Girl Anachronicles

No sé cómo es que uno se olvida de los olores con el tiempo y sin embargo eventualmente el elemento más aleatorio lo resucita como si estuviese pasando de nuevo. Hace muchos años, cuando todavía mi papá era completamente infeliz y tenía dinero, él usaba perfumes como si fueran calzoncillos: no sólo los cambiaba con frecuencia, sino que los usaba el día entero, y al final ya apestaba.

Aparentemente, la fricción continua del shampoo de miel de abeja (fricción absolutamente necesaria, porque bañar a una cachorrita de 3 meses de edad y 15 libras de peso no es tarea fácil si ella así se lo propone), al cabo de un rato termina oliendo a Drakkar Noir … o alguna otra de esas pestilencias que usaba mi papá. También es increíble cómo uno le puede tomar cariño a un olor que en cualquier otro caso terminaría provocando una migraña.

Al oler eso, la memoria viajó a una parte que hacía tiempo no visitaba. Era una época problemática, de consternación y confusión. Todos esos años en los que mi papá no fue feliz y en los que no sintió la necesidad de ocultarlo sirvieron para conocer un lado de él que prefiero no repetir. Era algo gris, opaco, oculto, oscuro. Los regaños provocaban más terror del que pueda tenerle uno a mi papá en estos días, y los momentos felices frecuentemente tenían la sensación de un chocolate hueco.

Mis hermanos y yo creo que nos acostumbramos a ese tormento interno de nuestro papá, creo que por eso nos rebelamos tan asquerosamente cuando al fin conoció a alguien que lo hizo sonreír desde adentro nuevamente. En ese momento, mi papá dejó de usar perfumes. Creo que finalmente ya no le hacía falta la máscara.

UGHS

Class of 1995

And that’s me, smack in the center, on a smoldering day in May. One of those rare days in which mom and dad got along just fine, even my aunt and grandma tagged along, and no one ended up fighting. I earned two medals: one for Highest College Board score (the College Board is a college entry test, somewhat like the SATs), and one for Health Class (now, that was a hoot!).

It was one of the longest graduation ceremonies I have been in (if not THE longest … ever!). It took, from start to finish, about 5 hours, mostly because of the myriad of activities and speeches. The validectorian herself took up some space, half for the teachers to read her 9-page-long resume, and half for her to shoot down authority in one sweep. Suffice it to say that teachers weren’t expecting that and they were sorely vexed. Everyone else laughed. And in retrospect, I should have been more like her, less contented with the paternalistic recognition handed me during those three high school years.

I salute Cindy Salgado for that!

Talking of Cindy, she’d be the one right next to me (I’m the oddly long-necked creature standing at the far right of the picture, squinting at the sunlight, and impressively not melting under the beret and the denim jacket). I can’t for the life of me remember much of this road trip. The picture was taken at El Yunque, perhaps in one of the old stone watchtowers that dot the way to the top.

As much as I don’t remember this particular trip, I do remember others, and the one time I fell asleep on the last seat of the bus. It was so hot, I was sweating out of my eyes. Either that, or I was sick …

The picture doesn’t say much. To be honest, I can’t say what it is the person who took the picture trying to photograph. I don’t even remember the decoration of the place. I do remember:
-the lighting (dim and located)
-Cindy’s skirt (long, fringed, red suede, cowboy boots! argh!)
-staying in the same room with about 8 people (including Mayda’s mom and her brother, which ensured some drama for the evening)
-popping out of the hotel for a bit (and suddenly finding myself ordering take-out breakfast from Burger King at 4 am)
-the rumors (including “a bathtub full of champagne/beer/bubbly alcohol”, and “a threesome in said bathtub” etc etc etc)
-the intense scolding I got afterwards (for not calling the night before to let my parents know I had gotten there just fine)

To tell the truth, I consider my White Christmas 1994 to be in a truer spirit of what a prom should be like. (I didn’t even stay at the prom anyway. Mom got sick, so we had to split.)

I don’t recall who was the insane teacher that thought it would be somehow helpful for our progress in the English language to hold a fashion show. It gave way, however, for an annoying slew of more of these, complete with casting sessions and tearful rejection. Our own fashion show will probably pale in the collective memory of class 1995, thanks to the overblown production by another group, in which the highlight of the afternoon was one of the girls unabashedly walking down the makeshift catwalk in nothing but sheer black stocking, a camisole and a thong. I can still vividly remember the post-pubescent kids scrambling to get their $1 bills in first …

BTW: Even if there is no picture of it, I do remember Mayda imitating Gloria Trevi at a talent show. She forced a kid out of his belt (he looked scared shitless) and poured some … soda? water? over her wild hair. Shock value was starting to be IN way back in 1992!

I could be at this all day if I wanted. The memories pour in as soon as you open the mind’s window to the slightest image.

I remember a Halloween party in which Cindy and I closed off the evening by howling at the moon (what WAS our trip, anyway?). I garnished the corners of my mouth with fake blood and all I got was a comparison to a ventriloquist’s puppet (never place fake blood as if it were falling in straight lines down the corners of your mouth and then not accompany it with the fake fangs … you WILL look like a puppet).

I remember Mayda’s gray-colored contact lenses, the first I ever saw on someone my own age. I remember her having them on so often that I almost believed that was her natural color, even if I had met her first as a brown-eyed girl.

I remember the girls who shaved their heads, a pair of sisters, both donning faces so beautiful and faultless, that the lack of hair worked perfectly. I tried it later on in college. Pulled it off, but not as gracefully.

I remember Ana Pomales and her frequent change of hair color. She used to be a hair model for Wella, and it gave her the privilege of having edgy haircuts and flashy hair colors. She introduced me to the concept of glo-orange hair. Thank you!

(Plus she had a bicthin’ sense of fashion, I always envied that a bit…)

Another one with an enviable sense of fashion: Yadira de Jesús. Always fashionably retro, without falling into the crowd. Always a bit of a forward thinker in that way … And there were a few others, beautiful creatures, graceful creatures. Looking back, I guess I have never felt as good as I looked. I’ve always suffered the ugly duckling syndrome.

I remember my small, wine-red wool sweater, and how I wore it even if it was 90 degrees outside. I loved my red sweater. I loved my fake Doc Martens boots. I loved the one time I dared set myself on the spotlight by painting my whole face stark white, surrounded my eyes in black (like a raccoon) and stained my lips in red. I loved that next year, a few others did it too.

I remember sitting on the staircase to the mezzanine arguing with Axel about Ricardo Arjona. It should please him to learn that I saw the error of my ways: Axel, you were absolutely right. I remember sitting outside on a bench and asking Raul (a total stranger back then) to play a Metallica piece for me (jeez! wasn’t I the forward one?).

I even remember that a rumor got around of me saying I would be the Antichrist’s mother. A group of creeps came around to ask me about it … I had to go back on my story, lest they should get any ideas to kill me because the believed me. I’m glad I did. There are lots of crazies around in high school already.

The gallery Nanette posted on her Facebook profile may not have many pictures of me, or of activities I might remember. But they are the key to opening up my own memories. A shame that I don’t have the pictures to match. But today I’ve had quite the ride!

Thank you, Nanette!

A classmate of mine apparently appointed herself from the beginning, back in 1991, to be the official historian for the rest of the class. The class reunion was celebrated on 2005 and I wasn’t able to go, regrettably. It could have been fun.

However, she had gone through the painstaking process of scanning photograph after photograph and then posting them online, at Facebook. I’ve been going through Memory Lane since 8:00am today. I realize I was in very few pictures (I think I’ve never been keen on getting photographed). I realize weight gain is a common problem for most of us by the time we’re hitting our 30s. I realize I might be getting old, the freshness of the teen years is gone. Does that mean my prime time is over? Or has it just begun?

Later on, I’ll write more extendedly about the memories these pictures brought back … should be a nice exercise for my mind.

As I was exiting the gas station’s mini-market (one of the few breakfast havens I have adopted in the past few weeks), I crossed a young girl (probably college-aged) attired so: head covered in mini-braids held back in a loose, low ponytail, huge, shiny sunshades, light-colored shorts, non-fashion (that means “practical”) tennis shoes with thick socks, and a baggy, green T-shirt with a cheap logo across the front that read “Entretenimiento de Verano” (Summer Entertainment) or some crap like that. It took me 2 seconds to realize this girl must work at a summer camp. What drove the idea home was the blow whistle slung around her neck. And then I remembered, I truly remembered my summer of 1997.

I was 19, in college, studying commerce, most likely still debating myself between a career in accounting and a career in information systems. I didn’t have a steady job, never quite needed it since I always fully qualified for a federal scholarship, but summer was always the weak link in that way of life: no scholarship meant no funding, no fun, no plans, no nothing. Summer was “the time to get a job” by excellence. The previous summer (1996) I had had my brief stint in a “healthy junk food” joint, lasted two months, had a miserable time (specially at the later hours of the afternoon, when kids my age would come into the establishment all sun-kissed, trailing salt and sand with their worn flip-flops – that was the year I met the bottled tan firsthand… never again!).

So, in 1997 I was ready for a breath of fresher air, and I let myself be led by a friend to apply for a job at a summer camp. I had never had any experience doing anything remotely similar to this, with the exception of babysitting my sister, and even that always brought skin-creeping memories. But I didn’t think it through: I handed over a filled application and got a call a few weeks later. We had to go through a screening process, which meant that we had to prove that we would be good camp counselors and leaders, that we would be able to keep control of a 20+ group of [rich, stuck up] kids. Incredibly enough, I (who have never considered myself to be a natural leader of any sort) got picked for the job, as well as my friend and many others. It was to be 4 camp leaders to a group. I got chosen as part of the leader team for a group of 30 5-year-old girls. Thirty Daddy jewels. Thirty princesses whose parents would keep an eagle eye on us at all moments possible.

It was an amazing experience, though as harrowing as it would seem. I realized that I had it in me to care for other people’s children. The girls grew onto me, we got close like family. A whole month of spending more than 8 hours a day with a child will automatically turn you into a secondary parent. Tending to their every needs, having to take it easy when at least 15 of them decide to scream at the same time for something they want, curing boo-boo’s, identifying lice …. even identifying what they cannot say, as it happened once with another group’s 2-year-old boy: he was crying and the girl in charge was to the end of her rope, she didn’t get it. The little boy could not express that the heat outside was smoldering to him. I held some icy water to his face and he immediately calmed down and went into a deep sleep. I gained a fan for the rest of the day!

That summer was one of the most active I ever had: I got a natural suntan by just playing in the sun with the children almost daily. I was starting to date a total idiot who was however highly social, so the outings were frequent, and sometimes even fun. I was fully immersed in social activities and pop culture. I became one of the clan. I think this was the summer that had me assimilated into the commerce student culture. I had begun the month’s worth of work with the idea that the $700 I got as payment would be used to get my first tattoo. By month’s end, I had dropped the idea. It would be 4 years later that I would get my first tattoo. By then, the sun-kissed, carefree, sociable Diana would be gone in favor of someone much closer to her own roots.

Summer is a time in which no one is quite content: unless you have copious amounts of money, you either stay at home and be bored to tears by the repetitive, mind-numbing TV programming, or you get a job that will keep you from having all the fun you intended to have with the money you earned. That’s the way it is for most college kids, unless they signed on for summer classes, in which case the misery is doubled because you have no time to earn money nor do you have time to chill out, and it will be something you will have to do also as soon as summer is over, so it annuls summer altogether.

I envied the ones that went abroad, though. But that took money, regardless of whether it was for studying or pleasure.

As a working adult, however, summer takes other undertones. Summer ceases to exist as “the free time you get between semesters”. It becomes “a time which I may get free as well as I may not”, and what you get is one or two weeks in which you try to cram as much enjoyment as you can, leaving you so exhausted that you need a vacation from your vacations. It’s even more absurd.

That summer in 1997 was the last one in which I held a college-type job. After that, summers became a blur. I never got as sun-kissed again, nor as sociable. Truth be told, I don’t miss it, however much I hold that memory in my heart. But it helped me recognize when people are having the same miserable fun at summer camp.