In my town, I enjoyed the custom of sitting with my mother, facing the door of the house. She especially did it to see him, even if it was from afar. I could not find out when and who had installed such a custom. Many towns in Mexico claim the origin of this practice. https://yucatanancestral.com/costumbre-de-tomar-el-fresco/#:~:text=Hace%20a%C3%B1os%2C%20seguramente%20desde%20la,el%20mero%20pretexto%20del%20calor. It is also assured that it was brought from Spain. You go to know. I enjoyed it in my childhood and adolescence, next to my mother. I think it's a way to mitigate the summer heat.
We sat when the shadows cooled the last gleams of the sun. On Sundays it was especially attractive. Our house was in front of the cinema. I liked to see who had attended. The parade of married couples, couples, groups of friends, teachers and classmates from Secondary School were the most assiduous. Passing in front of us was obligatory, the same as the greeting in a town where almost all of us know each other.
teenage love
The tone was formal, cheerful, sometimes prolonged by my mother's friends who came over to talk. Then I placed more chairs to facilitate the impromptu gathering. I especially enjoyed the look and the greeting of my classmates from High School. I could say that "he" was my platonic love, my suitor, although my mother only accepted him as my "official bookkeeper" since he saw us in the afternoons, when I returned from school, accompanied. It was then to listen to his repeated warnings and promise what was customary in those years.
It took me a while to understand my mother's suspicious look and questions about him and the kind of relationship we had. Surely he guessed how important he was to me. I remember my embarrassment and how I blushed when I answered him, feigning an indifference that I was far from feeling.
You are foam and I am sea…
My suitor was bolder at school. We talked about the movie, the classes, the notes, homework, upcoming exams, … in short, so many things. I liked poetry, he knew it. That is why it did not surprise me that one day he told me that he wanted to read the poem he had written for me, I was pleasantly surprised and I heard him read:
Yes, because I roll around your plants like a surrendered helot/And I ask you for a look, with fear, almost with fear/Yes, because before you I remain ecstatic with emotion/You think that my heart is going to break in my chest. / and that I will always be a slave to your passion / you are wrong, you You are mistaken, fresh and fragrant bud/I will break your pride like the miner breaks the rocks/ If you provoke me to fight, I am ready to fight/You are foam, I am sea, who trusts in his anger/You make me cry but one day, I'll make you cry too./So when surrendered/offer your whole life forgiveness asking my feet/as my anger is, infinite in its excesses/you know what I will do in those moments of indignation/tear out your heart... to eat it with kisses. https://ciudadseva.com/texto/si-porque-a-tus-plantas-ruedo/
We got lost…
I loved the poem, although I was surprised by the passion of the sentences. Excitement moistened my eyes. I tried to hide that feeling. He folded the paper and handed it to me, I kept it…like a treasure. A few months later, by chance, I found the poem. I realized that the author of the poem “Yes, because I roll to your plants” was Julio Flórez Roa, a Colombian. I didn't know whether to laugh or be angry. I decided to affectionately “reclaim” such plagiarism. He replied that it was not so, he had written it for me. He never said he was the author. I had misunderstood. Jm, I would have to believe him. We both laugh. Blessed optimism of youth.
He went to study in Coahuila, I went to the capital city of San Luís Potosí. We missed many years. The re-encounter was brief, we both remained "ecstatic with emotion". I saw her eyes water as I told her about my marriage. I always remember how mine got wet, many years later, when I found out about his death.
Andrea Saldaña Riverahttps://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Salda%C3%B1a
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