Living Life to the Fullest - Instantes

The Spanish Blog over at Transparent Language posted an anonymous poem called Instantes. I was really moved by it since it really demonstrated how much we deny ourselves pleasure and how we take our lives for granted. Just reading it makes me want go out and live life and have fun while I still can. No one who reads this will not be affected by it.

Here it is in the original form in Spanish as well as my translation into English.

Instantes

Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida.
En la próxima trataría de cometer más errores.
No intentaría ser tan perfecto, me relajaría más.
Sería más tonto de lo que he sido, de hecho
tomaría muy pocas cosas con seriedad.

Sería menos higiénico.

Correría más riesgos, haría más viajes, contemplaría
más atardeceres, subiría más montañas, nadaría más ríos.

Iría a más lugares adonde nunca he ido, comería
más helados y menos habas, tendría más problemas
reales y menos imaginarios.

Yo fui una de esas personas que vivió sensata y prolíficamente
cada minuto de su vida; claro que tuve momentos de alegría.

Pero si pudiera volver atrás trataría de tener
solamente buenos momentos.

Por si no lo saben, de eso está hecha la vida, sólo de momentos;
no te pierdas el ahora.

Yo era uno de esos que nunca iban a ninguna parte sin termómetro,
una bolsa de agua caliente, un paraguas y un paracaídas;
Si pudiera volver a vivir, viajaría más liviano.
Si pudiera volver a vivir comenzaría a andar descalzo a principios
de la primavera y seguiría así hasta concluir el otoño.

Daría más vueltas en calesita, contemplaría más amaneceres
y jugaría con más niños, si tuviera otra vez la vida por delante.

Pero ya tengo 85 años y sé que me estoy muriendo.

-----------------------

Moments

If I could live my life again.

The next time I would try to make more mistakes.

I wouldn't try so hard to be perfect, I'd goof off more.

I'd be crazier than I have been, in fact

I would take fewer things seriously.

I'd be less hygienic.

I'd run more risks, take more trips, watch

 more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers.

I'd go more places I had never been, eat

more ice cream and fewer lima beans, I'd have more

real problems and fewer imaginary ones.

I was one of those people who lived sensibly and proficiently

every minute of my life; of course I had moments of joy.

But if I could go back in time I'd try to have

only good moments.

Because if you don't know, that's what makes a life, only those moments;

don't lose the present.

I was one of those people who never went anywhere without a thermometer,

a hot-water bottle, an umbrella and a parachute;

If I could relive my life, I'd travel lighter.

If I could relive my life I'd walk barefoot at the beginning

of spring and would continue until the end of autumn.

I'd take more rides on the Carousel, watch more sunrises

and play more with my kids, if I had my whole life again before me.

But now I am 85 years old and I know that I am dying.

Sugar (2008)

Sugar (2008) follows the story of Miguel Santos, whom everyone nicknames 'Sugar', a young Dominican man who has chops as a carpenter but finds a special talent in his country's major sport, Baseball. His knuckle ball catches the eye of American baseball recruiters and soon he is whisked away from the Dominican Republic and put on a farm team for the Kansas City Knights. He moves from Arizona to Iowa and finally to New York, experiencing various levels of culture shock along the way. Some how he breaks through the language barrier and makes a life for himself in the States, but not quite in the way he expected.



Growing up with a Dominican mama and with Dominican family, I have seen the Sugar story many times but in very different forms. Members of the Dominican diaspora are a bit like Phoenixes, the mythical birds that rise and burn only to rise again. No matter how badly they fall, they always manage to pick themselves up and start again. Dominicans are the ultimate survivors and we see this in Sugar. He has very limited English and has probably never been outside the confines of the isle of Hispanola. He tells his girlfriend that he'll drive back home in a Cadillac that can travel over water. He doesn't know what to expect but also has false expectations. He's separated from his friends and family little by little. Some of his buddies go with him to Arizona, and one goes with him to Iowa, but eventually he is alone and has to start a new life for himself.


The Dominican Republic is famous for their Baseball players. It's a veritable religion there, like soccer is with the rest of the world. Many baseball players are recruited from the DR but only a few make it to the big leagues. Sugar is one of those athletes who has a chance at the big leagues but life takes him in a different direction. Algenis Perez Soto was a perfect choice to play Sugar. He has a quiet somberness that expresses a lot of emotion without emoting. He's pensive, curious, scared, ambitious, driven, shy, playful, and he shows all of this with an almost blank stare. The cinematography is very tied into the main character. We get lots of scenes in Sugar's point of view and many of the shots reveal Sugar's naivete or something new he is about to experience. For example, in New York he looks for a place to stay. His eyes/the camera settle on "Caribe Hotel". He choses this place because of "Caribe"/"Carribean", it reminds him of home. But the hotel is really a hotbed of prostituion and a seedy nook of clandestine encounters. We know this off the bat and we want to protect Sugar, but we can't. We have to sit back and watch as he figures it out for himself.

This film gets the Dominican culture right on. The unexclusivity of romantic relationships, the feeling of entitlement in family, the connection to home but the desire to find something better, the liveliness, the dancing, the social ease, etc. It's all there along with the juxtaposition of colorful and stark visuals that represent the DR so well.

As the movie progressed, I couldn't help but chuckle as I could connect so many elements of the story with my mother's experience. She left the DR in her 20s, without any grasp of the English language, with unrealistic notions of what life in the US would be like and with the knowledge that she would never move back to her homeland. She struggled in many of the same ways that Sugar struggles.

I spoke to my mother on the phone the day after I saw the movie. I was ecstatic telling her details of the film that she would enjoy and promised her that I would get a copy to her soon so she could see. There was one particular sub-plot that I just had to tell her right then and there. Sugar and his baseball buddies are in an Arizona diner. Only one of them speaks English and when the waitress arrives he orders French Toast. The other guys order French Toast too, mimicking the sounds made by the English-speaking friend with the hopes that whatever he ordered they would like too. Sugar visits the diner over and over again, always ordering French Toast. One day, he becomes brave and asks for eggs. When the waitress asks how he would like them, he can only reply "yes". They have a back and forth struggle with understanding and he eventually caves and orders French Toast. The waitress feels for him and comes back with his French Toast and with a plate of eggs. There are a few different kinds and she tells him which is which and how to pronounce them. This scene really touched me and my mom seemed tickled when I told her about it. When I was born, the nurses wanted to tell my mother that I had beautiful eyelashes. She couldn't understand them so that made movements to indicate "baby" (rocking of the arms) and "eyelashes" (applying mascara with a finger as a fake wand).

Watching this film (and reading Dreaming in Cuban - see my previous post) made me realize that I really need to focus a lot more on stories about Latino/a's. I'm at a point in my life that I really need to expose myself to stories that speak directly to me instead of ones about people/places/experiences I can't identify with. I hope I'll be able to use Quelle's Thoughts as a forum to discuss these types of stories.

25 Books Latinas Should Read ~ Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

Just one look at the cover and the title and I was hooked. Out of the 25 Books Latinas Should Read list, Dreaming in Cuban was the one I wanted to read first. Cristina Garcia blends poetry with prose in this story of a Cuban family, splintered by the Cuban revolution. There is the matriarch Celia who finds happiness in her melancholy life through the revolution and in her adoration of El Lider (Fidel Castro) as well as the hope that her rebellious granddaughter Pilar provides her for her family. The patriarch, Jorge, is a ghost that haunts the entirety of the novel. Their daughters Lourdes and Felicia deal with their own distinct madness and Javier seems a shadow in comparison to the other family members. Then there is Pilar. She's the Cuban-born, Brooklyn-raised rebel granddaughter that seems to be the only one that sees everything clearly.

If you are looking for a book with a linear, easy-to-follow plot then look elsewhere. Garcia's writing is difficult to grasp in the way a good poem takes extra effort to understand. We weave in and out of time and we are never really sure where we are, the chapter headings are misleading. The narration goes from first person to third person often. Sometimes we are in Pilar's head and other times we are watching Celia at a distance or listening in on a conversation between Lourdes and her father Jorge. The only thing that anchors us in the story is the group of well-defined and interesting characters.

Out of all the groups of Caribbean diaspora, Cuban-Americans seem to be the most distant from their homeland. Unlike others who could easily visit or move back to their original country, Cubans remain exiled from Cuba and look upon the politics of Cuba with a discerning and judgmental eye. There is a strong intrinsic tie between the Caribbean-born and their country. I know this from experience as my mother is from the Dominican Republic and although she hasn't lived there in 30 years, and hasn't even visited in over 10, she still talks about the country as though she was just there. Her homeland will never leave her. This kind of connection is crucial for good Caribbean fiction and Garcia captures that in Dreaming in Cuban. For example, Lourdes hates Cuban politics and secretly wants to kill El Lider. She relishes in the freedom of the capitalism and democracy of the US. Yet she is drawn back to her homeland, to see her mother, to bring her daughter there, to reconnect with the ghost of her father. However much she hates what Cuba has become, the Cuba of her childhood is still very much a part of her. Dreaming in Cuban gets at the core of what it means to be from the Caribbean through her magical and lyrical prose. This is a must read for sure.

Extra note: As a classic film lover, I particularly liked the mention in the text of one of my favorite pre-code movies Three on a Match (1932). I even took a picture and put it up on Twitpic! http://twitpic.com/1iqumh 

If you look at the picture, you'll see that it's referred to as Mujeres de Fuego which translates into Women of Fire. Superb!

Full Disclosure: I purchased the book myself.