We are the ancestors they tell us about
Words by Mariana Cid De Leon Ovalle
It may not even be real and yet it immortalizes our many journeys around the sun, marking the progress of each life.
Time separates those who came before us from those who will come after. It regards us as a whole. An infinite witness of events as they occur. It makes sense of our own existence. It is a logical explanation when you think about it.
Did you know that some believe it’s all happening at once? That as I sit here, pulling memories from my brain,
Mi abuelo Quique is a young boy watching the fishermen on the shore, wondering what adventures the sea beholds.
Mi abuela Blanca is in Monterrey in the beloved apartment I still visit in my dreams. She is getting ready for Nochebuena, letting me sneak bits of food as she works. It is when she cooks that she comes alive. Eso tambien, I still see in my dreams.
Mi abuelo Quique is getting ready to take me on a drive in La Paloma, with the windows rolled down, so I can feel the breeze on my cheeks. Everytime I’m in a car with the windows rolled down and I feel the sun kiss my skin, the wind tugging at my hair, I am back in this moment, in La Paloma.
As my girls slowly transform our home into a Christmas wonderland,
Mi abuela Lupita is a young girl living in Padilla, a punto de danzar en honor de la virgen de Guadalupe en su día.
“We are descendants in the process of leaving traces of our legacies within the spirits of our children. We are the ancestors they tell us about.”
My mother is 17 and just finished her shift as a secretary. She’s getting ready for a night of dancing with her sisters. If she gets there on time, they might even get to be on camera.
My father is a young man with a passion for danza, which he inherited from his indigenous mother Lupita, and soon he will be chasing his own dreams, traveling to the U.S. with a dance company.
As I sit here, letting my daughters pull on the strings of my traditions, to create new versions for themselves,
I am 4 years old, running through the halls of my tia’s house, la que vive en Cumbres en una casa de 3 pisos. My mom is corralling all us little kids while making sure I keep my hat on with the itchy strap. She puts Snow White on in the TV room for us while I ask her how someone can be so rich they have their own TV room. She laughs and pinches my cheeks before walking back out to the adult area.
As my husband helps our girls get the house ready for Christmas, I think about the way our world is continuing to progress, and how time marks it all.
We are descendants in the process of leaving traces of our legacies within the spirits of our children. We are the ancestors they tell us about.
My parents are in their early 30’s. They load up their truck and get their two young kids ready for a road trip across Mexico so we can spend time with Apá as he works on the highways with his team. When we get to the beach, I will ask him for a coconut from a palm tree I saw. They will spend the rest of the trip singing “Ese coco que quiere Lupe, de la palma la bajo yo,” because how could you not? My middle name is Lupe and El Coco Rayado was an act of God herself sent down to endear and curse me.
The children of today thrive in ways that not even us millennials could, I see it with my own daughters, in the way they boldly reveal themselves to the world every day. They are empowered to honor the women before them, all of whom had a world of possibilities on their tongues but the burden of what their legs beheld, the marks of a woman. The limits of having to know and respect “your place” during times when that meant a woman was always subservient.
Just as the world looked different to our ancestors, so will it for those who come after us, too. But what remains the same can be found in our bloodlines, and from the throughline that is time arises the answer to linking us all:
Time may be merely an idea, but it can also be a generational asset through which we honor our own.