First Memories
Wherein Teófilo shares his first memories as he thinks he remembers them in the context of his time. Maybe.
Renowned author and Catholic Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton (+1968), started his bestselling autobiography, The Seven Story Mountain, this way:
On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God and yet hating Him; born to love Him, living instead in fear and hopeless self-contradictory hungers.
Though I lack Merton’s flair I can paint my birth in similar colors, minus the French location. If you’ve been reading my writings up to this point, you would know that already. I too was born in the image of hell. It was Sartre who said “Hell is other people. It’s true to a point because loneliness is also a hell.
Merton got it right when he described his fellow men as “loving God and yet hating Him; born to love Him, living instead in fear and hopeless self-contradictory hungers.” Things haven’t changed that much in the half-century separating Merton’s birth from mine. I too have a void in my heart in the shape of God. I too have walked away and then returned to that central truth of everyone’s being, that God belongs in one's heart. Only to leave and return, again.
It was the dawn of the Age of Aquarius. I was born not too far away from the beginnings of the British Invasion. The Beatles’ style was beginning to affect music all around the world but was not yet pervasive. The New Wave had already hit Puerto Rico, Latin America, and Spain. Many of the new wave songs were Spanish versions of American and British hits. Many others were original compositions in Spanish. This music formed the background noise of my first years in this world. Woodstock was still a few years in the future, and I wouldn’t know anything about it until decades after the fact.
War also wasn’t too far away from the general awareness either. Right about my first days the US had sent the first combat troops to Vietnam. About 55,000 troops and many more wounded in mind and body would’ve paid the price 10 years later when the war ended. The Near East, as always, was burning. US Marines would land in the Dominican Republic to stabilize the country, and on and on. The Cold War burned cold.
The Space Race was also a Big Thing, and the Gemini Program was in full swing. America was sending astronauts into space in a spacecraft placed atop repurposed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). The country was aiming at the Moon and Gemini was the rehearsal for the eventual Moonshot. I didn't know it at the time, but the Space Program and ICBMs would converge in my life years later, in different ways.
The Civil Rights Movement was entering its apex too. The Selma March and its repression took place not long before. The Nation was en route to the Summer of Love of 1968 when MLK and RFK would meet their deaths.
In the Catholic Church the Second Vatican Council was about to end. As a consequence, the Church I would come to know would be very different from the one all my ancestors had known. Much good would come out from the Council, but also much confusion. In the coming years the Church would drift toward uncertainty. She would undergo betrayals, at the hands of corrupt priests and bishops. Many innocents would come to suffer. Their malfeasance would mar the Church's moral witness before a world in dire need of it.
I was unaware of any of those major developments. All those thing were still in the future tense. I was born in a bubble of protection. By any measure I was a happy, contented little boy, far away from the suffering of the world. When I learned to be grateful to God for His Providence, I was. I’ll come to suffer, but later.
My first memories were of colors: pink and red. The kind of pinks and reds you see when you squeeze your eyelids tight before a source of light. The first sounds I recall are the gentle cooing of Mom calming my crying. Yet, that memory may be a later memory, one I acquired when I listened to my mom soothing my little brother. That was almost ten years after my own birth. But the memory feels good and makes sense to me but it might not be mine.
I also remember me being in my crib and taken up by any adult in the house who heard me cry, though that memory is very blurry. I recall the smells: the smell of clean sheets, of Blackie our dog, and of whatever Mamá Ana may have been cooking. She was the indisputable mistress of the kitchen while all the adults were at work. She also doted on me and as a consequence, I became your typical chubby, cherubic baby for a short while.
My memories become clearer after I hit the two-years of age, or three for sure. The adults taught me to call Don Pedro “Papá” and did it for a while until one day I heard Mom and Titi Gloria calling him “Papi.” So I started to call him Papi myself, and for the rest of his life. I have a vague memory of one of the adults trying to correct me back into saying “Papá” but then gave up. That’s how I’ll refer to him in these memoirs from now on. It seems appropriate now.
Papi and Mamá Ana brought out a menagerie of live poultry to our suburban home. For some things they believed in consuming very fresh meat. Chicken abounded, a rooster, and also pigeons. Papi built cages for them in our bckyard, against the concrete fence. We weren’t the only family who brought live farm animals to our home in the neighborhood, mind you. Every day cockcrows filled the morning hours with their plaintive cries. Their song reassured me, told me everything was alright.
A few of the chickens would develop a kind of fungal illness on their eyelids. This happened often to "adolescent" chicks. These were grown up chicks, but not quite full-sized. I recall Mamá called these adolescent chickens “pollancos” (“poh-JAHN-cohs”). It was the unique name she had for chicks at that stage. Mamá Ana would cure them by applying Mercuro-Chrome on their lids.
That’s when I and my three-year-old frame would come in. At Mamá's prompting, I would stake the adolescent chicken and grab them by the legs from their blind side. Beaming with pride, I would then bring my catch in triumph to her tucked in my hands. I would then observe her apply the Mercuro-Chrome to the birds' lids. In a few days the pollancos would open their affected eyes and see again - and run to avoid me.
I remember Mamá Ana killing the chicken for her frequent stews and soups. She would grab the poor animal and wring its neck until it broke. It would bleed through its beak and convulse after death. Mom and Titi Gloria discouraged me from watching the Mamá's bloody chore. I sneaked-in anyway, though, and watched. Back then it didn't affect me but today I couldn't bear to watch. She did it so matter-of-factly, as if it was the right thing to do. The obvious thing to do.
I remained unaffected back then. I also find it strange I felt no compunction when Blackie disappeared one day. You see, they never walked him, the adults let him out by himself and Blackie would always return. Until one morning he didn’t.
Mom and I went out about the neighborhood calling on him. We also walked around the newest extension of our suburban housing development, where all the homes were still unfinished. Nothing. We went on calling Blackie until we determined he found someone who treated him better. For you see, many dogs choose their owners and not the other way around. If I was sad, I can’t recall it. I am now, though.
I was very resilient back then. I still went forth, looking toward the future, happy and content.
BONUS
Medley of New Wave Puerto Rican singers.