I don’t know if it’s the end of the semester, or because I haven’t seen my mom and visited my home country in three years, or the strike of inspiration I have felt in regard to my poetry, but I feel…very nostalgic.
Last semester I had this class called Form and Technique of Fiction with the best professor I could ever have. She made us do this exercise in which we had to write five phrases that described our hometown, but not in a superficial kind of way. We had to do it in a fantastical and metaphorical way. After I had my five senses down about Caracas, Venezuela, I decided to write a poem about my city.
I wrote it in English, and I went all out! I referenced the red, blue and yellow macaws (parrots is such a boring word for that majestic bird) that always sit on my window asking for seeds. In Caracas we think that if a macaw visits your window, you get blessings. I also referenced the valleys and the boulevards in my city. I talked about my favorite empanada stand downtown and how I am a regular with my friends. Just mundane details from my regular life back home, details that are now unobtainable. By the end of the poem I wrote, I had a bunch of tears and a soft smile on my face. It felt nice remembering my city in such a beautiful way.
Last week I decided to share the poem with my mom. I had to translate it to Spanish because she doesn’t know English. Writing in Spanish is something I love, and I only do so when writing about deep emotions or very personal things. This brought back another wave of that bittersweet nostalgia. Finding the right words to express my love for Caracas, and at the same time reminiscing about all the things I had written months ago.
My mom was so excited to read it and she waited patiently while I scribbled the translation as fast as I could. When I was done, I sent it to her and the next thing I knew I received a message with my mom’s teary voice. She was so touched and so happy that I thought about my city in this beautiful way. As if I was romanticizing it. And I was, I really was. My mom told me that it is normal for people who leave places so abruptly to long for them the most. Leaving my country when I was 18 without saying goodbye to my family or friends was hard. And now, three years later, I lay in bed fantasizing about a time when I will see my beautiful Caracas again. But for now, she lives only through my words.