BELONGING TO LOVE

 

Tomorrow is a special date. In fact, every day is special. Every day we are born and we die, every day we renew ourselves. Every day and every night is a time to celebrate life. At the end of the meal, which is the time to carry out the cleaning operations, wash the stove, scrub the counters and the counter, put the dishes in the machine, the tablet, clean the coffee machine, the routines that kill me slowly. And as my mother says, routines still don't kill you, but they do it slowly. She knows the aversion I have to routines, the days always being the same, mechanical. The only thing that changes is the time, the menu, another dish, another way of cooking the same product, trying new things, different tastes. I should like routines more, because I have an accumulation of planets in Virgo, which is my third house or in the sixth house, I should have some "it is forbidden to always do it the same way" signal, it is necessary to break patterns, because I have always been averse to them. I don't like the things rehearsed, but I'm not radical. I know someone who is much more averse to these standardized ways of celebrating life. And I, who shouldn't even enjoy the celebrations of life so much, because I suffered a lot in the womb, I who shouldn't even like people so much, most of them hurt me, I who shouldn't be joy in motion. And so, I find even more reasons to celebrate myself and to appreciate the great woman-person-people that I am and have always been. Tomorrow my mother's birthday would have been. Eighty.

Without further ado, while she was eating two scoops of ice cream instead of the spriega apple, and I was getting a coffee for both of them, she started talking about my birth. No more and no reason. Maybe because I told her that I ordered her cake, maybe because I asked her if she still remembers her mother and father, maybe because I asked her if she knew what time she was born, whether day or night, maybe because of that, or maybe because of none of that. And before she began to speak in the sheilian, which seems to be her favorite subject, she starts talking about my birth. That she had albumin, after she had completed the time, that she worked during the day until two in the afternoon, in the 10th women's ward (where, curiously, I also worked), where my father took me, a month later, for her to breastfeed me, and that the water had broken and that she went to my father's shop, she only had to cross the street, from the hospital to the store, who went to the toilet and had to put a washcloth on, because the liquid in the bag continued to gush out and the pain bothered her. That she went home, at the time on Rua do Cunha, in Paranhos, that she still lay down, but she couldn't stand to lie down. That the pains began to tighten. That my father came home and called the midwife. That she said it was still a long time coming, the event. That they would call her again closer to the time of birth. That the house was full of people. Aunt Joaquina nervous. The auntie who didn't leave my parents' room, nor my father, nor grandma Bina. That my father couldn't stand to see my mother complaining about the pain. Then my mother, who I never heard her complain of pain. Never. Not a single one. Not even with migraines. That the midwife around half past midnight went away again and said she was just a phone call away. Who gave her an injectable to hasten the delivery. That she would come back as soon as they called her. That my father nervously, tearing the floor with his feet and with anxiety, every five minutes he would approach her to ask her and then, and then, how about Eve? So, how do you feel? And that around four, in that big house, no one slept, because Chico's baby was going to be born, that they feared for his heart, screaming with anxiety, that the child didn't want to come down into the world, that around half past four the midwife was already there again, that after about forty-five minutes,  She was taking the scissors to cut my mother and my father didn't allow it and said: nurse, it's going to be born, I feel like it's coming, she wanted to see the day, and that she approached my mother again, around her neck, in a friendly gesture of affection and understanding and said to her: Eva, take it easy! and that she said to him: well, Francis, it is not you! It hurts you something, and stops, she slapped him in the face, which got out of control and gave him a snap and he stayed with him, he continued to caress her face, until she turned her face to the side and auntie called my father, come here Chico, It's natural that patience goes away, she's been in labor for so many hours, because yes, it was natural, that what wasn't natural was that the baby didn't want to come into the arms of such an anxious father! And that the nurse threatened again with the scissors at five-forty-five and that I was born at five-fifty-five, that the sun was already rising with me, that the day was going to be beautiful, that the mother didn't even want to see the baby, she didn't even see it, she just fell asleep, yes, I didn't see you, I didn't even want to see it, I just heard them laughing and opening champagne, I heard them laugh even more after the champagne and I don't even know if you cried or not. I know that your father, who hated to see babies with pacifiers and bottles, on that morning you were born, went to buy you an anatomical pacifier, because he couldn't stand to see and hear you cry. That's how I saw you, that morning, still tired, but I saw you more tired than me, it looked like you had been beaten, you were dark, you were unlooking, you were skin and blood and ugly. But you were alive. And only after two months did we realize that you were allergic to the milks that we started giving you because I stopped having milk fifteen days after you were born and you skinned it all over, like a cat, that you were allergic to milk, to fabrics, to metals, to everything! And if I didn't know how to esteem you at that time, because I was always working, your aunts held you and your father was tireless, he sang to you, he rocked you and when your father's paediatrician friend said that you were allergic to everything, we started giving you condensed milk that was the only one that you didn't vomit, that you could only have one hundred percent cotton clothes, that you didn't even get fat, that you had to come to this village, to apply an ointment to your skin, which was difficult since you were born and it was here that they cured you. Eczema. And I, who didn't want to be born, was born and I am grateful for life, and my mother, who turns eighty tomorrow, doesn't know what time she came or how she came, or if they celebrated her birth or if it was another one, or if there were people involved, eager to see her born, but she also likes to live and has already asked me to make her beautiful for tomorrow. Because it is not every day that one is born, that one belongs to this plan, that one fulfills missions with long dates. You see, Cristina, I always thought I was going to die at my mother's age, and after all, my mother died at your age and I'm still here! When we are born, we feel the call, we know that we have come to fulfill, with whom we have seen fulfilled, and perhaps because of this we are late, perhaps because of this we want to cancel the birth, perhaps because of this, or perhaps because of other things that linger in us, such as the sense of belonging or the absence of this sense. When we are born, we break the veil between two worlds, we lose access to both, and we have no choice but to fulfill what we came to do. And as long as we're here, may we always have the attitude of celebrating life and fulfilling the mission.