Back to my present ...|| Week:175

7 months ago

I am reading this book, by Aquiles Nazoa, full of tenderness and Venezuelans, about Christmas in my country, with its culture, beliefs and roots for my life story, it has been reading these stories by this author...

This is my Christmas backpack...

I love Christmas. Furthermore, I am the result of a combination of cultures and flavors, the hallacas and the ham bread, the nougats and polvorones (cookies), the carols and parrandas (party Christmastimes). The gatherings with friends to sing, the guatacas (parties).

I love with my soul my Christmas at that age when I was a little girl: my mom, dad, grandparents, family, friends, the house, the fuss, the excitement, the gifts. I love and respect her! But I am clear that I cannot repeat it... so I do my best to carry in my memory the Christmas of my childhood.

Today I read this sentence by Aquiles Nazoa that allows me to understand that life in two times is not distressing, but, on the contrary, integrates experiences from different stages of life, as this author expresses it in this excerpt, from his book, “The Simplest Things”, Galen.

"Perhaps the attribute that gives Christmas such touching human significance is the melancholy background that tinges its boisterous joy. A glow of ineffable sadness summons at Christmas the hearts of men to the memory of things far away and once beloved. But this is also the feast of hope, fraternity and love. The soul of the child we once were wanders between the homemade smells of nougat and premiere clothes. Our first girlfriend's smile has a mouth full of grapes. Christmas makes us live in two times. It would be enough for us to get on the sleigh of this beautiful card, to travel with the dream to the country of the cocuyos; but a quick glance out the window, towards the radiant December night sky, restores our faith that this moment of the world is also beautiful, since we can still fill our eyelids with stars in one heavenly drink."

I understand that I can go through my most beautiful memories at the same time and accept that this very different present also comes loaded with the essence of my favorite holiday, Christmas, which is coming to everyone in just under two months.

Aquiles Nazoa continues with this sentence:

"... It could be said that for that jubilee season of the heart, people become children and in the innocent, almost childish worship that they dedicate at that time to the charming figure of the Child Jesus, they ideally realize the longing that assists us all in the most secret of our intimacy: to return sometime for even an instant to the enlightened world of our 7 years".

Really, after reading his stories, it takes me back to my early childhood, on that Christmas where I can go, and be at ease again, or, on the contrary, I wouldn't want to stay on that Christmas, the one of another time so distressing or terrible that I wouldn't even want to remember it.

This post is written remembering people. A good conversation (like all our conversations) with our affections, friends, a very pleasant talk organized with my collaborators, reminded me that our identity cannot be divided into percentages, but that we are a whole, including a cultural whole.

The alchemy of cooking takes me easily to the happiest moments and I can enter them, with all their emotions, and return to the present almost without realizing it.

In this Galen house, no custom is more important than another, none has replaced another and only one would be indispensable: my hallacas (Venezuelan Christmas dish). I get into my traditions, my own, the adopted and the created, as if I were dancing, and I dance between them with rhythm and without a plan. I am always asked, "What is the best way to celebrate Christmas while being away from home?".

And I always think: "This question has a trap", ha, ha, ha, it's like an incantation that erases borders and overcomes time. That's the secret of Christmas… at least to me.

This week 175 of every engagement of the weekend, I wish for you, Galen, that your time travel does not prevent you from returning to your present.