Issue 35

El Morro is a place that lives in my memory, tucked deep into the folds of yearly visits to la patria. Hidden in the depths of the mental file folder: Puerto Rico, blurring together until stirred anew. My first visit  to San Juan occupies another category of my mind. I am a tourist, a sightseer with the overactive imagination of any ten-year-old. We embark on our first stop of three: El Morro.

From my field of view, I can hardly see the fort compared to the grassy expanse lying before it. Before entering, my dad and I walk across the slightly inclined cobblestone pathway leading to the fort. Overexcited children stand at the top of the hill, waiting for their parents to join them. Other tourists watch waves crash against the nearby rocky shoreline.

At last, we cross the fort’s sixteenth century bridge, show our tickets, and walk into the open clearing where yellow walls surround us, interrupted by arches leading to a network of hallways. We stay on the first level for a while, going into some small rooms with three hundred-year-old cannons and information on weapons spanning from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.

As we walk, I run my hand across the stone. Despite its age, it’s still rough. Would it be hardy enough to combat an attack, even now?

We climb to the top floor, where the roof disappears. Our view of the horizon is unobstructed save for the fort’s watchtower jutting out towards the water. My dad snaps photos of me looking out the tower while I imagine us… Papi and Mami and Abuela and I are sailing on a boat that finds the rocky shoreline after a long journey. We marvel and gaze at the esplendor of El Morro, because from the ocean we can see its height. From the ocean, I imagine eighteenth century soldiers in shining metal are knights ready to save us. And we feel safe.

We keep walking until we’re in the heart of Viejo San Juan. After a tour of the capitol, we enter a restaurant: Raíces. It claims to make authentic food at the core of Puerto Rico’s roots.

Raíces marks the first time I’ve tried camaron al ajillo- shrimp smothered in minced garlic and butter. Mami told me she’d eat a lot of seafood growing up, but it’d grown less widespread. Each year, the people she knew who’d catch and make mariscos became less and less. This feels like a part of Puerto Rico she grew up experiencing, a raíz I missed when she uprooted herself and came to the mainland before she even met Papi.
But I think about everything else I’ve gained- Mami battering her fingers to grate bananas for pasteles and me joining her, almost-yearly trips to Moca, her pueblito, in time for Christmas parrandas, my family in Puerto Rico spread to Florida, New York, and beyond. Would our raíces have the strength to hold on, despite the diaspora?

We keep walking. Out of El Morro, out of lively Viejo San Juan, and back to our everyday lives in Florida. We wonder if we’re missing out on what we left behind.

A year and a half later, I’m back, but we’re not in San Juan, and we’re not tourists. We’re in Moca. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, buildings are powered by generators. We get into the car brimming with sweat and crank up the AC before making our way to our dreaded destination. Abuelo has died, and Bisabuelo is crying-hyperventilating in the funeral home’s hall. He is a WW2 veteran who watched nearly a century go by without blinking, but he doesn’t care who sees his racking sobs. The weight that’s been expanding gradually ever since Abuelo came to live with us to get cancer treatment becomes unbearable as I hear him wail, “Mi hijo, mi hijo – why did my son die before me?!”

The boat my family and I sailed to El Morro has a hole at the bottom that I’m not sure I (or naively imagined knights) can repair.

Less than a year later, I’m back again. Tiabuela  rests in the coffin and her kids, her grandkids, one of whom is Karla, are standing over it and sniffling. I’d never seen Karla cry until today.

 

 

I long to go back to El Morro, park our sinking boat on its coast, and seek cover. Surely, its walls will protect me, my family, from further impact.

Tired of tears, we take a three-year hiatus until 2021. Coming back, I am left breathless, stunned. How did I forget about the lush carpets of leaves curving bamboo shoots? Or the endless fields of banana trees running through the mountains? Or my other Tiabuela Dary saying “MUUUCHACHO” every five seconds? Or my primitos getting their mom to honk at my Abuela’s house so we can play ball? Or the juicy and punchy taste of Longaniza, and crisp-soft Mocano bakery bread? As we walk out of the bakery, ripping open the bags of bread, I think about life back home. I go to school, eat three times a day, do homework until 11pm, text friends, sleep, repeat. Occasionally, we visit family in Miami. We can’t walk anywhere, really. Traffic traps us in an hour-and-a-half commute.

Here, we drive five minutes and get to five different family member’s houses. I play outside with Bisabuelo’s chickens, and my primos and primas. I walk through sun-dappled plazas and outdoor markets, avoiding the potholes in mountain-cracked roads. I leave my phone at home for a week and don’t miss it.

I keep coming back. Bakery bread still tastes just as good, and did I mention the mall and the boutiques? Baratisimo!

Then Tio dies, and an inheritance war ensues. I see my primos less and less. Parrandas become a distant memory. Tiaabuela is bitter.

Boutiques become my Morro because they beget conversations about dresses instead of death. During my last visit, I bought my senior prom dress and shoes and jewelry, submitted a portfolio to a college, and heard my Tiabuela and Abuela scream.

Returning to Florida, I wonder if Puerto Rico is my true home,— too much left unresolved to be just a week-long visit, too colorful and eventful even on a cloudy day.

But we keep walking- driving- along Florida’s coast from the Ft. Lauderdale airport, the transience of life passing me by.

Before I left Puerto Rico, I parked my boat on El Morro’s coast. Mentally bookmarking in my file folder the spot I’d like to come back to. Back to the days when most Puerto Ricans didn’t own generators, and Mami wouldn’t avoid going  during Christmas.

In the meantime, I’ll keep moving. A constant back-and-forth motion between Florida and Puerto Rico, home 1 and home 2, and I’m walking, I’m boating, I’m flying.
My boat will stay there until I can tend to what’s fallen out of it, see my primos and tell them I love them, relive the parrandas in the back of my memory, and set sail to Moca once again.

 

 

 

TRANSLATION

abuelo- grandfather
bisabuelo- great-grandfather
El Morro- colloquial way Puerto Ricans refer to Castillo San Cristobal
La patria- the mother/homeland
tia- aunt
tio- uncle
tiabuela- great-aunt
primo- cousin
primito- little cousin
pueblito- little town
baratisimo- super cheap
longaniza- sausage Mami- mom
raíz- root
raíces- roots
mi hijo- my son

 

Yelaine Aguilar is an nineteen-year-old writer from South Florida. Her writing has been recognized by The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, Apprentice Writer, Ice Lolly Review, and local publications. She loves to write and perform spoken word as a way to create new worlds, explore the meaning behind impactful events, and connect with those around her. Outside of writing, Yelaine practices Chinese and French, eats what she bakes, and hangs out with friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To the gunman who opened fire on the intersection of Market and Montgomery, right outside the Ghirardelli Chocolaterie at approximately 8:30 pm PDT, 7/1/23

 

You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you; sitting on the stoop just right of that rich mahogany arch in a soft brown puffer, joint rolling between your thumb and forefinger.  Your gaze fixed straight down the crosswalk, past the traffic lights and off towards those far-off high-rises; your head turning gently back in just as my sister and I walked past; the spiral of your sweet, warm smoke as it curled by the dancing hem of my too-thin summer dress.  The brassy clang of the store bell as I pushed open its door.  How we just about made eye contact.

I wonder what may have happened if I’d turned back to talk to you.  Hi there, sir, I’d have said.  Lovely evening, isn’t it? It’s my first night here, and I had no idea it got so chilly at night.  It’s sort of beautiful how crisp the air is though.  It’s never this brisk in Florida, let alone Abu Dhabi.  Abu Dhabi? Yeah, it’s near Dubai, in the Middle East.  No.  No, there’s no fighting there; it’s super peaceful actually, and it feels like home.  This fall it’ll be ten years since we moved.  Have you lived here long?  You know, everyone said that San Francisco was a mess, but so far it seems wonderful.  And all the buildings seem to have the prettiest little fairy lights hanging from their awning —they seem to be everywhere here.  Fairy lights make everything feel so magical, don’t they?  You can’t help but smile when you see them.  I just love summer, don’t you?  I wonder how you’d have responded.

Gunshots are quieter in real life than in the movies.  The first one I heard, I almost thought it was a firework, perhaps set off by a street performer, or by one of those red-white-and-blue vendors down the street, or by a dad, surprising his awed toddlers as the holiday weekend began.  I was so sure it was a firework—so I don’t know why I was so quick to edge closer to the nearby counter as the second went off, or how, by the time the security lady was yelling to get down, I was already curled into a ball; the stool my ankle had caught on lying next to me.

I’m not sure how long the next part lasted—that popping, driving metronome; my mother’s heaving breaths as she covered my body with her own; the sheer terror in the previously unflappable security lady’s eyes as she inched slowly away from the reverberating glass panes.  I remember trying to breathe and not hearing my breath.  My left foot going numb.  Thinking that I should probably pray.  Wondering why my life wasn’t flashing before me in the highlight reel too many reruns of dramatic Bollywood movies had led me to expect. I remembered an argument I’d had with my ninth grade English teacher about nature and nurture and evil.  I remembered Mayella Ewell and her jar of scarlet geraniums.

And then the fireworks stopped, and it was over, and we were scurrying, huddled, through the side door into a hotel lobby.  And then we were in the elevator, and then our room, and I realized my sister was crying, and I realized my parents were talking to me, and I realized I was shaking.

I’m okay now, not that it would matter to you.  Not that it should.  I mean, you had a gun in your hand and reasons to pull a trigger and I’m just a sheltered expat brat who escaped untouched to the safety of starched white sheets in a brass-detailed, crown-molded hotel room existence.   You did what you had to do, and I’m okay now.  So I don’t know why I’m even writing to you—like this is some pathetic exercise in radical forgiveness or some simperingly charitable gesture to stick on my resume for college.  But I don’t know who else to write to.

Lately, it seems like everything’s falling apart.  Ukraine.  Palestine and Israel.  My cousin was in a car accident last week.  My friend’s brother just died, and he was only twenty.  My choir director’s wife—one of the most kind, graceful, vivid people I know—has advanced breast cancer.

And on top of all of that, I have to watch my sister flinch every time a balloon pops, every time an engine starts, every time a door bangs?  Of the two of us, she’s always been the brave one.  The one that forces me to get on roller coasters and wear the crop top I’m self concious in and audition for the role I don’t think I can get and stand up for myself.  Now she glances nervously around whenever she’s in a crowd, scans for exits in every new room, worries whenever my parents are home just a few minutes later.

And I know, things could be worse.  And I know, this is life.  But I’m scared.  And of all of the things I’m scared of—war, cancer, accidents, you—you—might be the least impactful but I can’t stop thinking of that first shot.  I can’t stop wondering what would have happened if I’d talked to you.

If Mayella could endure years of her father’s depravity, years of bruises and hunger and terror; and still, somehow, coax buds to effervescence in the middle of a scrapyard, then, despite it all, I can’t bring myself to hate her.  I can’t believe that anyone can be purely evil.  So maybe this is some pathetic exercise in radical forgiveness.

But really, it’s an I’m-tired-of-everyone-pretending-the-world-is-normal-because- people-dying-for-no-reason-isn’t-normal-at-all and it’s a there’s-so-much-going-on-and-none-of- it’s-good-and-I-don’t-know-how-to-process-any-of-it-let-alone-all-of-it-all-at-once and it’s an I’m-scared-of-the-world-and-everything-that-seems-to-be-going-wrong and really, it’s an of-all-of-it-you-scare-me-the-most-because-you-were-the-most-human-and-I-saw-you-there-and-I-saw-you-there-and-we-just-about-made-eye-contact-and-we-may-have-spoken-and-we-could- have-been-friends.
Because we didn’t.  And we’re not.  And I’m still scared.

I’m still scared.

 

 

Ananya Venkateswaran is a high school junior from Tampa, Florida, currently living in Abu Dhabi, UAE. She was a finalist in the Pulitzer Center’s 2022 Fighting Words Poetry Contest, and a winner of the 2023 Harvard Write the World Poetry Competition. In her free time, she enjoys all things reading, writing, music, travel and nature.