domingo, 30 de dezembro de 2012

A little anamnesis


Chapter 1: A little anamnesis

            I remember my semi misfit childhood perfectly. Parents that constantly argued and many siblings living in a one-bedroom house (there were six of us).  We passed through a multitude of financial necessity and constantly received donations from various churches, protestant as well as catholic, which allowed us to have something to wear as well as to eat.  There was a very difficult time in my life in which my mother used to bring the left over soup from the school she used to work at for us to eat.  Since she only came home at nights, sometimes we would go throughout the entire day without anything to give us the nourishment we needed. This tortured my parents.
            One day, I found out that the weekly farmers market nearby our house there would be leftover fruits and vegetables that the vendors would throw out because they had no way to keep them for the next day’s sale.  I decided to go and gather whatever was left on the ground. In order to get the most food possible, I went along in a manic frenzy separating the rotten fruit and vegetables from the ripe.  At the end of the day, I wasn’t the only person there to grapple for the scraps.
            When I arrived back home, it was a feast with my younger siblings.  We had cassava, part of a watermelon, zucchini and squash.  I patiently washed everything and separated what I could salvage.  Afterward, I whipped up a delicious stew and we ate a lunch fit for kings and queens.  We even had a piece of watermelon for dessert! The best part was that we had enough for supper later on.
            When my mom came home and could smell the food that had been made she asked:
            “Wow, looks delicious! Who gave us all of this?”
Full of pride I responded:
            “I grabbed it at the farmers market, mom!”
            “Grabbed? What do you mean by “grabbed”? – She already sensed something peculiar about my story.
            “Well, one of my friends from school told me that at the end of the farmers market there is always something good leftover.  So, I went and I snagged as much as I could.”
            I thought she would swell with pride over what I had done but the look of deception and embarrassment that radiated from her eyes will be with me forever. She gave me a scolding I will never forget and forbade me from going back there again.
            I’m very sincere in admitting that during that time I couldn’t understand why she would do that and I was very angry with my mother because she found nothing prideful in what I had done. Today, I understand, and I believe she must have suffered a lot as well. To know that her kids were grabbing “garbage” at the farmers market to feed themselves and that those who witnessed us doing it would be making all types of judgments, couldn’t be something easy to swallow.
            In short, I decided to be someone in life, and I promised myself that my kids would never have to do the things I had done. I studied all of the time and was admitted into an excellent university without having to take a preparatory course (which is common in Brazil)[1]. I majored in two different areas at the same time (back then it was already difficult to major in one!) and I looked to become as specialized as possible in my profession.  Today, I have a master’s degree in Dialogic Literature, I am an English Professor, I teach Portuguese to foreigners, I do translations and consulting as well. Still, I want more.  I never want to have to go through what I did when I was growing up.
            Aside from all the difficulty, we were united in our home and we had, to the extent possible, the care of our parents and mutual support.
            Taking my difficult childhood into account, it is strange that I have always had the desire to be a mom; especially if having children meant that they would experience the same things that I have. I remember one time when I was around eight years old, I turned to my mom with a pillow underneath my shirt and began to play and pretend that I was pregnant. “Look mom”! The only thing I heard was my dad’s yell telling me to stop doing that because I was too young to think about being a mom.  I took the pillow from beneath my shirt, but the idea never left my mind.
            My husband had the childhood that anyone could have asked from God.  He had parents who were always there for him, his brother and his sister as well as an uncle who constantly pampered them.
            Hasn’t it been said that opposites attract?


[1] In Brazil, it is common to get prepared taking a “preparatory course” (Curso Pré-Vestibular) before entering a good university due to the intense competition amongst eligible students looking forward to furthering their education.