Loving

During our much-needed Thanksgiving holiday break, my husband and I went to see Loving. It's about the couple behind the landmark Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws throughout the U.S. in 1967.

It was a quiet, powerful movie.  So much is communicated in its silences.  It focused on the Lovings as a couple and the Lovings' family life rather than the legal processes of the court case.  Although theirs was a landmark case during the Civil Rights Movement, they weren't trying to be heroes or trying to make a statement.  They were just trying to live their lives and raise their family in peace.

My husband and I felt a little awkward getting tickets at first.  I imagined people at the theater seeing us and thinking, "Oh, we know why you want to see this movie."  An interracial couple goes to see a movie about an interracial couple.  Typical.

But it didn't matter.  We had M&Ms and popcorn and Dr. Pepper and each other.  We walked into the theater hand-in-hand.  And we walked out hand-in-hand.

Dos días despúes / Two days later

When I was studying abroad in Spain in 2004, I took a Cervantes class.  This is the same year that extremists planted a bomb on a Madrid train, killing hundreds of people.  This was done in an election year in Spain in an attempt to sway the results (at the time Spain was a major European supporter of the Iraq war and extremists wanted the incumbent party to lose as a result of popular anger at having gotten Spain involved, thereby making the country a target).  The extremists got their wish and the vote swung to the opposite party.  A few of my classmates flew back to the U.S. in fear.

But back to the Cervantes class.  We went to a talk where a couple of Cervantes scholars were discussing the question of Don Quijote's sanity, whether he were actually crazy or whether he were willfully living in his own fantasy.  But before the talk one of the panelists read a poem he had written two days after the terrorist attack and I liked it so much that I asked him afterward if I could have a copy of it.  I kept it and still have it after all these years.  Today, I was prompted to search through my sentimental junk and find it.  I'll write the original Spanish with my English translation following:

Sé que hoy los espejos tendrán dificultades para reflejar mi imagen,
Sé que hoy tiene que llover,
No porque el cielo llore ni nada de eso,
Sino porque el agua que caiga del cielo tiene que limpiar el mundo,
Tiene que arrastrar y llevarse lejos todos los malos pensamientos, todos los
odios,
No debemos caer en el odio, porque entonces nos habrán vencido de
verdad.
Alma victoriosa será aquella que llegue al último momento pudiendo decir
"Yo amo y los cristales rotos caídos no empañaron mi camino."
Mi revolución es la de quedarme sentado frente a mi ventana y su horizonte
del todavía es posible,
Y amar, amar a todos los seres del mundo, sin excepción, y desear su
felicidad.
Dime, vieja amiga, qué les decimos a nuestros alumnos de esto, qué les
contamos, ¿les mentimos?
Les enseñaremos a leer en el libro de la Naturaleza,
Donde todo es armonía (incluso la muerte),
Donde todo tiene sentido.
Es necesario que hoy llueva.
Quién hace tanta bulla.
Sé que nos encerrarán en prisión por decir hoy que el hombre es bueno,
pero es que el hombre, querida amiga, es bueno.
El Quijote fue siempre un libro para no olvidar, porque olvidar es el peor
pecado del ser humano, pero esta noche, sabiendo porqué pero sin quererlo
saber, es de repente un libro para olvidar.  Hasta que mañana el viento
acaricie de nuevo mi cara.

I know that today mirrors will have difficulty reflecting my image.
I know that today it must rain.
Not because heaven is crying or any of that.
But because the water that falls from the sky has to clean the world.
It has to drag and carry far away all of the bad thoughts, all of the
hate
We should not succumb to hate, because then they will have defeated us
truly.
The victorious soul will be the one which arrives at the last moment being able to say
"I love and the fallen broken glass did not cloud my way."
My revolution is one of staying seated in front of my window and its horizon
of it is still possible,
And love, love all of the beings of the world, without exception, and desire their
happiness.
Tell me, old friend, what will we say to our students of this, what do we
tell them, do we lie to them?
We will teach them to read in the book of Nature,
Where all is harmony (including death),
Where all makes sense.
It is necessary that today it rains.
Who makes such a commotion.
I know that they will imprison us for saying today that man is good,
but it's just that man, dear friend, is good.
Quijote was always a book not to forget, because forgetting is the worst
sin of humankind, but tonight, knowing why but without wanting to
know, it's all of a sudden a book to forget.  Until tomorrow the wind
caresses my face anew.