Juan of Words

Cosas De La Vida: En La Guerra Y El Amor Todo Se Vale

All Is Fair In Love And War

Courtesy of Cornflakegirl

And why not?  It is the single-most important human emotion we all possess.  The one worth fighting for, against all odds; the one we would seemingly travel the world over to protect; the one that makes us feel safe and happy in the arms of our beloved; and even sometimes in the arms of a not-so-much-beloved.  But how do you know the difference between what love is actually real, and the one that, as they say, nomás es pasajero?

More importantly, how do you deal with the reality that after the honeymoon phase is over, whether literally or not, the real work actually begins?

At my sister’s wedding, last October, the priest said something that really made me laugh – not in any perverse way, more because what came out of his mouth was literally what I had always thought, and hearing him say it made me feel very, very validated.  Like hmm, see I knew I was right all this time! I’ll paraphrase what he said because I don’t remember exactly the words he used to make me feel SO right.  Basically, that while the beautiful couple was very much in love at the moment, in their enviable young age and physique, that the days eventually would come when they would not be able to bare the sight of one another…be it from anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment, or just plain boredom (depressing, I know, but it’s not all bad), and that it would be in those precise moments that their love would actually face the true testing of their vows.

¡Cuando lo veas gordo, feo y apesto!  Ahí es cuando tienes que demostrarle tu amor.

It made me laugh because I think, just maybe, that is the true test of how real a love actually is.  That when the muscle turns into flab, the abs into a gut, the hiney into a mass of cellulite, the full head of hair into a rapidly receding hairline…or maybe not, but in some way the physical attributes begin to shift.  And, mucho más importantemente, that when life begins throwing its curve balls, as it most definitely will, that person is there to stand beside you – even if they don’t know exactly what to do or say – holding your hand, pulling you through, caring enough to not just walk away…and knowing that you would do the same for them.  That when you’re facing tragedy, despair, adversity, the end of the road, or even the much dreaded drama of the teenage years, you learn to work as a team and fork ahead…just bow your head down and fork ahead, where no one player is ever more important than the rest.

Definitely not to say that one’s self-respect and dignity should ever be cast aside, sacrificed for the survival of any relationship.  They shouldn’t be!  But the fact is, love and marriage are a constant battle.  First to find the honest and sincere kind – sin interés – then to hold on to it, nourish it, and nurse it back from the wounds of life.

Then again, I may be completely off.

These are just the thoughts of this gordo, feo y apestoso.

Sin Senos No Hay Paraiso

True or False?

Okay, I know what you’re thinking!  But before you go getting all offended…or excited, about my very sexy blog title this time around, let me just say IT’S NOT WHAT YOU’RE THINKING.  Yes, there was a television series with this same title in very recent history, which in part was the inspiration for this post.  Nevertheless the subject matter in this piece is much more PG – a big BOO for quite a few of you out there also, I know.

So what is the allure of these infamous lady lumps for us guys?  All women want to know.  The truth is you won’t find any scientific answers here – mainly because the most obvious reason for me is just the simple fact that we don’t have them.  Plain and simple.  They are something foreign to us, hidden underneath all those layers of clothing and undergarments, hidden for so many years before we actually get to explore them (eww, go ahead and let it out…it’s okay), and that in it of itself makes senos so sexy to us.  We are pretty simple animals after all.

Now I am digressing!

Still the idea of there ‘being no paradise without breasts’ seems a little excessive.  No doubt they are a beautiful part of the female anatomy that can fill in our tees and sweaters like nobody’s business, but when a woman is forced to make that difficult decision between her breasts and her life there definitely should be no question about what comes first.  Life.  Perhaps it is not my place to be saying this.  I’ve not actually had to deal with this reality myself, or with the heartache of having a loved one go through this very personal dilemma themselves, but my reality is full of beautiful women from all walks of life for whom I care a great deal about.

These words then, are dedicated to them.

Breasts, no matter how big or small, real or fake, do not define the woman.  They are a cup size, not a lifeline.  They are sexy!  They can make us guys go crazy.  They can bank in some pretty good perks if used in that way.  They can feed.  They can make a girl feel like a woman.  But at the end of the day, senos are just that: senos.  Another part of the female body, like any other part of the human body, male or female, subject to illness, old age and unannounced shifts and changes.

That is all.  No more.  No less.

And for the thousands of you out there suffering through this choice or helping someone along right now, remember: just because someone, at some point, decided to coin the phrase ‘sin senos no hay paraiso’ – it don’t mean a DAMN thing.

Don’t buy into the hype! 

Los Trapos Sucios Se Lavan En Casa

Ones Dirty Laundry Should Be Aired At Home

¡Pinche huerco travieso!

De chiquillo siempre me metía en lo que no me importaba.  If someone was a having a conversation – the more private it was the better – there I was, con las orejas bien paradas, as my parents would say.  Trying my hardest not to be noticed, listening carefully to what exactly was being said, and making every attempt to make sense of what I was hearing.  When I didn’t understand the subject matter or context I’d make it up in my head – it was more fun that way anyways.

¡El metiche! That became my nickname and stuffing chisme after chisme into my morral became my business, even if I did not know exactly what to do with that information once I had it.

My sisters would get so mad when they would bring their friends over and could not have a private conversation without having to worry about Juan sitting around somewhere trying to listen. They were both in junior high at that time and their conversations never amounted to more than the usual schoolyard chatter, but I could never get enough.  It was like a rush of adrenaline to know that I could get caught at any moment or even better, that they might spill the beans on something really juicy that I could then run around telling the rest of the family about.

Neither ever really occurred, so I kept listening.

Then one day my sister had a steady boyfriend.  She couldn’t go anywhere with him without the company of at least my second oldest sister – just two years younger than her – and usually with the rest of us, her five younger siblings, tagging along for the walks in the park and trips to the pulga as well.  My parents were old school, used to the way things were done in their rancho in Mexico, which unfortunately for her, being the oldest and all meant she’d have to deal with having the least amount of freedom in her teens out of all of us.   So there we all were at the park.  She and her now-husband always walking in front of us, holding hands, exchanging words in the lowest of tones so as to not to be heard by the rest of us.  My other sister trying to keep us entertained, playing with us, making us run around all over the park, Los Patos, keeping up her end of the sisterly-pact, which I assumed meant ensuring my sister her privacy with her boyfriend.

I wasn’t having any of it though.  When it became impossible to listen to what they were saying or even keep a close eye on them – every time I’d get close they’d shoo me away, sometimes literally dragging me away – my anger and frustration got the better of me.  I must have been 10 or 11 years old, but I was a healthy sized boy with more muscle than even I was aware of apparently.  In one single motion my hands were on her legs, her legs, in that short ruffled mini skirt, went flying up above my head, then hers, backwards over that bench they had been sitting on, past his frantic attempts to grasp them, and finally pointing straight up into the air, her back laying flat on the ground, as she stumbled to get back up enraged that because of her stupid little brother her boyfriend had now seen her chones!

On the way home that day I experienced the real first cachetada of my life, as well as a banana squished and splattered across my hair and face, combined with a painful dosage of pelizcones on one arm and then the other, as both my sisters ganged up on me for having embarrassed them so badly.  My cheek burned so bad, and the pinches stung so much, that all I could do was cry.  How could they have plastered and humiliated me so much with that single banana!?

In truth, I deserved it, for being such a pinche huerco! And in the end I learned a valuable lesson: los trapos sucios se lavan en casa. Never again would I air our dirty laundry out there in public like that.

For what, another banana split a’lo Guey!? 

El Que Tiene Boca Se Equivoca

He Who Has A Mouth, Mistakes Makes

No hay como una buena metida de pata.

¿Apoco no? ¿Cuantas veces no hemos metido la pata? Most times, from literally opening our mouths just one too many times – perhaps at the wrong time, in front of the wrong people, or even worse, without even realizing every single word we are saying is being heard…almost always by the one person we don’t want to know exactly what we really think.

And once it’s done, it’s not like we can just take our words back or pretend they were never said.  They’re out there!  Up for interpretation, miscommunication, confrontation, etc.  All we can do at that point is damage control.

¡Ay, es que no me entendiste! You did not understand what I was saying, or how I was saying it.  You missed the context of my words.  How much did you actually hear?  Had you heard the rest of my conversation, you would understand why I said what you heard – an honest attempt at completely annihilating the other person’s interpretation of our words by convincing them they are missing some mysterious piece of a verbal puzzle.  However, be forewarned this excuse will only work a limited number of times.  Soon enough you’ll be hearing: no estes chingando, como que no entendi si no estoy sordo…or any other similar reclamaciones.

Then you may you want to move on to option # 2.

¡Yo no dije eso! With fury in the voice.  What are you taking about?  I never said that!  You must be imagining things!  Whatever! – the thought of you thinking about me in such a way that I would say such a thing is so enraging that it makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs.  Combined with a furled brow and somber face this single action may very well avoid many a heated yelling matches…at least the ones where you are the one getting yelled at the loudest.

If even this attempt does not deliver the expected outcome, one final suggestion.  Mujeres you are particularly good at this one…don’t deny it, just accept it.

Suelta el llanto. Open the floodgates and let the lagrimas de cocodrilo flow.  Your poor fellow will be so confused and ridden with guilt that he won’t know what to do to calm you down (he knows if you’re not at peace he surely won’t be).  The last thing he’ll want to do is continue any argument where you’ll be shedding tears and spewing feelings all over the place.  With other women, though, this method likely will not work.  Like a sixth sense, most women can also seemingly detect when another member of their same sex is spinning lies to get what they want.  Sort of like The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf…only the adult female version.

Maybe it’s all the telenovela watching, or just the many years of practice, but after putting my foot in my mouth one too many times, and in preparation for the many more times that are surely to come in the future, I can honestly say I consider myself somewhat of an expert on all of these defense mechanisms.

On a sort of related side note, more of a public service announcement: if you’re going to talk smack…make sure you’re not leaving the person you are talking smack about a voicemail recording with every single word you utter on it.  Not a very smart move.

Al Que Madruga, Dios Le Ayuda

He Who Rises Early, God Helps

Brother-sister by Bobby Dacus

Rising Early
To stay in bed past noon was un pecado.  Early rising to get ahead of our day, not to let our day get ahead of us.  If by 10 a.m. we were not up, the calling of our names would commence – first lightly and calm, then at increasing frequencies, every couple of seconds, then louder, until there were full fledge hollers coming from the other side of the door, or inside our room if we had not remembered to lock the door behind us.  On school days, less formalities, just my mother screaming at the top of her lungs.  My father’s long, hardened nails jabbing at the side of our ribs: ¡Ey ya levantense! ¡Hay que ir a laescuela!

Al que madruga Dios le ayuda, they would say, as we clumsily rubbed our entire hands on our faces, inching slowly out of bed, yawning lazily, mouths open as far and wide as we could get them, to express our disapproval of these early morning rituals.  All we wanted was to stay in bed, curled up underneath our covers, dreaming…or not…just immobile in that sublime trance between reality and unconsciousness.  Where nothing else mattered besides the fact that we were comfortable.

Not my parents.

Even though we didn’t even have a gallo anymore they still got up like clockwork everyday at the crack of dawn.  My mother in the kitchen clapping her hands from side to side in small rapid motions, corn between her palms, forming a perfectly round gordita, alternating between this and turning the tortillas on the comal, stirring the mixture of chile and eggs on the frying pan, slitting gorditas at one side, filling them up with my father’s lunch.  He sipping on a cup of coffee, putting on his boots – the ones layered with blotches of dark black chapapote all over the front and sides of them – reading a piece of newspaper, a magazine perhaps, whatever was around to stimulate the brain.  Rare days when they didn’t work, they’d lie in bed, still awake, whispering to one another.  Me steady trying to listen.  Having very little success.

In our home these were the cherished moments.

And With God’s Help
Nothing could be worse than being un huevon and like it or not we all adopted that same mentality, albeit at varying degrees and versions over the years.   When my brother would sit on the sofa watching countless hours of The Nanny, to the point of making a hueco in ‘his spot’ that my father had to fix by nailing three two by fours of wood underneath our cushions, we’d all yell at him to get up; there was my sisters constant fighting with one another about who was going to clean up what – my oldest sister always yelling at the younger one to mop or broom; me forcing the little ones to do their homework, even at the expense of their very frightened tears.  We had a level of expectation from one another.  Unwritten perhaps, but all the same demanding of what we felt was right.

In many ways this is still true.

We don’t leave ours behind, one of my sisters said the other day and it was like an epiphany.  Of so many lessons learned over the years of what we should or should not be, what we should and should not do, how we should and should not live – like in that instant all my parents’ regaños flashed before my eyes at lightning speed, yet slowly enough to be remembered one by one.

Hearing her say something so profound, took me back, all the way.  To the days when she was our caretaker more than our sister, a teenager responsible for kids half her age, when nothing that we did was without the other.  When we were truly one.  All nine of us one single family, one single person.

It made me realize nothing has really changed.

Despite the distance and the years, the marriages and the children, the dramas and personal demons, there we stood.  Her, golden brown hair, braided on either side, past her waist, thin and guera, with the green eyes and simple smile, no makeup, spaghetti strap top, cheap track shorts, barefoot, holding my infant sister above her waist.  Me, a mismatched, chorreado ball of energy, looking to her, depending on her, laughing, playing, being a kid…perhaps at her expense.  The kid in me still there, married now, an adult, but still the little brother, looking up at his big sister, relying on her for so many things.

Maybe I don’t believe all the dichos we grew up with, but there is something comforting in knowing we still share many of those lessons.  More comforting even than the act stealing of a few more seconds of blissful sleep before we had to get up and go, all those mornings ago so many years behind us now.

Al que madruga Dios le ayuda.  Probablemente sí…papá, mamá.

In Bed And On The Dining Table, Shame Is Pretty Much Useless

Courtesy of Punto.es

Useless in the sense that no matter how hard we may try to hide who and what we really are, the rest of the time, in our natural state – when eating and er…sleeping – the truth simply has a way of revealing itself.  You know the old adage about breaking bread with someone in order to get to know who they actually are, or even the potentially  less literal catch phrase: “sleeping with the enemy.”  The idea that everyone has something to hide.

Or maybe just a simple reminder: accept yourself for who you are, don’t try to change to please anyone else besides yourself, and when it’s time to let it all hang out…just let it all hang out!  Plain and simple.  My interpretation anyway.