Sharing my stories
With the light glaring my eyes, I feel the presence of the audience as I stay in the center of the tiny stage. The club is so crowded, that people are sitting in cushions and carpets very close to the storyteller. I always close my eyes before starting to talk; I need to feel my heart and tell her: we are ready.
Amazing form of expression..this one of creating a personal story from your life and sharing it in public, with an audience or a small group. It has helped to reframe events in my life, to find new depths in them from the woman I am now. And the beauty of connecting with other people with the same human heart, different life events but the same human experiences..
With this post I want to share a bit about this passion with two of my stories: “Fishbowl” and “My own body”. Both of them about waking up to the truth of a relationship, with a lover and with my mother. You can listen to the first one live and read the second one below. I hope you enjoy them.
“Fishbowl”
“My own body”
At age forty, I left Madrid, the city where I had always lived, and moved to The Netherlands, to share my life with my Dutch partner. His kids were young adolescents, and I had no kids, so it was clear I was the one who had to let go of my sunny and vibrant country and embrace a new habitat, flatter and colder.
I was very happy though; I had finally found the “love of my life”, and this was an amazing chance for change and renewal. Like being 20 in your forties! I even took lessons and got my driving license in a record time, something I had not done out of pure laziness...
But my parents were in their late sixties and their health was fragile. It was not easy to leave them behind, as I was moving on with my new life.
During the following years, every time I traveled back to Spain to visit them, I could see how they were becoming more and more vulnerable.
Looking back at those times, I specially remember some of the traditions that, because they were rare due to the separation, became like precious rituals of love and connection to me.
I remember my parents always came to pick me up at Madrid airport, terminal 2, were KLM flights normally land. They always, always came, even when their health was not so good, or the weather was nasty. They waited for me in the same corner of the hall, by a large marble column, together arm in arm.
Now, after many years without them in my life, when I arrive to Madrid by plane and I take the exit to the arrival’s hall, I spot the place where I know they were always standing, and I see them. Two small quiet figures (they were becoming smaller with age). My father, holding my mum as she could get lost without his arm around her. My mother, with her very white curly hair, staring at the sliding doors, looking, expecting me to show up.
And we also had a very special mother-daughter ritual, that came from the times I was an adolescent and buying new clothing was one of the most exciting activities l could enjoy. On Saturday afternoon we would go to Puerta del Sol, to the huge 8 floors department store you may know if you’ve ever been to my city: El Corte Inglés. After hanging around in the well-stocked women’s section and buying something of “absolute necessity”, we would go to a café to have coffee and pancakes with cream and chocolate. The whole thing was a treat, specially later, when I was not living in that city anymore.
And even more rare and unique, when my mother developed Alzheimer’s disease, and it was hard to convince her to go out and to do things that had become quite scary for her: taking the bus, using the escalators, undressing in a small fitting room, chatting in a noisy café..
That’s why I was so happy when she accepted my proposal one Saturday, during one of my visits to Madrid, now more frequent due to the progression of her dementia. Although her walking was unsteady and her conversation quite incoherent, I knew we could still enjoy our mother-daughter’s old ritual.
And off we went to El Corte Inglés!
As usual, there was plenty to choose from, and we found a beautiful flowered green blouse for her.
In the small fitting room, covered with mirrors, I had to help her to undress, a task that had become impossible for her to perform on her own. It was then, when she was half naked that I saw it: over the honey color smooth skin of her back there was a layer of dirt.
There I was, locked out, in that small space with my mum, holding my breath and holding a new reality: how dependent my parents had become. From that moment on, everything went in a kind of slow motion for me. Dressing up, paying the garment, eating the pancakes, walking out the department store and taking the bus to get back home.
Have you ever felt you were living two parallel realities at the same time? The tangible one, that some people call consensus reality and a dreamy one, a soul like space.
Of course, I had not said anything to her about my finding, but when we arrived at her house, I managed to convince her to take a shower. Again, together in a small room with a big mirror, my parent’s bathroom, I slowly undressed her.
Maybe that was the first time I saw my mum completely naked, her old, wrinkled body under the water of the shower that I gently handled up and down. Such a delicate intimacy between the two of us..
And time seemed to slow down again, leading my soul to a place of complete inner stillness:
Then I knew, that old, wrinkled body that was in my hands was not only hers but also mine.
My own body.
My body.
Last June I became sixty.
I keep on traveling frequently to Spain, now for longer stays than before.
KLM flights still landing in Barajas Airport Terminal 2.
I know one day, when heading to the exit with my suitcase and looking at the large marble column, I will see myself: a small old woman with curly white hair staring at the sliding doors.
Olga Romanillos