[behind the fog]
NIEBLA
[ behind the fog ]
Loneliness and confusion.
Living a life that you know it belongs to you but you cannot recognise yourself in it.
Daily fights with memories about relatives, places and objects. Connections between touch and sounds.
The silence, the noise, the emptiness, the resignation of the unrecognisable, the frustration, the emotion of sometimes feelings, the people around with no name and familiar faces, the seconds of consciousness where everything becomes embarrassing and unbelievable, the scape to the far away, the stillness.
Carmen was born in 1929, daughter of Spanish immigrants in Argentina. She met Vicente in an autobus in Buenos Aires. They got married despite he was son of south-Italians and his family wanted someone of the same culture. They had two kids, one of them is my mom.
I grew up living with mi abuela. She had teach me everything “a woman needs to know” about the house and life, “to don’t need anything from anyone”. She was an extraordinary strong and rough woman. The absolutely director of every corner of the house, and the people living in it. The full-time housewife, the full-time houseworker. The one who knows and controls everything.
When I was a kid, I used to imagine mi abuela when she will become ancient old. I always imagine her like an angry character, complaining about everything and shouting to everyone saying what to do.
When she was diagnosed with dementia any of us in the family could ever imagine what that word means. And, without even noticing it, she was already leaving to the long journey of the loss… the loss of herself.
Sometimes she came back and we could notice in her eyes, making contact with reality and suddenly after she was not herself anymore.
Every day she became more and more childish and innocent. Her character turn from rough to sweet, loving everyone and seeing beauty in everything.
I wondered why she was turned into this sweet person when the expectation was an angry old woman as a product of her natural strong personality in adult life. But as the Alzheimer is a neurodegenerative disease, it affect specifically the personality.
When I face my work now, as an adult and feminist, I remember my discussions with her, her warm voice giving beautiful descriptions about me and expressing all her love for everyone. I used to love this moments. However, a voice in my head was asking me why she became like this, why the sickness had made her so sensitive?
What if this woman was in fact the real one? Or a part of it. What if all her life she had been pretending to be strong, working in silent to keep a tough personality to face the world and the life of a woman of that times? What if the disease had destroyed the personality and as a result, the real soul have been exposed, the woman without fighting, the woman who did not want to fight anymore. She didn’t want to be angry anymore.
She. With no name, no past, no future. Stillness.
The nude soul behind the fog.
I ask myself what if she could have been like that all her life, free of a character to survive in the sexist world, being free to show her sensitivity, her deep love, her innocence, without the terrible risk of being hurt, or rejected, or dominated. And at the end, I think only the disease allowed her to be free, to be herself having the social acceptance.
But at that point, there was no vital energy left.
Days became a thick cloud, a blind flog where to look for clues, for familiar expressions, for words to connect.
Endless sleeping and questioning expressions. What could be that noise, that sound, that face? Who are you? Have I eaten already? “I have to do back with my mom…”
Pantufla, the family cat was her companion in the trance, the mysterious connection between souls. This old cat usually unfriendly, seemed like a kitten every time it jumped on the bed to look for the warm hand.
No doubt from somewhere in another side, people was calling her to finally leave.
She passed away on August 2016 after long years of journeys between fantasy and reality.
Softly vanishing into the fog.
