some stories
i finally got around to typing up some stories i wrote down from people (my neighbors and their relatives) while we were traveling in mexico. primarily from while we were in janamuato for my neighbor's (tony) father's funeral, when people sat down and were still and told stories. tony was trying to scare me with some of them, but he ended up scaring himself and waking up in the middle of the night. revenge.
"She said, “I was sitting by the peach tree when I was touched three times. It was a gentle hand. Three times like gra’ci’as. It’s because of this that we must keep the peach tree.” Or something very different but I understood something like this: he touched her through the peach tree to say thank you. And I am here."
"When I was little, maybe five or six years old, I was playing outside one night with the other kids. Holding hands to spin in a circle, but it was late and my mother called me to come inside so she could lock up for the night. But even when I was going to bed, I still wanted to be playing outside. In the middle of the night I must have gotten up and gone out in the street. And I was spinning. I guess, I don’t know if maybe I dreamed it, but I remember so clearly the feeling of my hair lifted off my neck, and it felt so good, the breeze, like if we flew like birds. It felt like that. A neighbor saw me though and called to me three times. The first time she was so far away, then the second time close but still far off, but the third call was right there and so loud. I woke up then in the street and ran inside."
"It was Thursday, so it was the sixth day of rosaries, when the middle son was reading the scripture. Each day as the women chanted the birds would make so much noise, maybe it was because dusk was falling, but it felt like it was the women's voices that called the noise out of the birds: chirping, squawking and jumping around in the trees. But this day while he read they were particularly agitated and all at once they went flying though the arcade, lined with women, looking for a place to settle down. As if to hide from some impending danger – an earthquake or fire – but he kept reading. They flew out, settled back into the trees, and no danger we knew of ever arrived."
"For the day of San Juan they make a big party and bake a lot of bread. So we were coming back late from my grandmother’s house and, you know, we were kids, so we were running ahead of the adults and back and forth. So I was running ahead and came to the electric pole at the top of our street, and it was probably one in the morning and you would maybe see a drunk man out at that time, but not a lady. But I saw a lady, just walking in circles by the electric pole – around and around. I was a kid though so I just turned around and ran back to the adults – I didn’t mention it – and when we turned the corner together she was gone."
"She said, “I was sitting by the peach tree when I was touched three times. It was a gentle hand. Three times like gra’ci’as. It’s because of this that we must keep the peach tree.” Or something very different but I understood something like this: he touched her through the peach tree to say thank you. And I am here."
"When I was little, maybe five or six years old, I was playing outside one night with the other kids. Holding hands to spin in a circle, but it was late and my mother called me to come inside so she could lock up for the night. But even when I was going to bed, I still wanted to be playing outside. In the middle of the night I must have gotten up and gone out in the street. And I was spinning. I guess, I don’t know if maybe I dreamed it, but I remember so clearly the feeling of my hair lifted off my neck, and it felt so good, the breeze, like if we flew like birds. It felt like that. A neighbor saw me though and called to me three times. The first time she was so far away, then the second time close but still far off, but the third call was right there and so loud. I woke up then in the street and ran inside."
"It was Thursday, so it was the sixth day of rosaries, when the middle son was reading the scripture. Each day as the women chanted the birds would make so much noise, maybe it was because dusk was falling, but it felt like it was the women's voices that called the noise out of the birds: chirping, squawking and jumping around in the trees. But this day while he read they were particularly agitated and all at once they went flying though the arcade, lined with women, looking for a place to settle down. As if to hide from some impending danger – an earthquake or fire – but he kept reading. They flew out, settled back into the trees, and no danger we knew of ever arrived."
"For the day of San Juan they make a big party and bake a lot of bread. So we were coming back late from my grandmother’s house and, you know, we were kids, so we were running ahead of the adults and back and forth. So I was running ahead and came to the electric pole at the top of our street, and it was probably one in the morning and you would maybe see a drunk man out at that time, but not a lady. But I saw a lady, just walking in circles by the electric pole – around and around. I was a kid though so I just turned around and ran back to the adults – I didn’t mention it – and when we turned the corner together she was gone."
posted by irene.e.brisson at 1:28 AM
1 comments
