In love

What is inherited is not stolen

As a child I remember my mother warning “You are going to be more in love than your aunts.” Daddy said “girls don’t fall in love until daddy authorizes it.”

I confess that I have been a little in love. I have fallen in love many times. The butterflies have fluttered in my stomach like a fan in a blackout. I think the first time I fell in love was with a boy with very black hair. He was a few years older, but I was so happy in his embrace that it didn’t represent an impediment. He taught me how to ride a horse, tie my shoelaces, be brave and ask for forgiveness. Difficult to ignore so much. Another of my great loves has green eyes, I discovered her while impatiently calming my crying, drying my tears after a fall on a bicycle in which I literally scraped the whites of my eyes. She kissed me on the forehead every night and with a gesture on my cheek she told me I love you. Impossible not to reciprocate that warm and pure affection. I also fell in love with the boy who brought me my snack basket to hang in the picnic area when I started preschool. He shared some cookies with me and lent me his colors and the plastic toy cars, which I drove like a professional chauffeur. There was also the story of him with the teacher who spoke slowly and smiled a lot. The one who gave me books that I devoured in one sitting and made me love the full shelves of the small school library. I must have also felt something for that older man with gray hair who sat me on his lap on rainy afternoons and taught me how to cut the tails of clouds by placing my fingers in a cross. The same one who applauded my continuous jumps with the Swiss when he didn’t even lift two quarters off the ground. The one who, on my birthday, took out of a wide-mouthed glass knob the money that he squeezed into my hand so that I could buy many lollipops. I also fell in love with a tiny baby, with very straight hair and a snub nose. A little girl who fit in my embrace and with whom she grew, at a dizzying pace, my love. I confess that yes, I am very in love and passionate about expensive gifts, those that are worth a lot but don’t cost that much. Of the small details that surprise you on a rainy afternoon. From the smile of the child for whom you make a paper boat with the last page of your journalist’s agenda. From the photographs that I portray in my mind in the city that he welcomed me and that I made part of myself. In love with the home where my dreams live and grow daily and with the person who drives me to achieve them. In love with every sip of air I inhale, with the woman I see in the mirror. Yes, I have fallen in love a lot and I plan to continue doing so because dad already authorized me and mommy says that what is inherited is not stolen. (ALH)

Translated by Casterman Medina de Leon