while waiting for mom to get out of work. About watching the Knicks or the Yankees and losing his shit each time they won a game or even just scored, how we'd play catch with a basketball in the living room during commercial breaks. I think about how he'd take me everywhere with him in the yellow Buick station wagon, the one with the wooden panels like the one in Adventures in Babysitting, I would ride shotgun and even give him directions at an early age (I think that's the reason why I'm so good at navigating, I grew up in that car). I think back on my memories of dad, the good ones, and try to reconcile them with the present.

I wonder, is this life? Is this health-care? What is it all for? Is it for us or for him?

My dad; big, strong, powerful with his loud laugh, wide smile and terrifying roar, reduced to bed sores and sponge baths and incoherent spurts of life. I want to cry seeing him suffer like this, I want to cry now as I write this. What my tear glands won't allow me to do I'm hoping my writing will, these are a son's tears.

Un Million de Petits Éclats

La vitre brisée en un million de petits éclats,
Il l'a rencontrée au boulot,
Elle portait un t-shirt Batman pour son interview,
Son maquillage sombre et ses cheveux noirs contrastant avec sa peau pâle,
Lumineuse,
La prunelle pourrie de mes yeux,
Au début je la détestais,
On a travaillé côté à côté,
Son sens de l'humour ironique un appel de sirène,
La mer est lunatique,
La marée ne pardonne pas,
Peu a peu j'ai nagé vers elle,
(Je ne savais pas nager alors)
Bientôt je ne pouvais plus voir la terre

Son étreinte était un été à Séville,
Ses bisous goût de bière pas cher et de cigarette,
Ses courbes dansaient avec les vagues,
La mer m'a fait bourré,
J'ai me sentir lourd,
Les vagues ne sont plus douces,
L'été était fini,
L'automne était un souvenir,
Il n'y avait que du froid,
Ses mots étaient une tempête :
"Je ne t'aime pas, j'aime quelqu'un d'autre"
La marée m'a tiré,
Camarade d'Odyssée,
J'ai navigué sur les canaux de Bushwick,
Les étoiles mon salut
Un million de petits éclats répartis sur les pavés .

Sous les pavés, la plage

Sous les pavés, la plage
Un monde souterrain, souterrestre

La marée arrive avec la nuit
S'infiltre dans les crevasses
Ça porte la saleté, la crasse, la merde
La ville jette
La nuit, une tempête quotidienne
La plage accepte sans conditions

La marée repart avec le matin
Le soleil pourchasse son gibier
A travers le sable, le pavé
Dedans les ruelles
L'ombre est notre seul rappel de ce qui était

Sous les pavés, la plage
Un monde souterrain ou je reste .

A moment in calle Montera

I ordered a jarra of Cruzcampo at the 100 Montaditos and began to watch, to take it all in.

A black woman, probably African, dark jacket, blue jeans, large 'fro, earphones connected to her phone as she punches away at it, a hooker on Calle Montera, a common sight.

A man in red jacket and sweatpants skips along, erratically hopping to and fro, he zig zags along eventually walking "normally", all the fittings of junkie yearning for a fix.

A construction site, the whirring of saws, the dumping of materials, the clank and bang and ding, a song of destruction and renewal. Supermarket carts outside, presumably gypsies looking to scrape up scraps of metal for some cash or their own projects.

Tourists walk by by the thousands, speaking German, Polish, French, English and a myriad other languages I can't recognize, they traipse along with their kids in tow, with their baby carriages, snapping their smartphones and stopping for glimpses.

Madrileños walk past in blur, construction workers with spotted uniforms, young folks and their H & M duds, lesbian couples nuzzling and kissing as they shuffle past, checking WhatsApp, conversing, the city shifts with a bit of sun and return of cloudy, balmy weather.

Panhandlers carry signs, cartons with messages scrawled asking for change, I say "lo siento" and ignore their gaze, years of New York conditioning.

It doesn't stop, it never does, just as a grain of sand won't remain in the same place for long.

I'm falling in love with my ex all over again

When I describe what it feels like to be back in New York City after having lived in Madrid the past four years I say it's like reuniting with your ex; you feel like you know this person and yet things have definitely changed.

Last night, while I was waiting for the J train at the Myrtle stop, I got into a convo with two MTA employees that were watching me on the platform. I just finished my torta and was looking for a trash can when they asked me what I was looking for. After pointing me in the right direction, it was down the stairs by the turnstiles, I came back upstairs.

"Hey, do you mind if we ask you something? We have kind of a debate going."
"Sure, shoot."
"We wanna know if you're from New York or not."
"I am, I was born and raised in Queens, Jamaica. Wanna see my ID?"
"Nah nah nah, I believe you, it's just that you went really far to throw out your garbage and I was saying that if you were from NY you would just throw it out anywhere."
"Well, I went to throw it out because it's the right thing to do, I'm not gonna litter knowing there's a garbage can, it's no biggie, it's not like it's mad far."
"Oh, you said 'mad', you are from NY, haha, but we thought you went to the Popeye's to throw it out."

We talked a bit more about this and that and not long after the train came. I shook their hands, wished them a good night and was off on my way home.

As I sat on that J I started to reflect on what just happened. It's true that I'm a native New Yorker, I am and I always will be. I'm more than that, though. I'm also a madrileño, I'm also European in some ways, I'm no longer just a New Yorker. I'm something else, a hybrid, a product of the experiences I've had abroad.

As I walk around my city now I marvel anew and at the same time know her well, I know her intimately. I'm a native and a foreigner... and that's just fine.

Why the hyphen?

I am Salvadoran-American. I am neither entirely one nor the other, I've noticed this time and again living abroad. It's a dichotomy that I've lived with all my life and, in this post-Trump world, I'd like to celebrate it. 

My first language is Spanish. Until the age of five I spoke nothing but Spanish and when I began school I was placed in an ESL program for kindergarten and first grade. I really loved those first two years of school at PS 182 in Jamaica with Ms Rodriguez. Early on there was a boy that was picking on me and she told me, "if someone hits you, you hit them back twice, if someone kicks you, you kick them back twice, don't let anyone take advantage of you". Those words stuck with me and, though I'm a pacifist, I recognize her good intentions. She was also the one that recognized that I needed glasses because I was having trouble seeing the board during class. 

I also really liked that, even though we were learning English, the program didn't reject our Hispanic roots and we also learned Spanish vocabulary in class. At home, I would watch TV in Spanish, my favorites were Chespiritu and Carusel. I also watched Sábado Gigante with my folks on Saturdays and had to tolerate my mom's novelas.

At home, being Latino was and continues to be an intrinsic part of me. I couldn't live without pupusas, beans and rice are staples and I'm a domino fiend. Living abroad in Spain I finally got the opportunity to hone my Spanish and now I'm capable of not only speaking fluidly but also thinking in Spanish. 

It wasn't always peaches and crema, though. 

At some point during my teen years I had a bit of a crisis. I rejected my heritage and wanted nothing to do with it. My parents would speak to me in Spanish and I'd respond in English. I would trade homemade food for fast food almost on a daily basis; the cashier at Wendy's recognized me and even offered to make me homemade food one day. 

Growing up in a rough neighborhood, and to overprotective parents, meant that I spent a great deal of time at home watching TV. I watched hours and hours of TV. I've watched complete series, Empty Nest, Golden Girls, Seinfeld, Saved By The Bell, The X-Files, Hercules, Xena and the list goes on. As a result my accent is an amalgam of accents and doesn't truly reflect my hometown. 

In my late teens it all started to make sense, however. I met many more Latin-Americans like me, kids born to central- and south-American immigrants who also yearned to find a niche in the American patchwork. Kids who spoke Spanish with their parents and Spanglish with me. 

When I first came to Spain the first thing I did was look for a Salvadoran restaurant. Whenever I made breakfast it was almost always an American one, two eggs and toast, the eggs with ketchup and jalapeños, of course. I can make pupusas and Philly cheesesteaks from scratch. Sometimes I make fresh Salvadoran tortillas and beans to go with it. My favorite cheese is Salvadoran, queso duro, though I do miss American cheese and American heros, bocadillos pale in comparison. 

It was difficult adapting to life in Spain, adapting to their customs, but three and half years on I've come to love European life. This morning I ate at the bar out front, had toast with salt, olive oil and tomato spread. I'm a huge fan of the tapa and the caña, a tiny glass of beer, and can spend hours at a bar placidly having both. 

The thing is, here I'm more Latino than American because of the way I speak Spanish. I refuse to change the way I speak, refuse to adopt the vosotros, and see it simply as unnecessary, like if I were to live in the UK and all of sudden began speaking with an English accent. The consequences of my choice sometimes reflects in my treatment by spaniards, Americans are held in high esteem whereas Latin-Americans are regarded as an underclass. I often can see this paradox, many people don't know how to treat me or how they want to treat me and it's this conflict that I've had to live with my whole life. 

I'm American as flan. As Salvadoran as ketchup on my eggs. I use "vos" with my family and curse like a sailor after a few drinks, the ghetto boy from Queens, NY is never far behind. When I stub my toe I yell, "coño", but my preferred language, in many ways, will always be English. And I think that dichotomy's quite all right, it's as American as pizza and hamburgers. 

"Lo llevas en la sangre"

Yo bailo salsa. Me encanta. Tomó clases dos veces a la semana, salgo con los salseros a menudo, cuando coincidimos, y escucho salsa en casa porque me gusta. 

Anoche tomé una clase de salsa que era fuera de lo normal en una escuela de danza. Era un intercambio y como siempre, al hablar con una de los asistentes al evento, me comentan "a pues como eres latino tú lo llevas en la sangre, no?". Es decir, el hecho que sea latino automáticamente significa que puedo bailar salsa y otros bailes latinos. Incorrecto. 

Te cuento mi historia. A la edad de 13, por ahí, me di cuenta que las chicas les encanta chicos que pueden bailar. Yo no tenía ritmo, nada de nada, y era incapaz de seguir cualquier ritmo, aún con el merengue (que se supone que es el más fácil de los ritmos latinos). 

Mi mejor amigo, Jason, se empeñó para enseñarme cómo bailar porque Jason, aún a esa edad, ya era un crack con el tema. Empezó con tocar música y intentar encontrar el ritmo básico, algo que se me escapaba. Pasamos horas así, el tocando música y yo dando palmadas donde pensaba que caía el ritmo. 

Le pedí a una prima, Margarita, la esposa de mi primo Mario, que me enseñara como bailar también. Ella me enseñó merengue, bachata y un poco de salsa y mostró mucha paciencia, que en esa época pisaba, no bailaba. 

Pasaron años y tuve muchas y muchos profes; Blanca que me enseñó en los bailes del instituto, tambien hubo una chica brasileña de un campamento en Rochester. Conocí más a la vergüenza que la gloria y conté con la paciencia de mis parejas. 

Luego, a los veinte y pico, mi amigo Leo, uno de mis mejores amigos, empezó a tomar clases de salsa en línea. El me contaba, "vente a las clases, te gustarían, aprendes mucho y hay muchas pibas!". No le hice caso. Todos nuestros amigos en común fueron a las clases, todos se volvieron en cracks o al menos podían bailar bastante bien. Al ser cabezón, no les hice caso. Pasaron años. 

Un día, después de haber intentado de aprender de forma auto-didáctica por muchos años, decidí tomar clases. Al fin me entregué a la locura de los demás, es que lo de seguir a los demás lo llevo fatal. 

He tomado clases con Piel Canela, con Lorenz y sigo tomando clases aquí en Madrid, en la Tabacalera y en la Traba. Sigo mejorando, poquito a poco, gracias a los profes que ofrecen su conocimiento y las parejas que me toleran. Y sigo mejorando, pero sin tener esa base no podría entender el baile como lo entiendo ahora. 

Así que por ser latino o por escuchar la música en mi entorno no me han ayudado llegar a este punto. Y tampoco es porque lo "llevo en la sangre". 

My salsa teacher is English, and?

A couple weekends ago I went to a house party. At the house party I was chatting with some Latin Americans and mentioned that Ian, who was having a bit of difficulty with cumbia, I think, was my salsa teacher. Their reaction? An incredulous, "Hiiiiiimmmmm?!", which was followed by giggles. 

Why did it surprise them? Was it because he was having difficulties with another Latin dance? Perhaps because he doesn't "move his hips enough"? Or was it the obvious reason, because he's not Latin American? 

It's not the first time I've come across this, not the first time I've heard criticisms of him. Let me say this first, Ian volunteers his time, he's not paid to teach, doesn't make a dime off it and doesn't teach for a living. He's a computer programmer. He began teaching because in our collective, which is self-run by the collective through assemblies that we hold, the then teacher left and no one stepped up to teach. He did. A big fucking E for Effort. 

Secondly, who are we to judge? Who says that salsa needs to be taught by a Latin person? Sure, there are nuances, there are cultural elements that perhaps a Latin person may provide but the reality is we live in an increasingly globalized society. Borders are lines in the sand that can be traversed with the click of a mouse. And it's dance, that art form that regardless of where you come from, where you live, if you can dance you can dance. One of my closest friends back home, Leo, is one of the most phenomenal salsa dancers I've ever seen and he's Filipino. And learned by taking classes. 

I understand where the possessive nature of the argument comes from, however. As a New Yorker I sometimes think that "pure" Hip Hop should have a New York sound. I give preference to NYC MC's. Southern rappers, rappers from just about any other locality, need to be vetted first. Why? There's this idea that your origins will influence who you are and how you do things. There's also another axiom: it's not where you're from, it's where you're at. 

I get where the argument comes from, the sentiment, but the fact of the matter is this: if someone does something better than you and can teach you that shouldn't that be more valued than where they're from? 

Inspired by William Carlos Williams

Tortilla de Patatas

I made a tortilla de patatas and left it out on the counter to share with my roommates, they took a piece larger than I imagined

Would you rather...

Bulls, prior to their bloody, violent death, are treated like kings. Knowing that you'd meet such a torturous death, yet live an otherwise idyllic life, would you choose it?

I got on this topic during the beginning of one of my classes when we discuss just about anything. This time we got on the topic of Barcelona's historic come-from-behind win over PSG which prompted my other student, Lore, to remark that "those millions of euros wasted on football could be used otherwise". I said that Rome had gladiators to calm the mobs, nowadays it's football and bullfighting. Jesus asked me if I liked bullfighting (corridas in Spanish) to which I replied that I've been to one but that I didn't like it. He seemed unnerved and put off by my response, anxious to explain why it's a good thing. 

One of the points he made was that bulls are treated like royalty their entire lives before meeting their fate in the ring. He said, "I'll probably live 80 years fucked, at least they see some glory". It made me wonder, would I trade this life for that? If I could live the perfect life knowing what awaits me, would I? 

Of course the poor bulls have no clue where they'll end up, they have no choice in the matter, but it is an intriguing debate. 

The other point he made was that if it wasn't for bullfighting there wouldn't be another purpose for growing bulls, something I can neither corroborate nor deny. What I do know is this, I've been to a corrida because I wanted to see firsthand what it was about. I saw 6 bulls perish that night, watched spectators revel in the bloodshed and never once did I flinch. Do I see the point in it? No. 

Would I trade my life for that? Call me stubborn but I do see the value in all the suffering we endure and wouldn't want to see my life diluted by a lack of it, I always say life is just peaks and valleys. It is tempting, though...