Friends by numbers

Growing up I had few friends but I took it very seriously. Friendship meant more to me than anything else. For a friend I would have died, literally. Of course I was shocked to learn that not all of them felt this way about friendship, but I don't regret a single day and remember each and every one of them with melancholic love.

My best friends #1 (Angie), and #2 (Shanty) called me from the other side of the fence that divided primary from pre primary school on the first day that I was to be on the big kids's side and asked me to get close to it so they could tell me a secret, and instead they put their hands through the bars and poured dirt on my hair. I tried to laugh with them, but I was really hurt and it wasn't until I was on 3rd grade and Angie on 2nd that we were friends again.

Then Veronica was transferred to our school and she looked exactly like Atreyu from The Never Ending Story, our platonic love from our favorite movie. We went to her one day and asked her to shout "Morla!" and when she did she became our friend... Friendship is that simple when you are 8 years old. And just as simply it ended when I picked up the phone one day and the two of them said at the same time "cortala!" which meant that they withdrew their friendship from me.

My best friend #3 is Rose. We shared classrooms in Jr. High. Everyone thought she was very shy because she wore her hair in two braids that went down to her hips and wore two identical t-shirts one on top of the other so it wasn't so see-through. But once you got to know her she was exactly the opposite. She had a loud honest rich laugh and she climbed trees and ran from roof top to roof top. She was always making jokes and she made friends very easily. When we got into high school she overcame several drastic changes in search of her own identity: from hippie to darkie to intellectual... and with each change she got new friends and kept the good ones for life. I am one of the lucky ones to this day.

My best friend # 4 is my cousin Nina. She used to be such a goof, soooooo fun to be with and always making funny faces and voices and dressing silly. She was always solving other people problems because she is such a good listener that everyone confided on her. Her curse was being so tall it was hard to find guys who wouldn't have to look up to her. We developed a very strong friendship with 2 guys from out of town; Marcelo became my best friend # 5 and later my first boyfriend.

When Marcelo dumped me, Cristina, her cousin picked me up at my house with a bunch of her friends and made sure I wouldn't get depressed... My best friend #6 "Crispe" is all heart, always worrying about you and doing something about it. She is extremely naive and will believe everything you tell her. One time we were at a friend's leaving room and Barf went up to the roof and said in a very unbelievable sad voice "help, I'm stuck in the chimney" Cristina was up and and running around like mad "whaddawe do? whaddawe do?" She has a very expressive face so it was impossible not to laugh.

Those 5 years that followed were the best of my life. We were 9 boys and 4 girls and nothing was more important to me than all this people. But Cristina and "Cricket" are all there is left from the gang now. I married my best friend #7 "Cricket". We had tried being a couple before, in our teens for 2 months and ended up hating each other. 4 years later we tried again and went nicely, so we tied the knot.

Nina got married to a goof as well, but she decided that it was time to grow up and now she's assumed the lawyer's wife- mother of three- roll perfectly. (I still remind her of her old self even if she hates me for it)

Cristina married to a Norwegian guy and Rose went to London to study her masters and though they live in other countries now they will always be close no matter how far.

Cricket and I have our ups and downs as lovers, but as friends we are always up.

Our friends as a couple are few as well but they will be friends for life. #8 & 9: Diego and Mony gave us the most wonderful gift by making us they’re baby's godparents; #10 & 11: Francisco and Vero made us their wedding witnesses; #12 & 13: Javier and Yetzi we seldom see, but will always be there; #14 – 22: All the "Grokers"... I really hope we keep on with our meetings for life! Couldn't live without you!

Sin Prisa Cuando Llueve

I fell in love with the theater when I was 10. I played the lead in a child's musical play and was hooked forever.

This is a picture of my first formal choreography. It was a requirement for graduating the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey and it won the first place at the Danzas Creativas annual contest.

The 4 years in that school challenged me in a way nothing else has. Teachers there made it their task to break every student in any way they could in order to make them strong enough to face the ugly environment of the dance company's lifestyle. So every class started with an average of 15 students and only 4 graduated.

My class however, managed to stay strong and 9 graduated... We made history.

I look at this picture and it makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I am not proud of the choreography per se, but I am proud of the enormous amount of knowledge and experience I achieved from the process of creating it. It made me grow both as a person and a dance teacher. It triggered a radical change inside me and became a landmark in my life. Suddenly the 4 years of love-hating the school made perfect sense.

I look at this picture and it hurts. I don't know how to explain it... I'm no artist and would never compare myself to one, but now I can understand what they say about Van Gogh hating his paintings.

The Family Curse

I was prematurely born. I was so tiny my cloth diaper went all the way up to my armpits.

I turned out to be a very strong, loud and self assured little girl.

My mom tells me that I used to be such a happy kid... that changed very soon.
I still don't know when the curse kicked in, because I remember when I was 5 or 6 I was driving with my dad one day and suddenly he lowered the visor and adjusted the mirror so I could see myself

"Look how ugly you look when you frown"

I hadn't even realized I was frowning!

"Why are you angry?"

I wasn't angry! my face seemed to be more comfortable in that gesture, just like your hand naturally relaxes into a cupping position, my face made a frown whenever I wasn't talking even if I was pleasantly watching TV or just submerged in thought.

My grand mother on my father's side was exactly like the queen of hearts from Disney's "Alice in Wonderland”, a very strong, large, proud, quick tempered, loud woman. But also she was all heart, very warm and loving human being who was always concerned about others, but it was so hard to see past her stern expression at simple glance.

To top it all, she had a very pessimistic way of seeing things, very fatalist and even worse, she had a very rough way to put her thoughts into words and ended up sounding... lets just say that she sounded germanish, you know? The Italian language sounds warm, romantic; German sound cold and harsh.

She had 4 sons and 7 daughters, all of them with her temperament and leader qualities. That was a mad house. Almost everyone of them had a large family themselves, we are now 48 cousins and all of us got the curse. So you can imagine how hard it is to notice that we have a problem and that normal people don't talk like us.

My father tried to tell me what a hard time he had trying not to be misunderstood by non family members because of it. "You are on time to change the way you talk" But I was to young and I didn't understand what he meant. To me, I was speaking normally (the way my 48 cousins did) and none of my friends had said anything about it to me.

By the time I was in 6th grade, they called me "Hulk" and "bueno pero no te enojes" ("ok, just don't get mad") was said to me almost every day. I don't know how I got to make friends, but I did and they loved me the way I was because I always spoke my mind and was very franc and honest and I didn’t care what everybody else thought about it.

It was until I was 23 years old that I overheard a friend saying:

“At first I felt hurt, but I know that’s just the way she talks and that she didn’t mean it that way”

Before that day I hadn’t realized how bad it was, but since then I shut my mouth. Whenever I was in a conversation, I analyzed whatever I would have said instead of saying it, and I realized that I had a very negative point of view and the way I made up my sentences had a cruel outcome!

I’m still working on it, it’s been hard to be more optimistic and be more careful of the way I speak my mind without feeling like I’m a sissy. I don’t really want to change my basic nature, I still think it’s better to say the truth even if it hurts, than to tell a white lie, but now I know there are different ways to say the same thing and that it’s better not to say anything if saying it won’t help or make any difference.

I just hope my kids (If I ever have kids) don’t get the curse and if they do, that I can help them overcome it. I realize it’s never too late to make a change in your life, but it’s so much easier if it’s sooner than later.