It is almost like magic to be able to wake up in the mornings and to say that I have a wife. Our room does not have a view of the Eiffel Tower and the sullen and violent inhabitants of district thirteen are not as friendly as the French of the postcards, but now I know that Paris is not the street, Paris is my wife.
I wanted to share with my readers a non-publicized view of the City of Lights, the truth of the poverty and ignorance, the machismo and marginalization that I see every day when I leave the building, but in these days I do not wish to squash the dreams of the bourgeois ladies with a small dog and lots of free time as if they were gold cockroaches.
A month ago I sealed the marriage contract and now I see things about married life that I know I must write down while I'm on the first stage of the long process of living in common with a consort because it's easy to forget once it has started.
Single people of the world: To be married is not as different as the rest of the relationship; sure, a pride similar to the one that¡s felt when one becomes a lawyer or a beauty queen, one has an indelible title that changes all the social aspects of identity. One goes by the street smoking a cigarette and it feels like all the other long walks of singlehood, but suddenly one thinks, smiling: I am married.
Married people of the world: I understand that routine someday generates those situations that are the cause of so many jokes that see married life as the passive-aggressive revenge of God for us havig him crucified on a log with enormous nails driven through his hands; I translate that sedative sensation with another spiritual state: Peace.
Peace because no longer I must look for a feeling like those on films, or a stormy love like the ones of the books that so deeply contaminated my youth (don't read Literature, ladies), I am in Paris but I don't want Cortázar's la Maga or the decadent Naná of Emile Zolá. I want something simple, something plain and simple before the enormous and before the explosive.
A month ago I sealed the marriage contract and now I see things about married life that I know I must write down while I'm on the first stage of the long process of living in common with a consort because it's easy to forget once it has started.
Single people of the world: To be married is not as different as the rest of the relationship; sure, a pride similar to the one that¡s felt when one becomes a lawyer or a beauty queen, one has an indelible title that changes all the social aspects of identity. One goes by the street smoking a cigarette and it feels like all the other long walks of singlehood, but suddenly one thinks, smiling: I am married.
Married people of the world: I understand that routine someday generates those situations that are the cause of so many jokes that see married life as the passive-aggressive revenge of God for us havig him crucified on a log with enormous nails driven through his hands; I translate that sedative sensation with another spiritual state: Peace.
Peace because no longer I must look for a feeling like those on films, or a stormy love like the ones of the books that so deeply contaminated my youth (don't read Literature, ladies), I am in Paris but I don't want Cortázar's la Maga or the decadent Naná of Emile Zolá. I want something simple, something plain and simple before the enormous and before the explosive.
I want to feel what a sailor feels after fifteen years of hunting blue whales; what an old surgeon feels before his thirtieth death on the operating table. What the photographer of Marylin Monroe felt after five thousand hundred photos.Of course, all these pretty things that I say about being married have to do with finding the perfect person, in my case somebody that let me keep my personality and with whom I can speak like a friend.
In addition, let me brag, I always thought, in my discriminative and Eurocentist head, that the Italians and the French have the most attractive women. My wife turns out to be a mixture of these nationalities privileged by the sea, by History, and by cheese, three of the most powerful forces of the world.
As I told my readers weeks ago, I was studying gastronomy in Paris, and although I can give you the recipe for caramelized cactus fruit with rose petals and tamarind chocolate in sesame sauce, I better leave you with something simple and easy to prepare. If you want my recipes you can contact me by email or go to my weblog on line. A bientôt, comrades, and a happy Valentine's Day.
Prepare spaghetti or any kind of pasta of your preference. Dice some onion in medium sized strips and fry two cups of fresh mushrooms along with it. Grind three small garlic teeth. Mix a cup of cream cream cheese (or goat cheese, nom nom nom) with a quarter cup of flour, butter, cumin, black pepper and a little bit of milk.
When the sauce is ready add a bit of white wine, tequila or bacanora. Put the spaghetti or pasta on this. Experiment, change the ingredients. The funniest thing about cooking is to go crazy.
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