I will write you for weeks after you have stopped writing me... The conversation I carry with me long after I have ceased hearing your voice. You may hear an echo of mine. Your response will be the placement of cotton in your ears. But the echo is within you. Somehow you will convince yourself that something I was saying was threatening or dangerous and you will turn down the volume of the echo of me. But we are all intertwined and can't escape the other just as we can't escape ourselves.
I was with Margarita... sexually... below or above. I'm sure it was a beautiful experience... For her. For me... And I was thinking about your short history in Armeria. ... while "making love?" thinking about a man tied to a tree... Something sexually stimulating? Absolutely not. Sexually distracting... like looking out the window, focussing on a distant point above the brownstones in brooklyn... Concentrating on my breathing and not on the overstimulating act, perpetually concerned that she will terminate satisfied... 1986 Branchburg, 1992 Flemington, 1996 Queens, 2000 Brooklyn, 2011 Guadalajara. But I didn't conjure up your brief history in Colima in 1996... I now carry with me that concern. And it was with me all the time Margarita had no idea I may have been participating in a slight act of infidelity... With you? Absolutely not. Infidelity has nothing to do with sexual act. It has to do with perspectives each and everyone of us carry within our minds and is about spiritual/intelectual, socio-political connectiveness. When one "makes love" the idea is that there is a bond between the two people at the moment of the act. So, my mind should be in only one place at that time. But, my mind NEVER is in just one place at one time whether or not I am by myself or with another person. So, if one is to be loyal to me as is correspondent with my character or my personality or my spirit, if that person can truly understand who I am or how I am, then maybe that person would understand that I may be thinking about other things in the middle of a sexual act. That said, I will never tell her that I'm not 100% focussed solely on what was occurring between us, just as I wouldn't want to know about the fantasies that the other person may be having in order to enjoy the activity shared with me, if she happened to be one of those women speaking in Cosmopolitan in the 90s about the necessity of fantasy for women to accomplish orgasm...
How many people from Branchburg do YOU think can say they've had your experience? I've wondered how many of our peers from Branchburg and Somerville have died between the late 80s and now and we don't know that they are dead... And what were the causes? How many of them are mixed up in things they shouldn't be mixed with? How many are in jail? The rest are housewives, bored office workers, mechanics, church goers, non-believers not believing even in themselves nor in their children... But, you my friend, were so close to participating in a scene from a movie I hope I never find myself in... And I am here almost 9 years and you are not for 15 years...
So, why mix all this and possibly confuse you or possibly offend you or possibly make you concerned that I cross the bounderies between a man and a woman who have never met in person as adults?
How is it that I am having sex with my wife (not so personal because we always find ourselves watching romantic scenes on TV or in the movies or in our minds while reading novels... or thinking about how it is we entered this world as a product of romance between our mother and our father...) and your story passes through my mind. And if I wasn't with Margarita, I would still have your story passing through my mind. And I know that I haven't responded adequately to your story and I haven't asked you so many questions that I am sure you will not answer for some reason or another.
I've never knowingly met a CIA agent. I would love to ask them all sorts of questions that they will not answer AND if I was in that position to ask those questions, I am sure that it would be just a bit dangerous. All the important information is more than concealed. It is protected with a code of silence usually protected by death. And, since I don't fall on any side of the lines creating the parameter of what it means to be one of those participating in that theater, not even a journalist, not even a researcher for a think tank or for an academic publication, not even a fiction writer seeking storyline... not even a "delinquent" seeking connections--work--investments--permissions... there is absolutely no reason I would even come close to knowingly have a conversation with one of those people.
But I always want to understand why... and that includes answering personal questions about myself.
If I don't write about sexual acts because of being a timid prude, I must ask myself why. If I write about it and then feel guilty or concerned for writing that, I must ask myself why. If I don't ask myself why I do certain things, the question is, what does that say about me?
But this isn't about me. This isn't so much about you. It's about Lucio's brother. It's about your long ex-boyfriend's mother. It's about Lucio. It's about Armeria. It's about being a farmer there or about being a poor person trying to get by thinking that maybe there wasn't any risk with his actions or that that risk was minimal because those are activities many have been doing for many years...
Why did you tell me about Armeria? Many weeks ago you told me that you had a memory problem. Granted, this is a memory that can't be erased; at least the feelings can't be erased. The details become erased as is natural. And I wonder if you were in Armeria when they tied him to the tree. Did they take the cows? They could have killed the cows too... I find it horribly difficult to believe that they left Lucio and his girlfriend alone. And I am sure you don't want to think about that. Or maybe you don't have a problem with this conversation.
If you were there at the time of the killing, you would know that they don't just tie someone to a tree and put a bullet in their head. They tie the person to the tree and they mutilate them... But this is 1996 and not 2011. We were in Tepic, Nayarit, on the other side of the mountains from Colima, on the same coast... We were there for 3 months learning about the most horrific things, seeing the photographs and I was left wondering how people can do such things and in what manner does it serve socio-political needs here in Mexico... I wonder about the spirits of these people. Mónica, my Cornell graduated girlfriend from San Juan, Puerto Rico asked me in 1998 if I believe people were born bad... And I said, "definatively NO"... And I believe that... But, I wonder how a person can enjoy mutilating people. But you read about the torture chambers in the Church basements during the Inquisition... You can travel 165 days per year from the time of "Christ" to NOW filling each and every day with these horrific events perpetrated by people supposedly "god-fearing" or god-loving or god-respecting or god-believing... in other words, people who supposedly believe in spirituality and love towards some...
Does no one understand that an invasion, such as that of Iraq in 2003 results in the destruction of the lives of 100s of thousands of innocent people? And no one wonders why a non-monstrous middle-eastern child may have fantasies about destroying American and European "monuments"... But, that aside... What does it take for someone, supposedly "educated" and supposedly "civilized" to justify acts that destroy the lives of so many innocent people and create unimaginable suffering for so many others? What does this have to do with sex?
Well, if the birth of a child is considered beautiful. Then why is it taboo to talk about sex in a personal manner? If the lives of all children are considered beautiful, then why is it OK to create such destruction of those children, their lives and their worlds? If you destroy the parent of that child, you also destroy that child in so many forms...
I don't have children. I also see over-population as a problem. I have 8 brother-in-laws and 3 sister-in-laws. I see many problem--issues connected with one couple having 12 children (13 to be precise, one died in the first week)... But, living very closely with all of them in one way or another, I can't tell you who shouldn't have been born, since between the first one and the last one, so many have such potential for contributing to this world in truly wonderful ways. All of us have the incredible potential for not contributing absolutely nothing to this world or society... Part of my destiny is the birth of 13 chidren through my mother-in-law Paz. Yes, it's part of my destiny because it has effected my life in ways that having married a woman who is one of only two or three children wouldn't have effected me...
How is it that I ended up in Mexico? How is it that you and I are having this "conversation"? And it just so happens that you had this experience in Armeria, Colima never dreaming once in your lifetime that someone who grew up in your community would tell you, "I know that small isolated region of the world!" And, no, I'm not a CIA agent, nor am I a journalist, nor am I an investigator, nor am I a Jehovas Witness or other form of British or American style evangelist trying to convert Mexicans from Catholicism as is so prevalent here, which is one way of being so close to these incredibly isolated communities so at risk... I'm not an activist, I'm not a lobbyist. In fact, I've never participated politically in my life. I think I've voted once in my lifetime in Astoria, Queens. But, I don't remember if it was a presidential election. I did it because Randi probably insisted. Yes, that makes me a bad "American" because I don't participate in the Democratic Process. I tried participating in the Democratic Process from Xalapa, Veracruz, since I felt that George Bush Jr. shouldn't enter into the White House a second time. But, they never sent me my absentee ballot as was the case for many "overseas" voters... Do I believe in Democracy? It doesn't exist. And if it exists at the very basic level, what influence do you have upon the politician after he or she has entered office? Could you have voted against the second Persian Gulf War? Can I vote for Hillary Clinton to ask the Mexican Government to varify exactly where the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars are going that she "authorizes" be given to Mexico in the name of "the War on Drugs"?
Smack me in the face. Tell me to wake up and stop wasting my breath on any of these issues/questions since the truth is that the object in question is on the other side of the tree... It's not about any of this.
So, I am left with the question, "Why do people do these things?" "Why do so many people accept that these things are being done by their very own people?"
Before you can even considering changing the world, you must first attempt truly understanding what is happening. But, the moment you enter the wide circle of possibly truly understanding, you realize that there really isn't anything you can do at such a grand scale. Yes, you can call me apathetic. But, I am just 1 in almost 7 billion and I may die today and my death will only affect Margarita and possibly my in-laws depending upon how they decide to relate to my life with them and now to my sudden absence. I won't leave behind children, I won't leave behind family. I left behind all my friends when I left for Mexico almost 9 years ago and, truthfully, my permanent absence will not be much different from my current absence. But, Margarita will be affected.
What does this have to do with being apathetic?
Just look at the trajectory of the socio-political situation in the world. With the economic crises, what is the responsible response by the world governments, especially by the U.S. government? Why doesn't your being a voter change that situation?
The people say, "thank God I still have my job! Thank God I still have food in the pantry and money for buying the necessities..." "Lynch people. Abduct people and line them up alongside deep pits and... Drop bombs on the communities of people... Blow up car bombs in community markets... But give me enough food to eat... Give me the opportunity to forget about these atrocities happening to people who live in communities far from my own, people I'll never know... and shut your mouth... why waste my time and energy?"
When I entered Mexico, I thought I was entering a better world. Maybe you would have told me that I was making a mistake back in 2003. But I didn't know you then.
I was sitting in the library of the ecological tourist ranch, Las Cañadas, watching television with Margarita, Gregorio, Alejandro and Margarita's sister-in-law Rejina. It was March 2003. The UN forces led by the U.S. military were dumping millions of tons of explosives on Baghdad and certain people looked at me with strange smiles, probably wondering what was passing through my mind at that moment or not nearly concerned about my thoughts or feelings, thinking that "Americans" are war happy... If I told them that I was horrified or embarrassed or resentful towards this aspect of "American culture", maybe they would have assumed that I was covering up the truth within my spirit or mind, that I was lying. I remember those complex concerns.
And then 7 years later I found myself on the other side of the line wondering what was it about "Mexican culture" that made it so easy for so many people to mutilate other people...
Today I wonder just how intertwined is this aspect of Mexican "culture" with that aspect of American "culture"...
And I have so many questions to ask you (as a friend, as a concerned and curious human being) that I know you will not answer unless we found ourselves sitting infront of each other in a cafe or walking though the woods.
What does someone being tied up to a tree and killed in an isolated part of Mexico in 1996 have to do with bombs being dropped in Baghdad in 2003? What does it have to do with you and me?
But this is my spirit. It is how I live. It's how I experience life. It's how I think. It's how I relate to people and to life. I ignore too. But maybe I ignore less than YOU.
(You being the average person. It's part poetic, it's part truth. But, it is not an accusation, since it isn't directed at the person who was in Armeria, Colima in 1996.)
We are catalysts for change. We inspire. Offending, criticizing, scaring, preoccupying function equally with loving and caring and nurturing as forms of inspiration as catalysts of positive change... Awakenings.
If you shut your mind to me, it's all part of the human reality. You continue participating. As I have said so many times, "Silence is a message too." But, silence creates more potential for confusion and misinterpretation than does conversation. At the very least, as long as there is a conversation, you have the opportunity of explaning yourself to the other or of explaining yourself to yourself, since so often we don't truly understand what we are doing until the other person questions our actions... and still we may be self-deluded...
Maybe I won't die today or tomorrow. Maybe I will just truly accept the truth of my life and the world around me and that you and I do not see each other and do not exist in the life of the other... With that understanding or better yet, with that acceptance, maybe I will disappear from the internet and stop sharing my internal world with you. Maybe when "making love" with Margarita I will only feel and think about our connection and I won't be thinking about other things that, maybe, possibly have nothing to do with me.
Maybe I can believe in my life-long dream that another person of the other sex is what is missing from my life and I will stop trying to connect with other people stop worrying about what's happening in the world, since there is only one world and that world is the one I created with Margarita who I was waiting for all my life, since I was a student at Old York School.
But why is it not enough having this absolutely wonderful/beautiful woman at my side? Why do I reach into the past? Why do I think about a different future? Why do I think about what you said while being intertwined sexually with Margarita? Something that has absolutely nothing to do with sexual/romantic behavior... Had you been a man who had told me this, I would still be thinking about your experience or the experience of the people more closely effected.
People want to believe that life is simple and can be explained in one paragraph and organized in a simple list. The moment you believe that life is beyond you, you become lost. But, what if your "belief" in the simplicity of life leaves you unprepared for so many things way over your head? Why did they or God take away my...?!!!!
I suffered most of my life; a suffering caused by something way beyond my means for controlling, since I was a very young child to adolescent... I understand how denile protects us for a moment. But, I also understand that true understanding helps us put things into perspective. Putting life into perspective helps us truly enjoy what truly matters. But living in fantasy and illusion blunts that enjoyment and sets us up for a loss we aren't prepared to understand or accept, since we spent our lives subconsciously or semi-consciously rejecting understanding and acceptance...
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