ZMM, 8 / 9 – 2023 (II)
Hojin Sensei (her name sounds in Spanish like “hollín,” the word that means “soot,” but it carries the accent on the first sylable) proposed this time to address the theme of darkness and I thought to write about one of the darkest experiences in my life. I was about six. We had just come to Spain, to Galiza, me, my granny and my mum, from Brazil, the country we had gone to when I was two, from Uruguay, the country where I was born in 1958. The man who was my father had been a Catholic priest for years, a lot of years, and had fucked my mother for years before quiting religion, travelling to Sout America, a travel that my grandma shared with them, and finally marrying her. I’m not delusional, I’ve seen that marriage’s certificate, where my father poses as a lawyer and my mother as a housewife, and I have my father’s surname: Santamaria. So, I was six. We had rented a flat in A Coruña, a flat with a long corridor. I was standing on that corridor, maybe bound to the kitchen, when I heard before the open door of the living room: “He’s old enough. We should tell him.” I always liked to look wise and responsible as a child, and I said: “I know, Dad was/is a priest.”
How could I have known? Sometimes I think it might have been some kind of dark astral influence. And, yeah, that cursed my life in more than a way. How can I love that? (Hojin Sensei talked about loving darkness). Clinging to that serious, responsible six years old, pretending to be wise?