A journey through imagination and memory: my parents and I, between the cross and the star - Column

Judaism, Fall, 2002 by Marjorie Agosin

MY EARLIEST MEMORIES GO BACK TO ONE PARTICULAR scene: the balcony of our house in the Simon Bolivar neighborhood, one of the older areas of Santiago, in the Nunoa district with its flowering acacias, where the old aristocracy built its earliest homes, only to decay later into lower middle-class poverty. There is where we spent our childhood. I remember my parents, very small and delicate, walking arm-in-arm, entwined like the roots of a tree that have been joined since time immemorial. I loved to watch them as they left the house, becoming smaller and smaller as they walked along the road, since the knowledge that they would always return gave me a sense of security and permanence. At the same time I imagined them inseparable in their strolls through the city of Santiago that I learned to love because of the stories my parents told me during the long Chilean nights, the seasons of light and shadow, winter and summer, when it was possible to detect the fragrance of things, the perfume of chestnuts and honeysuckle.

The relationship with my parents has been a mysterious and enigmatic one for me. They are the beings who gave me physical life, the possibility of existence, but at the same time, they are the link with my spiritual sense and perhaps with the art of imagining and creating. From childhood, I sensed that words would be my destiny. I fell in love with them and wrote them down in piles of notebooks I called my dream books. I would memorize these words and embrace them before going to bed. I also collected dictionaries but chose them for their covers, rather than for their contents. Somehow, the world of words and books, the possibility of language, were my guides. More than anything, I loved to repeat words to my parents, storing them up to later grant them as my personal offering. I remember many nights when I would have them sit before me as my audience and, facing them, I would demand their complete attention and recite my poems for them.

Perhaps it was through those moments and memories that I began to understand the relationship with my parents that developed over time. It had to do with the fact that being there in front of them allowed me to have a voice, to have the gift of words and creativity. Our relationship was not a hierarchical one; perhaps the only hierarchy was the one I myself imposed, since I was the one who demanded absolute devotion, respect, and dedication to what I was saying, inventing, and plotting.

My vocation as a poet was established in the nucleus of that family created by both my parents. In some way my siblings and the rest of the family remained outside of that environment. The poetry that was created, arranged, and discussed in their presence allowed me the possibility of entering sacred zones, mysterious spaces, where I toyed gently with origins, the origin of the poem which somehow or other was connected to the origin of my birth and my parents. The rest of the family accepted what they called "Marjorie's madness" but it was also noble and prestigious to have among them an eccentric, especially a poet who was very tiny but nevertheless, used big words.

All writing develops within a privileged space. The time is right, the words emerge. Poetry like other expressions of creativity demands the freedom of a voice, the desire to have a voice, to project this voice and to honor it. All these qualities were offered by my parents, who allowed me the gift of speech and words.

I remember from childhood that I liked to call myself Miriam. My name, Marjorie, was too strange for Chile, for the Chileans, for the children in school. For me, Miriam was the determining figure behind the Exodus, because I knew that Miriam above all had the possibility of words, of giving voice, and having the gift of prophecy. Nevertheless, throughout history, Miriam epitomized the invisibility of women. As the sister of Moses and Aaron, she had none of the powers they had. But the name Miriam Marjorie had everything to do with me, with who I was, and who I hoped to be. My parents participated in this duality which little by little was converted into the duality of what would become my writing.

I would like to recall and retell what the process of writing about my parents has been like, joining with it the story of the daughter who narrates the same way Miriam wishes to narrate the story of the Exodus. If the Exodus of Miriam and the Jewish people goes back to the expulsion from Egypt and the history of the Diaspora, my own diaspora goes back to the departure from Chile, my small childhood paradise.

Writing of Exile--Spanish and English

The departure from Chile occurred unexpectedly in 1972 during the period of a happy adolescence. Sometimes I feel I confuse the years and even the exact time of the departure. Memory remains fixated on certain moments and stories; sometimes, they are clear, sometimes hidden; sometimes they are luminous like the one which always appears: my parents are moving calmly, beyond time, and I am watching them from the balcony, the acacia tree blooming, the sky covering me like a cupola, like a chuppah.