|
|
Biography
 |
Birth
I was born
in a lapse of time, my hand clinging to a dandelion, my feet gripping
a vine leaf, my nose on my back, an eye on my ankle. The moon cast
its dead pale rays, sprinkling the mortals’ dreams
with a layer of spice. My mother wasn’t present at my birth or
maybe she was there and her pain of being torn apart still throbs in
my veins.
continue reading |
 |
Parents
Her pockets overflowing
with pebbles, the mother surveyed her domain. She had a pitiless gaze
and her crocodile tail was proof of her animal intransigence. Grease
trembled in ripples on her body like little waves hiding the sea’s
soul.
The mother had a son and a daughter. The son–oh, what a little
marvel with his cute penis and the sweet violence barely hidden in
his black velvety eyes! And the daughter?
continue
reading |
 |
Siblings
Our lives are defined
by the loss we experience in our youth. We are our loss
and go through life trying to drape in a shirt of light our soul’s
dark night at the bottom of which lie buried our past selves. If
we lost a father, we will look for him in all our future loves; if we lost
a friend, all our friendships will bear the mark of that bond; if we lost
a sister, we will try to recreate ourselves in the image of the lost one. But
if we lost our double, which is the secret, invisible quest of our lives,
life will become for us the mere shadow of an unattainable universe called “the
real,” and
we will spend our lives trying to unravel behind each laugh, its valley
of tears, behind each I, the faceless grip of nameless lack of
being.
continue
reading |
 |
Childhood in the Old Country
When my great-aunt Clarice left Ukraine in 1922, she was two years old. No
one could guess at the time that she would one day be a famous Brazilian
writer, yet her name was always mentioned along with those of all my
other relatives, aunts, uncles and cousins who had left the country and
never returned. The litany of the names that my grandmother summoned
at holidays asking for protection for their invisible bodies was a ritual
so ingrained in the family discourse that the names had stopped signifying
existences and had turned into gray shadows populating an immense ship
that was forever drifting on the oceans with no hope of ever reaching
land.
I
was one of the shadows even before I left the country.
continue
reading
|
 |
First
American Job
My first job was at McDonald’s, a cashier, but in fact, my duties
included pretty much everything. At the cash register, I had to struggle
to make sense of all those little boxes with abbreviations written on them,
the letters moving in front of my eyes like signs in a game whose rules
nobody had bothered to teach me.
continue
reading |
 |
Becoming
an American
Meanwhile something happened—something of an altogether different
nature. I received a letter from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service informing me that my application for American citizenship had
been approved and that I was supposed to be present on such and such
a date at such and such a time in order to attend the oath ceremony
and receive my certificate.
continue
reading |
 |
Marriage
First, take an egg. Small, medium or large, white or brown. Happy or unhappy chicken—it doesn’t matter. The important
thing is for the egg not to be cracked. Turn the egg on all its…all
its…on all its (let’s call them “sides” so we
can move on)…and make sure it’s a healthy, smooth, crack-free
egg. You may be tempted to rush this phase, but you would make
a grave mistake, for the success of the entire proceeding depends on
it. As I said, make sure there are no eggs in the crack. I
mean, no cracks in the egg. Then move on to the second phase.
continue
reading |
|
| info@altaifland.comCopyright © 2007-2020
Alta Ifland |
