Etiqueta: parents

Prolepsis

patriciamartinrivas
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When he goes to get fresh air on the balcony, Phil is immersed in the everlasting dance of the treetops that strain to mask the urban reality of cement and brick. His light red hair may not take any more walks than is fair and necessary; but his mind knows no such restrictions: this greenery hypnotizes him once more, and his imagination runs wild until he sees —feels— the eternally-damp soil of London under his shoes, the lavender twitching in the wind, and the tiny hand of little Colin, who in turn intertwines the fingers of his other hand with Adrien’s.

On the way to the urban farm, Colinho is jogging alongside his parents, chattering about how his first day of preschool went and endlessly asking why, why, why. Phil entertains him by teaching him the numbers in Portuguese, Adrien fills his ears with little French stories, and then they hum Thinking Out Loud, because they always find a chance to sing their song. At the farm, Colinho laughs out loud and starts suddenly at a growl and goes through the names of the animals in all the languages of his universe. When his son craves a treat, Phil realizes he doesn’t know if his choice would be a muffin, an éclair or a brigadeiro, and this uncertainty pulls him out of his reverie.

The interruption does not bother him, however, because the return to reality becomes a delightful limbo where the time he spends in the treetops passes in slow motion. He is struck by how his subconscious always chooses the most British names that exist (today he had a Colin, but yesterday he imagined a Prudence, Thursday a Freddy and before that a Daisy,) and he finds it very funny how right away, he lusophizes them, as if his mother tongue reasserts itself almost indignantly after his years and years of residence in England.

His return to reality becomes complete with the ping of a new email. Every time the name of the social worker pops up on his screen, his heart skips a skip, he crosses his fingers, calls Adrien (“a message from Ginnie”), and the two steam open the digital missive together. They sigh: once more, news without news, yet another joint interview.

They never quite know what the next appointment with Ginnie will bring. Adrien is a bit short with words, but for the talkative Phil there is always more and more and more to discuss. In the individual interviews, over a rambling two hours, he outlined in painstaking detail his favorite uncle’s love life, the feuds that characterize the dark side of his family history, and how his grandmother defied the rigid social norms of 1960s Brazil when raising her daughters. The joint interviews force them to stare deep into each other, to confess beliefs they had not even realized they had before, and to decisively make distant and intangible decisions. And it’s not just exploring each other: with each meeting, Phil and Adrien feel like they’re delving a little deeper into their own depths.

Despite their initial fears, the pandemic has actually given them certain advantages in the process. Meetings with the social worker before the lockdown meant both were obliged to ask for a day off work, arrive with very British punctuality, comb their hair, dress up and conceal any nervous tics that should suddenly manifest. But now everything is much easier, because Skype appointments are easily fit within the workday, haircuts are less scrutinized, and talking from the warmth of home brings a more relaxed atmosphere.

At the last interview, Ginnie warned them that during the next stage they would have to decide the age. In the event that they opted for a baby, one of them would have to stop working for a year, but their company would only grant them thirteen paid weeks, but London is very expensive and they do not have that much savings, but they could pull it off if they moved to a cheaper flat, but moving is a sign of inconsistency and the adoption agency demands rock-solid stability, but maybe with government assistance, but all this would only be affordable for Sir Elton Hercules John himself.

In the next interview, they will have to talk about why they want to adopt. That’s what Ginnie tells them, as well as the date and time, which they confirm immediately. Adrien grumbles and walks back inside; Phil prefers to do his grumbling on the balcony and searches and searches for a slightly less hackneyed reason that he can give. Before leaving the breeze on the balcony, Phil takes one last look outside and feels a certain friction between the overwhelming inactivity of those streets (where nothing seems to be happening) and the elation of the imminent change that will come in weeks, months, a year? Unlike the world out there, their lives are filled with speed and excitement.

Today it’s Adrien’s turn to cook and, since he knows that Phil tends to melancholy, and that he misses the nights out in Camden, he has prepared fish and chips, just like at Poppies, accompanied by a pint of beer and the best songs from his favorite bar, The Hawley Arms, temporarily closed, but reopening today only in a nondescript London home. To avoid dwelling on Ginnie’s questions and the fears, expectations and challenges of parenthood, they catch up on how telecommuting is going: Adrien has been putting together a hummus commercial for the Luxembourg market, and Phil has been collecting drawings from their friends’ kids to appear on the television channel where he works. As their social life extends only to their counterpart, the conversation chosen for this special evening soon peters out, and they cannot prevent the future from returning to their lips, and they find themselves talking of when the three of them will go to Mantes-la-Jolie to visit Adrien’s parents, of what a good example Phil’s loving goddaughter, Lily, will be, when they visit Petrópolis to officially present the new member of the family, of the living room dance sessions to the rhythm of the Spice Girls.

Every night—even Camden nights—the couple watches a show, and today they’re in luck: they have a new episode of one of their favorites. But at six minutes and sixteen seconds, Adrien is already sound asleep, as usual, so Phil has to resign himself to finishing Killing Eve tomorrow, because he knows the moral code of their sacred union has some immutable tenets and thus that he cannot watch even one more scene by himself. More nocturnal by nature, Phil still has a long time before exhaustion will set in.

Since Friends doesn’t do anything for Adrien, Phil spends two episodes stifling his laughter at every single joke, even though he knows them by heart. Between jokes, he glances out of the corner of his eye at his husband, who, when he sleeps, overflows with tenderness and seems centuries younger. Little by little, he curls up next to him, and Adrien’s body turns automatically to snuggle up, as if magnetized within the sleepy inertia of his idyll. At that moment, as every night, Phil falls asleep with the absolute certainty that their bodies fit perfectly, and he remembers Colinho and Prudencenha and Freddinho and Daisynha, and his eyelids surrender to nostalgia for the future.

{Translated by Adam Lischinsky}

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More tales of the pandemic based on real stories at
Love in the Time of Coronavirus,
by Patricia Martín Rivas

Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Trichophagia

patriciamartinrivas
[Leer cuento en español]

There is nothing like the luxurious sensation of cat fur on her taste buds. With Isis, it can get quite complicated to harvest those hairy delicacies, but Nut acquiesces to more shenanigans, and so Abril yanks her fur out and turns it into haute cuisine and enjoys its touch and spits it out and swallows it, and it dances and dances through her mouth.

Abril pursues the cats on all fours down the hall. Nut and Isis finally give in. They never learn. Or they do learn, but they forget, or it’s worth it, or they actually enjoy it, or they don’t care, and they are ensnared once more by that modern fur trapper. Nut, more maternal, usually sleeps with Abril, despite the peril of baldness, although there are times when she gets fed up and gives a gentle warning bite or even leaves her side. Isis avoids her more, but Abril still plucks the occasional trophy from her, because the tickles of that fur, its toothsomeness magnified by the thrill of the hunt, are an explosion of flavor.

But cats are not always so easily hooked. When the chase proves fruitless, she settles for other furs: hippopotamus hair tastes like green somersaults, bear locks have a bright pink aftertaste, monkey mane has tones of violet sweetness. But, in the end, the ones she rips from the book clump up in her mouth, and she struggles to swallow them, so she sets out once more after the cats.

For some reason, Isis is more amenable to petting on the balcony, where she likes to relax in the bright Madrid sun. Abril follows her, sneaky, and then lingers there for a long time, regardless of the success of her culinary mission. Since the rides in her carriage stopped, she has adored this space: it is here that the breeze blows, the wind chimes rustle, the colors shine, that clapping and dancing live. And at eight in the evening, it is usually she who initiates the nightly applause for hospital workers.

The people who live in the neighboring apartments play the same songs over and over, over and over again, every afternoon, and Abril enjoys their familiarity and dances to them and claps enthusiastically when they finish. The lady who always called her «little cutie» when they met in the halls is the one who launches the daily festivities with We Will be Together Again, by Lucía Gil, which is a bit sappy, but well, the melodrama goes over Abril’s head, and she never turns her nose up at a chance to applaud, clap, clap. Then comes, by tradition, the turn of that neighbor in his sixties — the one who scratched her with his mustache every time he saw her in the lobby— he plays I Will Survive, and by then Abril is already high and moves like one possessed and sings loudly and to her own tune and claps throughout the song and the sum of the clap, clap, clap reaches the end with tiny enormous enthusiasm. The hubbub concludes every night with the melody of the couple across the street —the one with the rectangular red, yellow, red cloth proudly fluttering from their small window— who insist on playing a song that reminds her a bit of a lullaby but is much more difficult to follow for Abril, who always gets confused and applauds after that part where her parents sing “and King Juan Carlos washes it with soap,” clap, clap, because it seems like the melody ends, but then it starts up again. It always continues. Clap. So much the better, that just means there is more applause. Clap. Clap. Clap.

When daylight savings begins, the neighbors across the street can see the little girl much better at that hour, and they blow her kisses and call out greetings. Abril is very good with grannies, so she returns their greetings with self-confidence, but she still doesn’t know how to blow kisses, so she unwittingly leaves them unsatisfied. Who knows: maybe she’ll learn soon and hurl little bits of happiness back at the women in the form of floating kisses.

Abril is happy bathed by the spring breeze. It doesn’t matter if she is in her bedroom playing with her reflection, or if she is hanging on to her mother while she does her housework: at the mere sound of the word «balcony,» Abril abandons everything and her hands start with the clap, clap, clap, as if pulled by irresistible force. She knows that she must clap her hands, and she complies. Just as she does when she goes out on the balcony, even if it’s not the right time for applauding first responders. By force of Pavlovian habit, the balcony has become infused with that gesture of joy: she spends time in the morning blowing soap bubbles with her mother and clap, clap; she stands in the sun with her father as he reads her a story and clap, clap, clap; she is dazzled by the windchimes and claps her hands and laughs every time the little bells ring, clap, while she bites the clothespins; she follows Isis to the terrace, and the cat lowers her guard, and Abril first claps her hands and then goes rip and yum in the blink of an eye. And at eight o’clock the clapping extravaganza begins, something she would miss dearly if the routine ever changed.

Abril already knows how to say “mama” (quite well-enunciated) and “Ithith” (with a lot of drooling accompanying the lisp), calling those whom she must stubbornly chase to feed herself. She often goes out with them to eat on the terrace —and not only dairy and fur— now that spring is in a good mood, clap, clap; and she gets mash all over her face trying to use the spoon and feels great happiness every time the sun hits her and she never tires of applauding.

Afternoons in the park and at the pool fade into the mist of oblivion, and she no longer remembers how quickly she used to get tired, or that she went to bed much earlier; and she has gotten used to seeing her grandparents via video call and pointing at them and smiling at them to indicate that she recognizes them, and then continuing trying to eat Nut and Isis’s fur. Normality for Abril does not mean going out into the street (street? what street?), but taking naps, eating fur and yet more fur, clinging to furniture, laughing out loud at peak-a-boo, breastfeeding, frolicking in her playpen, and listening to the neighbors’ music.

Abril’s first April is born and dies with the reality of the balcony —the awning with painted oak and eucalyptus leaves, the pink chairs, the dried-up cacti, the windchimes— as her only contact with the outside world. New truths and habits and teachings dance incessantly in her memory. One month is ten percent of the little girl’s existence, so the balcony is no little oasis of open air, but a whole universe.

{Translated by Adam Lischinsky}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More tales of the pandemic based on real stories at
Love in the Time of Coronavirus,
by Patricia Martín Rivas

Love in the Time of Coronavirus