Contemplation Walk
Tonight the wind evokes my soul’s hidden memories,
brushing my whole body, playing with my ponytail curls,
whispering: remember … remember…
This is my contemplation walk. I like to run around my Old San Juan.
A Spanish colonial city surrounded by memories,
old brick buildings, painters, musicians, poets,
and many common people, everyday people like me,
like you, like them…
As I speed up, I encounter many others in the race of time, trying to look fit, younger,
healthier, leaner. Others seem to have inner conversations,
walking along that rug of green pastures that surrounds
the castle, a great fortress called El Morro.
The castle’s stone walls can tell you about
Europeans battles, injustice, prejudice, blood and
along the road of time, about passion, about love.
This is my contemplation walk. I want to absorb
everything. I don’t want to miss not even
a bit of this view. I tried to walk around, and up,
and down the hill. I crossed a street to look
at the castle from a different point.
Darkness is falling over the skies. The castle looks tremendously
immense, an extension of tall stone walls. There is the light house
guiding the ships that pass along the bay…
And this long road that guides me to a wooden door,
if it was open it could take me inside the castle but now it’s already closed.
I’d rather take the green pasture's path because
that is where I want to take my steps.
I raise my face to the skies. A rainbow made
of clouds decorates the roof.
A star smiles at my heart…. Darkness falling
upon the time. But there is none, no seconds,
no time at all. My eyes filled with the
picture of a castle that lays upon the sand.
I smell the salty smell of the sea and fill my lungs with it.
The sea … the waves caressing my eyes.
Blue caressing my heart, purple blue, light blue,
green blue, white blue, and then, hate blue, shy blue, brave blue,
love me blue, purple green, almost white take my whole life blue…
The wind fills my mind …I remember once when
I was a child, my daddy used to take
the family to the same place. We used to enjoy
Sunday afternoons, walks by El Morro.
By then, wild grape trees used to welcome us
near the road that took us to the castle doors…
that was then now there are no trees …just the grass-green rug.
Wild grape trees still live behind the castle near the beach.
Guess they refused to leave their homes
and stayed behind the scenes.
This is my contemplation walk…I smile at myself…
I fill my lungs with the salty ocean air once more.
Standing on top of a hill to the right side of the
gray fortress and facing the wild grape trees.
And even wilder ocean waves.
I stand before this unique world.
I stretch my arms and my body….and breathe a long deep breath,
feeling free … imagining I can become a sea gull … with graceful wings …
then I could fly above the clouds and the stars
and go over the waves and float and fly again.
Night comes over the skies. A beagle dog runs so fast
near my feet. I talk to him and hear his owner
calling his name from far away.
He wanders around for a little while and then
he starts to run faster … faster … as he reaches
the lovely and well -known voice that called
his name some minutes before. I smile again
and close my eyes … spin around and stretch my arms …
I remember my childhood days when spinning
was fun and screaming was okay. I spin too fast for a grownup …
I'm feeling dizzy all of a sudden …
I experience some inner happiness … a grateful heart
before my Lord …
I feel peace within my entire being …
There is no need for any strong steps beside my feet.
No need for arms embracing my shoulders,
or lips tasting my thoughts…it is only me and
the green pastures…me and the castle…me and the
skies and the ocean winds…and the sea…
and You my God, your peaceful presence
in my soul and I walk my contemplation walk alone,
but whole … Along the path, someone whispers my name …
strong, alive, aloud: Woman of the castle …
woman within me … whole and free at this moment I belong to me.
Dedicated to Robert Patrick Davis for his love,
his support,and his kindness toward me! Thank you my Soul!
March 11,1999
~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~
The Crazy Woman
They called her Adelaida, the crazy woman. "Crazy, crazy Adelaida...” She walked up the streets, through those narrow paths covered with “adoquines,” those gray stone bricks ... down the streets, through the unknown roads of those minds without a name. Her face was tanned from years of mornings, waking under the sun rays. Those afternoons sleeping under wet newspapers on a bench at the Plaza Square aged her features, once beautiful. Her sagging body pressed against her veins - her once-young breasts hung over her stomach, without any support to hide her dark nipples.
What a mess of tangled hair over her back! Grey and dusty hair from the dirt that day by day she held over her head, sprinkling her hair and face. Once upon a time, her hair was ebony black, and her now-dead eyes used to be so alive – bright and shining, like a night at the San Sebastian Street Celebrations. But no one cared for her past beauty, only Adelaida kept those memories deep in her heart.
The little house roofs from la Perla were wet with the ocean mist. In the poor neighborhood the old buildings were made out of gray concrete, and the green and blue painted houses were almost falling into the sea that surrounded them ... those years printed on the stone walls surrounding the San Juan of the poor and the San Juan of the rich. Adelaida would sit by the shore near la Perla every afternoon. She used to wet her feet and her face to play and talk with the ocean waves, the only friends that still caressed her wilted skin.
“Once I loved a man… he would say I was so pretty, used to caress my curls, and kiss my neck. He said: ‘I adore the way you smell, a female smell, like country flowers ... my wild flower.’ And he would kiss my lips…. I was a lady ... I used to sing in the ‘Three Kings Celebrations’, and the ‘Misa de Gallo,’ the early morning mass. My widow mother used to take care of me... but I wanted to love, even though she had different advice.”
“He said he loved me, and asked me to run away with him on a bright sunny afternoon ... that he would marry me, to give me his name, that I wouldn’t have a need for anything. I left my home. But before leaving, I left a letter: a letter without any value, a letter that could not ease a great suffering. He took me to a house on top of a mountain, and there, without close friends or relatives, I lived heaven and hell in my own flesh. He became a despot, a tyrant, he forgot his kisses and caresses, and began to take me the same way you take a beast. Finally he filled my womb with a child, a son, Cristobal, my son. The baby’s birth was a miracle because I was so weak at the time. He allowed my mother to care for me but only for two weeks. After that, he made my mother leave ... I was left with my cross, my loneliness. When the child was 6 years old, he decided to take him to Madrid to meet his grandparents. I begged him to take me with them. I dragged myself before his damned feet. Cristobal cried in my arms, because he did not want to leave without his mommy, and he slapped his face, shouting ‘Men never cry!’
“They left. He left me in my old mother’s home; she was very sick at the time. Two months later my mother died, leaving me lonelier than ever. Seven months went by, not even a letter ... nine, eleven, more than a year ... nothing. Without my son, without money, my strengths were abandoning me and sorrow fell over my soul like the night, certain, constant. I forgot my name, the name of the man that used to kiss my neck, and only remembered the child that used to call me ‘Mommy’.
“When I opened my eyes, the nurse told me it was time to leave. ‘Where?’ I asked. ‘To your home,’ she replied… My home, my home… Where is my home? My home is the sea, the streets, the benches, and the corners. If I eat, I’ll be fine ... otherwise, it doesn’t matter… Once, someone called me ‘Pretty’…”
They used to call her “Adelaida, the crazy woman”, and she would keep walking, unaware of the voices that tried to reach her shadowed mind in vain. Her feet followed the steps of the ocean waves, and she only had eyes for a six-year-old child. Only a faraway echo could reach her…”Mommy, mommy, mommy…” They told the story that the great ocean waves hid her body all at once in the middle of a hurricane, taking Adelaida’s fragile body away… along with her memories… no one cried for her orphaned child, for the tears of the past. No one looked for Adelaida under the newspapers over a bench at the Plaza Square.
They said that every afternoon, by the ocean shore near la Perla, you could see a pretty lady playing with the waves and wetting her face ...
Roxana Reyes Santos
December 20, 1998
Thank you Sarai,Dude and Many thanks to Patrick
for helping me editing this story!
I love you all!