Historia de Un Adolescente

Polito De La Cruz, Little Paul Of the Cross, suggested it at work. There's something spiritual about him in his simple demeanor and if there is someone who has learned, didactically, about this new way of expression through computers, websites and anything related to this new age of communication  is him. Like my nephew Pavel Ernesto, he dreams about this technology. I was conversing with him about my frustrations regarding my economic inability to publish my book, or I should say, what I've been writing, when he mentioned -and within second found -ways in which I could do it. He also mentioned "Bloggin" as a mean to express myself to the vast universe of humanity that does this sort of thing. "If your message has a point, people will read it and through them you'll find support." I hope it works. It reminded me of the phrase in a movie I'd seen. "If you build it, they will come."

 So, here I am. I just went through the whole exercise of setting the blogg - with Polito's help- and I'm still not sure whether I have created one or not, nor what I really want to say. The idea of writing collectively is not new to me. I often send my "Spanish"poems to those friends that are close to me just to let them read whatever muse came to my mind. One of them told me- matter of fact- that he was collecting them and will, once I'm dead, perhaps publish them. Is he a friend? I'm not truly sure. Once, I though he was. 

Where do I go from here? I don't know. Let me go outside and suck on a stick to give my brains some time to consider. I'll be right back. I'm back and I think I know how to begin. I've name this confession- I can't think of a better word to describe this- 'Life, Love, Truth and Lies" because that's what best describes my life. You know; the one in the book in Spanish that I'm writing, "Historia de un Adolescente" ( An Adolescent Story) which is two chapters away from the end. I've lived, loved, told the truth and told some lies, like most everyone. But I guess the real reason hides behind what in my country, The Dominican Republic, is called "La Curvita de La Paraguay" or the Paraguay Curve, which is simply a way to say that life is going down hill and the spectre that we never though about is showing his face. At his stage everything comes all at once. The pains, the realization that six decades has gone by and that you did not plan for this stage of the ball game. It's ugly. And most of all depressing. For the last decade I've been dealing with it and the simple task of just setting your feet on the ground each day is monumental. The thought of ending it all is only subdue by the thought of those I love and the fear of leaving what I started writing undone. Perhaps just writing about it will alleviate it.

I first clearly captured the environment in which I was born when I was 7 years old. It was like a great, grey cloud was taken from in front of my eyes and suddenly, the Market where my fathers' business was, the people, the prostitutes and the black, white chested swallows playing with the flying feathers from the livery, turned into technicolor. I was not aware that the regime of the island was a brutal dictatorship nor of the bigotry that divided it. I was just seven years old and like magic, I knew who I was. Funny how some things remain so vivid in our minds while some things that perhaps were done a few days ago dissipate. I had only two people that I looked up to in those days. "El viejo", my father and "Curumbel", my nickname for my mother. Two completely diferent people. My Sun and my Moon and till today I don't know which one I loved more. One was brutal when you did not do as he ordered, but always equal in whatever he did for his then six children. I was the six. The other was always full of love and a sweet disposition for her three children. I was her third. When, after previously taking my two brothers with him, on my seventh birthday he finally took me away from her, she told him"If I have to selll my body to take back my children back from you I will" I knew then and there that, even though she didn't do as she said, that that promise would come to reality one day and that when it did, my world would drastically change. Seven years later, it did; A new culture, climate, language and status came as we arrived in America. In the time it took from Hispaniola to New York, we turned from the rich sons of a wealthy business man to the poor sons of a shoe factory worker.  But before it did, I would learn to Live, Love, Tell the Truth and Lie before I was forteen. 

 I'll pick it up again next time.  I have go now, my wife just came in an since this is her computer and her "Real Estate" work is what's been paying the bill, I got to get off. Hope I get some feed back. I need the motivation to continue this. Until the next time. Adios.