#3 Magic Mirror on the wall, who on earth am I at all?

A dream and a letter

I need a break, my head hurts. I leave my house to take a breath of fresh air. It’s raining, and then sleeting; the mountain is wrapped in mist. I walk outside the village to see what I call the “Me-We-Gate”. It is an iron-wrought structure with an “M” that sits on top of it, right in the middle of the gate. It closes the access to a wide alleyway, and the letter's silhouette always makes me feel like adding another “M” upside down, as in a mirror, turning it into a “W”. Every time I drive past it, I think about my life, my past, present and future, about my relationships, about who I am in the first place… or in the end. I walk up the road that leads to the gate to find out that… there’s no gate! It disappeared! I am so puzzled and frightened. How can it be? When I get closer though, it appears out of nowhere. It is the first time in my life that I ever see this gate open, reason why the “M” was hidden among cypress and olive trees… 

 

The “Me-We-Gate” is open today, just today, just for me! It’s a sign! Do you believe in signs? This sentence from the movie Sleepless in Seattle has obsessed me for years. The mother of the main character is who pronounces it, as her daughter tries her bridal dress on… to end up tearing the sleeve. The tearing sound brings me back to reality. I want to enter the property, I need to do it, despite the electronic alarm and possible watchdogs down there. I have no fear, I have to realize who I am… I have no fear, I have to see who we are…

The sleet has turned into snow, I walk down the endless path surrounded by olive trees, cypress, and pomegranate trees. The more I walk, the lighter I feel. The snow falls like cotton candy treats. There’s no noise to be heard, apart from a few birdsongs. It is cold, but that kind of breathtaking cold that I loved as a child, when we would go playing in surrounding pastures or woods with my dad before coming back home to my mom who had prepared us a delicious hot cocoa. The minute I remember this childhood moment, the vegetation around me starts to grow and turn into spruce trees. Before my eyes appears a deer, who turns around to look at me. He is waiting for me, he wants me to follow him. 

 And suddenly I see a light, a very bright light. The path among the spruce trees looks like a huge white candle whose wick is the very same deer, and his aura of light a vigorous flame. I know in my heart that a healing awaits me at the end of the path...  After at least another half hour walking in the glittering snow, the deer turns to me again and starts to talk! 

-Bienvenida al jardín-paraíso del gran arquitecto, the Great Architect’s Eden...

-Den? Like a rabbit hole?? 

Apart from incredibly grateful for having a conversation with a talking deer, I can’t believe I am going to enter a rabbit hole, like Alice. Everything starts to be so out-of-the-way down here too, but I guess everything still has a purpose…

–No, not Den! Eden, girl, with an “E”. It means Paradise, and garden too, like in Arabic, actually. You know the original name! It’s Jenat al ‘Arif…

–Oh my God, of course! ¡El Generalife de la Alhambra!

-If you will, if you will…

The deer steps forward and gets into a very narrow passage through blackberry bushes. I follow him and we reach a strange arch gate. The deer sniffs what appears to be slumbering watchers of the gate: three white butterflies frozen in an eternal sleep. Then he shows me the valley beyond his antlers… 

-¡Mira el valle! and the castle on the hill. There you will find what you are looking for.

Although I sort of recognize el Generalife, the vision definitely looks like Wonderland to me!  Below the two wrought-iron arches is “my” symbol, the one that my mind would always make up… the “W” and the “M” are looking at each other through their particular mirror, Wonder and Magic are Waiting for Me to cross the second gate… My eyes fill up with tears. I wave goodbye to the deer, I cross the snow-covered orchard to reach the castle’s main door… which opens… to Zwarte Piet greeting me. I’m in awe. So Saint Nick’s castle had always been here, right before my eyes, and I never knew it! My host tells me that they were waiting for me. However, Saint Nick is busy now, but he’ll be with us soon. The holy man’s helper invites me to what he calls the resolana room. He explains me that this is where Saint Nick comes to relax after a day of hard work, taking the best-achieved toys to contemplate at ease. He says that, in the holy man’s own words, this is where he can “bask in the sun of his beautiful creations”. There is a huge circular mirror with four sets of four sunrays on the wall facing a stained-glassed window. The real sunrays of the day reflect their light on it, and when I lean closer, my eyes appear to be three times their size. Beside the mirror, there’s a weird portrait of Einstein in a war bonnet, holding a puppet of himself with the following caption: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

-Saint Nick thought that you would like this picture, so that’s the one he chose to hang on this wall this morning, says Zwarte Piet.

-But how did he know I would come? I ask. I didn’t even know it myself. Besides, how does he know me?

-Don’t forget that you’re talking about a man who sees everything… answers Zwarte Piet. Although you don’t want to believe it, he knows you well, you know. He can read your dreams, and those of others too, just by looking into their eyes... He can’t wait to finally see you in person. It’s been so long! He told me that I should show you our latest collection of Barbie dolls while you’re waiting for him… He would love to have your opinion about them all, to choose what is supposed to be the best doll profile of our last 15 years, says Black Pete. Griiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinch!, he calls, bring the doll tray, please!

A strange striped cat enters the room meowing and purring, and then snorting and growling. He disappears into a cloud to reappear in the shape of a snake that hisses at me. He goes to a corner of the room and comes back, in his human Grinch form, with a nice silver plate that carries several Barbie dolls. He asks me to sit on a Moroccan pouf and puts the plate on the carpet before me, so that I can examine them while having a mint tea with speculoos and delicious kaab el ghzal (gazelle’s antlers) served by Zwarte Piet. After the Saint’s servant starts playing the song Hayart Albi Ma'ak (you have baffled my heart) by Umm Kulthum, he sits with the Grinch, on the floor, among tens of pillows, and they start smoking shisha from a hookah pipe. 

There is one thing about the dolls that I immediately notice: none of them is a blonde. All are brunettes or have long, black, beautiful hair. They are not really conventional Barbie dolls, though. Each and every one of them has a unique style. I wish I’d have had that kind of doll when I was a kid! It is not going to be easy to choose. Although, the more I eat and drink, the more my hosts smoke, and the more spellbinding gets the music, everything strangely starts to fall into place in my mind. Against all odds, my brain switches to the left hemisphere so that my analytical mind can function. The only thing that I don’t really understand is why I am asked to examine Saint Nick’s dolls in the first place. But so be it, if it’s his wish… I’m happy to be considered one of his helpers.

The first one is riding a horse and looks like a princess who escaped from darkness, despite her fair skin; girl and steed wear tattoos all over their bodies, although when I give it a second look I can tell they’re fake tattoos, drawn with a black felt pen. I wonder if I should tell Saint Nick about this manufacturing defect (Should I dare to call it dishonesty?). She seems to be very proud and doesn’t give a look at the rest of “them dolls”. The second one is a kind of ethnic-gothic-bellydancer-Esmeralda who looks a bit stoned; she stands by herself, all sad in a corner. I like her outfit and she wears beautiful jewelry, but her eyes are a little bit too cold, like those of the horsewoman. In fact they are kind of greyish, ash-colored, lifeless. But talk about cold now… The third doll has an extremely fair skin, as if she had been whitewashed, raven-black hair and nearly transparent eyes, like contact lens for Halloween; her make-up makes her look like a real vampire, ugh, not my style! I want light! The next one is the most recognizable of all; she is a “Pocahontas” doll, all clad in fake buckskin and wearing a necklace made of (fake) turquoise and shell. Bonita, pero nada del otro mundo, I think. She appears to be shy and gentle, although you never know… Next to her, there’s a doll wearing a traditional fiesta dress; she looks so perfect, her eyes as sweet as those of la Virgen de Guadalupe, dressed as if fallen from the sky, like a tortilla snowflake! She looks nice, a little boring though… 

But wait a minute… Why am I being so harsh with all these dolls? Well, because Saint Nick wants the perfect one, I guess. Anyway, let’s go for the last one… As I grab her, something in her eyes makes me want to ask something to my new friends.

-Does Saint Nick really believe that there is such thing as perfection? I mean, it’s so subjective… I don’t know why I’m doing this, because I don’t believe in the idea of a perfect doll, because it would be like making an icon out of her, a stereotype, a mere object. Even though they already are objects, as dolls, they all represent a certain type of woman. So, imagine for a minute that they are real women on display in a store window. What a weird scenario, right? If a man were to choose among them, maybe he should think that what really matters is not to have an infinite collection of the most stunning dolls on the planet, but rather to choose one because you want to learn more about her and see her imperfections as… her perfect self. If he fails to do that, he will always feel that it’s not enough. I mean, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and also, as Merton put it, “the beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves in them”. Don’t you think so?

They stop smoking, stare at each other and look at me again. Zwarte Piet starts to cough, drops the hookah pipe and leaves the room in a hurry with the doll tray, while the Grinch takes the sweets away. I look at the only doll that’s left, in my hand, wondering if I shouldn’t have said that… 

-Saint Nick says that in the end he won’t be able to see you today. He has very important business to attend right now, an online meeting he had forgotten about. He’s sorry about it but asks you to leave, says Zwarte Piet from behind the hanging where he had disappeared moments earlier.

-But I’ve been waiting so long to finally meet him! My whole life, actually! I think it’s rude. Doesn’t he have at least five minutes for me? I ask, somewhat startled…

-You think it’s whaaat??? Do you have any idea of the amount of work he has? Who do you think you are to be so demanding? As if you were number one or even in the top ten priorities in his list, hahaha! He has so many people to attend, so many little boys and girls to make happy with his simple presence. Only Satan, I mean Santa, I mean Saint Nick knows why you’re here. HE wanted to do you this huge favor, making your inner child’s wish come true as an adult: to meet him. Why do you have to talk so much, by the way? Look at the dolls, at least they shut up! Saint Nick may say it’s ok, but we barely tolerate you here, and we certainly don’t need your opinion, we don’t care about your tastes or distastes, and we don’t mind to hurt your feelings, you know! Your feelings are yours, not ours! Take this picture of him and a sweet, and leave now, please, leave before I lose my temper… The Grinch yells at me as he throws on the table a hollow chocolate sweet and an image of Saint Nick as a fat Kokopelli, with a Santa hat on his crazy hair, carrying a huge sack on his back.

-I no longer want that kind of empty chocolate, I reply harshly. I prefer it filled, I want substance, “you know”…

-The neeeeeerve! vociferates the Grinch as he leaves the room with Zwarte Piet who silently shrugs before disappearing into shadows.

I am not sure to understand what this drama is all about, and I wish I could have thought of something else to add but, all of a sudden, the Grinch’s eyes had gone so blank and void, that they froze me like a pillar of salt before I could utter a word. That’s fine with me, but I’ll take my little “revenge”.

-Well, in that case, sorry Saint Nick, but I’ll take something from you… 

I shove the doll inside my bag. I feel a little bit awkward. I don’t like stealing, but there’s a strange inner voice that tells me that this doll is rightfully mine. I open the door and leave the castle with tears in my eyes.

-What has just happened in there? I wish I could ask a guardian angel… 

As I walk through the snow, I see something dark moving under an olive tree. It looks like a huge raven moving its wings on the frozen ground. But as I get closer, I can tell it’s a little boy lying on his back in the snow. He simultaneously opens and closes both his arms and legs like a jumping jack… Here’s my angel! Or at least the creator of a nice snow angel! 

-Hi! What’s your name? I ask.

As he notices me, he gets up quickly, shakes off the snow that covers his sweater and gives me a shy and somewhat suspicious half smile. He looks at me for a while before answering “Nico”.

-Do you live here, Nico? I ask again, not too sure of how to keep the conversation going…

-Yes, I will show you the way out, he says.

-OK, is the gate the only way out?

-If you’re a stranger, it is, yes.

-Oh, I see… It is a beautiful gate, by the way.

-Yeah… Have you noticed something special when you came? He asks out of the blue.

-Well, yes, actually. Three frozen butterflies…

I have no idea of why I’ve said that, but apparently it was a wise move; this is the first time the child looks into my eyes. He also stops grinning with only his teeth, to smile at me with his eyes. He asks me who I am.

-Right now, I’m not too sure anymore… I answer.

-Yeah, I know the feeling, he sighs. It’s hard to answer the question of who we are, deep down. Why don’t you come back to the castle? Tonight is movie night. Join us! You could be Dorothy!

-Well, I’d love to but they’ve just kicked me out…

-Ugh, too bad. Every month, we watch ‘the Wizard of Oz’ together. We know it by heart, so as soon as Dorothy meets the scarecrow, we get up and start to play our part. Zwarte Piet is the Scarecrow, the Grinch is the Tin Man and I’m the Cowardly Lion. Saint Nick loves to set up everything and then watch us play the movie. He’s greatly entertained till the end, when he has to say the Wizard’s lines. However, meanwhile, he checks his Facebook page from time to time, when he’s less interested in some of the movie scenes. He digs the Internet, man! Because he can answer to all the poor kids who love him so much but who live too far to see him in person, so he gives them a little bit of dream from his world. He sees what they appear to like from what they or their parents post on their walls, so he can learn how to make them fly, literally! He seduces them into becoming a little more poetic in order to see the extraordinary explode in their life.

-Wow! A very learned Nico boy! I exclaim. I’ve already heard that, in the words of an Indian guru named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

-Yeah, I know, I took it from the Internet, browsing among a list of quotes from people born in December, but who cares anyway… We’re talking about OUR holy man here. Sometimes he also starts private chats with some of the kids. He then makes them feel they are unique to his eyes, because he loves them all, but each and every one of them has a specific talent that he knows how to highlight, bringing immense joy in their heart. Since he can't do it all the time and with everybody, he always manages, in his public announcements, to be enigmatic enough so that all of them can imagine that he's talking to them exclusively... And then, you see magic in action. It’s as if they were hypnotized. From then on, they start sending him poems, beautiful pictures and drawings, in which they fantasize about the day he will finally take them by the hand to enter his wonderland… You know, that’s really what makes sense and his essence, he needs those little tokens of gratitude and admiration, they make him feel that kids still believe in his magic. The sad thing is, they grow up too soon, so he has to cling to present only, and he constantly has to look for younger kids to devote time to, because when the world around older children starts to make them doubt, they will soon see things in another light. Then the same old scheme will start repeating itself, over and over again. They will claim that they no longer believe in him, that all was a lie, and they'll end up forgetting about him. So he has to make sure that the purest among them still believe, he has to make them see how much he cares for those candid, dreaming souls. He promises that, one day, those who are not lucky enough to have seen his castle yet, will fulfill the dream; a dream that YOU could have lived to the fullest, but then ruined by doing or saying something stupid. Cause they kicked you out, am I correct?

-Yeah, I know, very kind of you to remind me of it… Thank you so much!

-You’re welcome. One needs to be told certain truths about certain things, right? It enables to put things in perspective, I think it’s healthy. Talking about health, Saint Nick also takes advantage of the web to order his medicine online, although sometimes his virtual pharmacist gets mad at him when he messes up with her instructions, because he always wants to be in control, you know. I think she has a crush on him and he finds it funny. He always knows how to sweet-talk her back into giving him what he needs. When she gets reaaaal mad, she gets carried away and sounds very scary, and she says nasty things, but she’s just a little bit too empathetic, and that’s why, many times, people think she’s plain crazy. I’ve heard in a movie that all the best people are… Maybe she works too hard for him too. I think that he might want to go down the hill with me one day, cross the valley and go to el Sacromonte, to talk to a Gypsy curandera, but he’s not sure if he should trust… Trust her or me, maybe that's the question, hahaha! He says he’d rather stay here in the castle, checking the Internet and finding stuff by himself. Through the web, he can look for new ideas to come up with new doll models and new magical stories, he can travel around the world virtually, and it’s like a rehearsal for when he has to give his magic to all children in just one night… He loves to tour beautiful places like Brazil, Canada, Spain of course, the States… After that, he plays with either his puppets or Barbie dolls for a while, and he watches us playing Oz. Sometimes, we switch roles, and it’s cool! Next time I think I'll play Tin Man, but I like it better when I can be the Scarecrow, because I have a feeling that Dorothy likes him most… I’d love you to be our Dorothy, by the way… I like you… It would feel more real than playing make-believe with the one on the screen, plus, she’s kind of boring, she never grows, and you’re a grown up already, you could be like my make-believe mom, my Dorothy mom. Actually, sometimes, when Saint Nick lets me play with his dolls, I call HER Dorothy too, he says pointing at the doll’s head that sticks out of my bag. 

I feel ashamed. What kind of a person have I become, talking to a little boy who now knows that I am a thief? What kind of a role model is that? It’s just that, at times, some gut feelings are way more powerful than our fragile principles. I feel moved too. This little boy has shared part of his world with me, and I can feel his longing. I am starting to feel an overwhelming love for little Nico, who seems so lost and lonely. He somehow reminds me of myself when I was a little girl. Before I start crying, I look towards the castle that now seems to float in the air.

-Nico… My real, full name is Nathalie Christine Elisabeth, I finally say.

-Wow! You have three names? That’s cool!

-Yeah, although I only use the first one, and many times I translate it, according to where I am and with whom. Nathalie, Natalia, or even Alya, which means “elevation” in Arabic…

-Revelation?

-Haha, no! ELEvation… By the way, is it normal to see the castle going up in the air right now?

-Yeah! Do you think it’s kind of cool or rather scary?

-I don’t know…

-You don’t know or you no longer want to answer me? Well you don’t need to answer me. The flying thing is normal, yes, everything around Saint Nick is an illusion, you know… You have to tread with care while in his magical realm, because you never know what will come next. He can read your mind, he can enter and leave your dreams as he wishes, and be everything he believes that you want or even YOU believe that you want! He’s a wizard, he is a trickster, he’s a magician and he's whom I admire most. He’s my teacher, my foster father, my mentor… He’s the adult I long to be. Together, with Piet and Grinch too, I feel we are family. Actually, more than family, we are as one, they’re like an extension of myself, a projection, but so much stronger than me. You know, Saint Nick has suffered a lot when he was a kid, he became an orphan soon, so he decided to create a magical world for all children to take refuge under the warm and loving eyes of a nice and wise abuelo. He knows that, most of the time, I just need to be left alone in my bubble… and he respects that. Have you met him when you were a child?

-Yes, I have a pic of that. Although, deep down, I’d have answered no. I sure met guys who claimed to be him, but whom I felt were impersonators, and therefore I never really believed in them… whom I was told to call “him”. But I’ve been studying a lot these days, and now I really, really would love to tell him all the things that I’ve learned, which make me believe in his magic, so very much... But he won’t let me. They all got angry in the castle.

-Yeah, it happens a lot around here. I think it’s due to contradictory energies fighting against each other inside the castle. Just like two opposing magnets, you know what I mean? When the energies get too powerful, it’s like living in a fast train or an endless spiral, and reality gets distorted, starting to make us all tumble inside the walls of the castle, which floats upside down. You know when you go to the Alhambra down there and you see the Comares tower reflected in the water? Well that’s the same thing, we live in the reflected palace, the one that is upside down… That’s why no one can see us when they do the regular visit to the Generalife, the upright twin of the Great Architect’s Eden.

-I understand… You know, I love that vision of the palace in the water, and I always have a feeling that it is the real “Palace of Qamar”, the “Palace of the Moon”…

-Oh you know about that? Not too many people do. Not too many people here still speak Arabic either… Well Qamar, the Moon, is the name I gave to my little shelter among almond trees… I have built a little fort made of books, I filled it with blankets, and I stay there reading, writing, making reed flutes and carving angels in almond trees logs. I am too little to help Saint Nick and the rest in their task, or so they say, so I just stay here, playing, drawing, dreaming… I also tend the orchard and fields, and I hunt rabbits to make stews and soups… That’s how I feel safe, that’s who I am. Saint Nick is there, facing the rest of the world for me, and Zwarte Piet and Grinch help us when we have to fight the real world’s oddities, which I find way scarier than ours, here in the castle. Without each other, I’m afraid we would be like… nobody, you understand?

-Yeah, I think I do, although I don’t know if I agree. I think you have something that those three in the castle really envy you. I think you are a precious human being, a special, beautiful soul, and a gift to the world…

-Wow! Thank you… I think you’re cool too. I think the coolest thing is that you have three names! It makes you kind of similar to… the three Magi! They too, sometimes, have a hard time to get along. A few years ago, they decided, for a laugh, to wage a war against Santa, to see who’s the best “wall climber” of all. Anyway... Does it happen to you too, between your three names and this doll, to be in conflict and wonder who you really are?

-Well, hmmmm, Ay Nicooo…

-Do you think I’m crazy? Don’t you think I’m beautiful? Do you think you could love me? Please, please, please, tell me!

-Wow, relax! You’re going so fast, you have so many questions! Y no tienes abuela, haha! If you show so much self-centeredness, you’ll only get charcoal from los reyes magos, you know! And a spanking with Zwarte Piet’s birch rod!

-Those were real, deep and true questions. How dare you make fun of me. You want our neighbors “los reyes” to humiliate me, and mi hermano to hurt me! I thought you were different, but you’re like the rest… I should have known better…

-No! I’m joking, c’mon! It’s, it’s… I don’t know, I need time to think about what you’ve just said… That’s all… Actually, your questions sum it all, they’re at the core of everything else, and they define my own quest… It’s a long, painful and confusing process…

-Well, it’s late now, you gotta leave. Maybe I’ll see you when you learn how to answer real questions. I only trust the winged people lately. So if you really need to talk, just whisper to the wind and let the clouds draw your words. I’ll see them somehow, and then I’ll see you again, maybe, when and where all mistakes fade, in the land of in-between, on the thin line that separates the upright world and upside down world.

-But wait Nico, I’d like to…

-I’ve just told you how to go back home the fastest way, if only you knew how to really listen. Just move on, now, move! In order to go back to your world, state your mistake, your “in-betweenness” which is the siege of all conflicts, where we could meet, and then where you wanna go, that’s very simple… Adiós, whatever your name is… Oh, here, I stole it from Saint Nick’s bedroom, maybe you will learn something if you keep it…

He drops a bundle in my bag without looking at me, leaving me speechless. I feel devastated. I know this “snow angel moment” was my opportunity to establish a real connection to this beautiful soul, and he’s just told me that I’ve lost it. 

-Wait! I exclaim. Please accept this, it’s a tin butterfly. When you play Tin Man again, hold it close to your chest, and if you believe in its magic, it will turn into a burning, sacred heart.

-If you say so… Thanks, says a sullen Nico who barely looks at the present I’ve just given him... I really gotta go now, bye.

-Bye, Nico. Adiós, mi rey. 

He’s gone, his dark hair floating in the wind, his sorrow as cold as the snow. I am freezing now, I need to go home. I hope to find the right words for my particular sesame. As I struggle with Nico’s riddle, I see a rabbit staring at me. Or maybe it’s a hare. But it seems as if it had antlers. 

-Oh my god, it’s a jackalope!!! 

The mythical animal giggles as I gasp, and disappears into a cloud. As I reach the Me-We-Gate, I hear the croaky caw of a raven, then two, then three. They land at the bottom of the gate, as if asking me not to leave. I am in a mental haze, I don’t know what to do. On this side of the gate live three ravens, on the other side three frozen butterflies, is this a sign? Is number three a pattern? I hear a coyote yelping behind me, then two, then three. I turn around, and the three of them are smiling at me among almond trees, taking me back to another New Mexican vision, one I was given on the first morning of January, when a coyote stared at me as I drove back home in a frozen sagebrush sea. He had told me that everything would be OK, the same message that the cards seemed to hold for me too, in what was supposed to be a fun card reading, held on New Year’s Eve. Nevertheless, we never really know what’s in our cards, we have to look for everyday signs. The thing is that, ever since that day, this whole year has felt like a strange parenthesis in my life. Coyote is a trickster, but also a huge teacher. And I know these three, cousins of my foxies, have appeared as a present to me.

-Could they also be, in spite of his anger, a present from Saint Nick? Or from… the three Magi! That’s the meaning of number three!

My exclamation frightens the three times three creatures, who flee from the Architect’s Eden. 

-Los Reyes embody the biggest mistake that I have made with Nico, who has felt threatened by my joke. My “in-betweenness”, my siege of conflict, has to be my middle name; it’s also the name of that little girl who felt we were in constant competition when I was a kid. Maybe I’ll meet Nico again through our words spoken in the wind, but I need to go home now, to el Mirador de Santa Teresa, número 6… So, let’s go, I am going to take a chance… I think this is my sesame: “Reyes – Christine – Wind – Santa Teresa, 6”

The snow angel melting at my feet turns into a cloud that takes me home in the blink of an eye. I’m back, in front of the computer, wondering what on earth (and in the sky) has happened to me. So, it was just a dream? Everything felt so real… I must have dozed off while editing the picture of the “Me-We-Game”, I mean, the “Mind-Wind-Gate”, aaah, the “Me-We-Gate”, that, is, which REALLY was open for the first time ever… But when I look at the picture on the computer, instead of an “M” and a “W”, I see another mirror vision, between an “N” and a “Z”… And there’s a fox instead of a deer treading the alley in the woods… 

 -Oh my! Too many visions in one day, it’s really time to go to sleep, Elisabeth! Oops, that’s the name of my godmother, it’s not me, well, it’s my name number three, and as she always says, “on a toujours quelque chose de sa marraine”, one always has a little something from a godmother… I wonder if she’s told Alice already …

As I wonder, I see, amidst hookah fumes and cotton candy clouds, three generations of women welcoming Alice, the new soul in their family. May this soul be blessed, may she dive in myths, may she always believe in signs, and learn how to deal with her own fears and demons, because, only when we tame ours can we help others to tame theirs…  But now she’s fast asleep in my root land, dreaming baby girl dreams… 

From his wondrous cloud in wonderland sky, Mister Sandman is pouring stardust and snow at me too. As I go to bed and gradually slip into unconsciousness, I think of all that I would have told Saint Nick if he had let me talk to him. Why wouldn’t he want the two of us to share anything? Why is he punishing me? Because I showed disbelief in his magic as a child? Because I could see through the mask of his impersonators? But he, himself, in that Flemish TV show, had punished them for doing so! And he knows that I've always wanted to desperately believe in magic! Life and its contradictions...

The dark tunnel between wake and sleep is filled with new images that urge me to write, in dreams, my very first letter to Saint Nick.

Dear Saint Nick,

I don’t know if you will ever read this letter. I don’t know if it really matters for you, but it sure matters a great deal for me. You say you know me, when I myself have had a hard time knowing (¿remembering?) who I am, but I think this introspection has helped me find my whole self, beyond my wildest dreams. Please understand that, sometimes, it’s easier to know someone else than ourselves, because we stand on the edge of them. I know you’re mad at me because of my over-suspicious attitude as a child, because I refused to be loyal to the game when I wouldn’t buy the make-believe. 

But you see, I’ve always wanted to be a clever girl, maybe too soon, which may have made me draw the picture of a woman who may seem too sharp, too self-assured, too strong. Things are never as they appear, you know that well... Some other things came in my life's picture, which blurred it for some time, things that, I’m sure, also come from childhood, such a tricky realm. 

Back to us, in the same wondrous way as you know me, I think you know that I know you too… And the thought of me invading your white castle in the clouds made you freak out. I am grateful for the quick look you let me have at it though, I enjoyed sipping tea and savoring sweets, because while touching your sacred dreams, I also pointed the finger at some of your best kept secrets. For that reason, I know that you had to kick me out. It’s ok, I accept it and forgive you, because, you know, I could be mad at you too. But let’s forget about this, will we? Don’t be mad, and don’t be afraid either, because now I am as vulnerable as you think you are. This is the “book” of my whole life that I’m serving you on a silver plate. Please, accept it as mi regalo de Reyes for you…

 Accept that, no matter what, the fox and rooster will always be reborn to form a heart in their embrace. Listen to their flamenco complaint that takes us to the other side of the mirror, when shores are so close to each other that they can only surrender to a kiss, when Spain dwells in Morocco, when the obscure well of the Spanish guitar pours its sad waters in the old well of an oud, the Moroccan lute. See how, in the blink of an eye, the African instrument sadly smiles behind its clown’s mask. Listen to Lorca’s loving verses in these snippets of an ode to his useless lover, cruel enough to call him “Andalusian dog” in a creation of his. 

A rose in the Eden you most desire. A naked mountain wrapped in an impressionist mist. Broken glasses flee from the magic of reflection. The Night, and its black statue of Prudence, holds in its hand the round mirror of the moon. Wooden flutes soothe the air. An old Native God has sweets for the children to eat. Remember me when you’re on the beach, and when you paint crackling ashes, Ay, my little ashes! Put my name in the picture so that my name can be useful to the world… 

 Look at the rose in Dalí’s cielo azul, when he thought of dreamlike moments with his lover wrapped in a sultan’s turban. What do you see in the cloud above? Angels or birds? Look at the eerie likeness between Salvador’s sky and Rudy’s cover. Hear the words dedicated to the old man’s lover, who has already crossed over: 

“One day while they were sitting together, he had asked her how she felt. ‘I’m going south,’ she had told him. Of the four directions, she had chosen south to mean the land of the departed. When they were young they had been like two giant stars drawn into each other’s gravitational fields, circulating in perfect rhythm, dancing epicycles around each other, stupendous sunbursts and galactic rainbows of love, creating a harmony that echoed the ancient songs of the celestial spheres. Could he ever orbit around a great love again? Would he ask too much of a relationship? Could love thrive in the time of going south? A new star would not come as a tabula rasa on whose soul he might inscribe his desires…” 

My dear Saint Nick, my far away one, peep over the rim into Georgia and Alfred’s world, make yours the sadness of what he wanted from her: 

“Sometimes I feel I'm going stark mad. That I ought to say, Dearest, You are so much to me that you must not come near me. Coming may bring you darkness instead of light, and it's in Everlasting Light that you should live”. 

 These are my readings for the quiet season, and both quotes remind me so much of another love story, eons ago: the one you lived with Zarzuela, your most precious doll, your sweet angel dove… She was who made you feel fully human, but you had to become a myth and roam the earth for eternity… so you froze her smile among the dead roses of the past, flying away with your paloma’s broken wings.

Yesterday I stayed at the front door of my house for a while, and I saw reflected, in the decorative items of my cow skull, some traces of your world: 

Your lost lover’s red rose and, softly swaying on his potlatch feather, a Kokopelli like the one you chose as your clone in the picture I got from the Grinch.  

I’ve seen reflected in my cow skull that of Georgia’s house in Abiquiu, facing el Cerro del Pedernal. Go there one day, in your virtual world tour. You’ll see how stories come sparkling from the mesa to touch every pebble of Ghost Ranch. One summer day, I sat on Georgia’s wrought-iron bench, in front of her cow skull. The iron roses in my back whispered their secret to my ear: this is the painter’s private flintstone mountain. Her little ashes were scattered from atop, mixing together with those of ancient fires built by the ancestors of the Puebloans, the Gallina People of the Rosa phase. Roosters and roses… The union of flintstone and wind built a burning heart that came flying across Abiquiu lake, absorbing silent drops of its slumbering waters. Dust, fire and water built a crystal rose that holds the essence of eternal beauty, a rose that appears in the sky only for those wild at heart. 

Dalí must dwell in those skies, together with Georgia… Are these two the cloud angels I saw by the Rio Grande Gorge? Maybe… They sure are lovers in my art gallery of the heart, but I’m not sure that I would like to see them as real, flesh and bone lovers. Dalí would end up making Georgia feel miserable, like Stieglitz already did to her, like Salvador already did to Federico…

You know, I think this angel cloud that I saw over the Gorge, while sitting on the boulders on the edge, meant the liberation of two petrified angels, the ones that Dalí, the predator, had seen in Millet’s angelus. At first, he turned the mystical moment into the painfully sad nothingness of two stone souls, both lost in their own thoughts. Then he made them hold in an embrace born from the clouds above. The painter sure needed a clutch to make the shift, but still, he made it, although he couldn't help, in the end, painting another embrace of self-devouring lovers. 

There I see you, Saint Nick, devouring your own shell to avoid seeing cracks in the crystal backbone of the holy man, like Frida Kahló’s Broken Column. Some say she loved herself too much. I say she used her own story to create cathartic art. That’s why I love her so much. Can we love ourselves without falling into the trap of worshipping ourselves? I think we can, provided that we step aside and sit on the edge, to analyze the different selves that make up our wholeness and uniqueness.

In my bedroom facing the sun, beside my everyday-self-doll and my Frida-self-doll, now also live the forsaken Zarzuela that Nico stole from your bedroom, and the lost gitana that I stole from the resolana room. 

Saint Nick, I want to thank you for kicking me from your castle. You see, without that gesture, I would have never stolen back my doll. I call her mine because she is me, she is a God-given gift. As my Barbie persona, I will give her three names. How cool is that? 

I’ll call her Dorothy Alice Khamsin. Dorothy will be her first name because that is my dear Nico’s choice, and I’ve read somewhere that Dorothy means God-given… Alice will be her second name because she has crossed the mirror to a world of wonder, exactly like I did when I crossed the Me-We-Gate to face “in-betweenness”. And how could I forget that Alice is the name of the second goddaughter of my godmother… Khamsin will be the third name, because this is the name of a warm, dry, and sandy desert wind, which also means fifty, since it blows for fifty days. I see in this number the perfect balance, a “fifty-fifty” relationship where "you give and I give"… Gypsies are called “sons and daughters of the wind” in French, and the wind is where, one day, I’ll meet your foster son again, mi alma preciosa. 

 Have you just heard the call, Saint Nick? It’s only 5am, my village is still slumbering in darkness, but I’ve heard the song of a rooster, three times. Remember that story in the Bible, when Jesus told Judas “before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times”? 

I prefer to see, in this recurring number three, the wise men coming to adore the child-god. 

I won’t adore you, though, Saint Nick, never did and never will, plus you have an army of kids to do that already. This won't prevent me from saying that you are holy, like all myths have to be. 

As I speak, the three Magi arrive, in the shape of three tin Monarch butterflies. They reach out to the clouds, towards the sacred mirror heart twinkling inside another heart made of roses. There’s a Spanish dicho that says: si no puedes ver nada bello en ti mismo, obtén un mejor espejo. That is the better mirror you might be looking for. Try to look at yourself again. If you see Nico in its reflection, please tell him that, one day, if he wishes so, the fox and I will kidnap him to take a silent ride in the wind, to follow the river and meet the hawk. On our way, we’ll eat blackberry pie and cookies filled with rose marmalade, we’ll draw in the clouds hearts made of black olives and pomegranate seeds, we’ll weave snow angels out of cotton candy to celebrate life and its beautiful contradictions. Nico is the warmth in your frozen garden, the light of your Eden, the beacon in the dark. Bring out the best in him, let him grow, set him free, and tell him to stay in tune with the wind. If he cares enough to listen to me, I will tell him that, now, thanks to both of you, I really know who I am and I proudly bear my three names. I will tell him that the black sap in my heart has vanished, that my trunk of kisses has been replenished, and that the "three of me" are willing to thrive as a whole. Such blissful feeling is my wish for you and for him; this is my wish for all. 

Ya cantan los gallos,
amor mío, vete.
Ya cantan los gallosVete, vida mía,
No tardes, no esperes,
no descubra el día
los nuestros placeres.
Calla que los gallos,
Ya cantan los gallos,
amor mío, vete.¿Piensa o sueña?
El agua ensimismada
¿piensa o sueña?
El árbol que se inclina buscando sus raíces,
el horizonte,
ese fuego intocado
¿se piensan o se sueñan?
El mármol fue aire alguna vez;
alguna vez, el oro, llama;
el cristal, aire o lágrima.
¿Lloran su perdido aliento?
¿Acaso son memoria de sí mismos
y detenidos se contemplan ya para siempre?
Si tú me miras, ¿te quedas?Si tú me miras, ¿te quedas?
Ya cantan los gallos,
amor mío, vete.
Ya cantan los gallosVete, vida mía,
No tardes, no esperes,
no descubra el día
los nuestros placeres.
Calla que los gallos,
Ya cantan los gallos,
amor mío, vete.

THE END

[Previous chapters: number one, number two]