Sitting in the morning sun

My last post was written on our dining room table, staring into a crowded living room, a bustling avenue right outside our balcony. In a couple of hours I had to get ready for the ten-minute drive to work. I was tired, homesick, future uncertain.

This post began on that same table, but now it overlooks a backyard next to a dried up pond. Leia, into her fifth day of spaydomhood, snores on the matress we set up in the living room so she won’t go upstairs, where I hear Y. walking around and getting ready to leave. I type as I get ready to join her, to a destination I’ve forgotten, but I know we’re taking my car. My car. As in, I am paying for it with my money, and I use it almost exclusively. In fact, I’m writing this post at the dealership, giving Ozzie (that’s how I named the car) his first service.

Life has a way of changing.

Did I mention that all this happened –the new house, the new car, Leia’s spaying– in less than three months?

I’m not gonna lie, but this made me feel pretty darn overwhelmed for a minute. Where we live is called Davenport, a city some 20 miles away from where we lived. It reminds me of the so-called “satellite cities” near Caracas, mostly residential areas where people would commute to their jobs in the main city (think the relationship between New York and New Jersey, to a point). My trip to work went from ten minutes to between forty-eight and fifty-two. And sometimes I leave at midnight to come back the next morning. And in the worst twist of all, I’ve grown to hate Saturdays (I open, so I have to wake up at five so I can leave at seven) and love Mondays (my ONE day off).

But it’s my commute in my car, to our house. It is scary to have such a responsibility, but it is also something I am incredibly proud of. I got here with $200 in my pocket and we started life living in a single room with party-prone hosts. I felt so scared, so homesick, but I turned to inspiration from a very large source to get through.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had seven dollars to his name when he was released by the Canadian Football League and before wrestling supra-stardom came calling. So yeah, I had started out better than the most electrifying man in sports entertainment, but I doubt I have even half his discipline. That’s where I credit Y. It is because she saved and toiled and starved for so long that we’re here. It is because she sees the man I sometimes doubt I am and makes him do things.

And even on days when I feel I’m not giving enough, she reminds me that we got here together.

Life has a way of changing, indeed… so far, for the better.

The gig is down

I think he’s the first non-Latino, non-Black Lyft driver I’ve had in over a year. And he had the dubious honor of picking me up from my first ever visit to the ER, thanks to the unholy meeting of my left pinkie and a knife. No, I don’t want to talk about it.

Peter (not his real name) told me had moved with his wife from upstate New York. “My two kids are in college, so I do this so I have extra money when they come over, so we can go to the parks or something”, he says. He was proud of the fact that he had been on time, because the GPS in his app had been given him trouble.”I’m glad I could find you”, he tells me. Makes two of us, buddy.

And it didn’t stop there. He had to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He once took an old man from an airport to an appointment he had –even though he wasn’t active at the moment. He just couldn’t leave the old man to himself. He also helped another older gentleman adjust the GPS on his phone. It was impossible not to be touched from his stories. It also made me resentful about a couple of other drivers. One in particular.

On Christmas Eve 2022, the low here in Orlando was 28ºF. That’s -2.2ºC for the rest of the world. It was the coldest I ever been –and I hate the cold. So I left work around seven o’clock that day desperate to get home, not only to have Christmas dinner with the family, but to GTFO of the cold!

Problem was, it was seven o’clock on Christmas Eve. Not too many Lyft drivers on. And not too many willing to do a short trip. Seven –SEVEN– cancelled on me. No reason given –they got scheduled and suddenly “We’re finding you another driver”. (More on that in a minute.) Number eight finally seemed to be on his way. When he was two minutes away, he calls me. I miss the call because my supposedly touch-screen effective gloves did not work, so I have to take off the glove to call him. (Remember, two degrees Celsius below zero.) A Latino voice answers.

–Hi! I’m Juan, your rider.

–Sir, where are you?

I told him. I could start to feel my hand cracking from the cold. I hoped he would not take long.

–Sir, there’s an issue here. It tells me I’m picking up a woman. Are you scheduling for someone else?

–No, for myself. I had seen a glitch on the app, though. It’s Christmas Eve, after all, it must be flooded. But I assure you, my man, it’s me you’re picking up.

–Sir, I’m sorry, but this feels weird. I’m sorry but I’m going to have to cancel the ride.

I had been waiting for over an hour. My hand was starting to feel numb. I was exhausted, hungry, and homesick. He did NOT just say he was cancelling the damn ride. I immediately, with no shame, started begging.

—Hermano, I’m begging you not to do that. It’s just a glitch in the app. I’ve been stuck here for almost an hour. All I want to do is get home. Please don’t do this to me.

–I understand what you’re saying, bro, but I need to think about my own safety– he said for the first of at least five times. “Yo te entiendo lo que me dices, hermano, pero yo tengo que pensar en mi seguridad“, his Puertorrican accent getting thicker each time. –This is very weird, and I don’t feel safe.

I begged again. He refused, politely. I begged harder, on the verge of tears. He again declined, a little less politely. I begged one more time. He refused again with his stupid “Yo entiendo lo que me dices”, and my patience went up in a firey spew. I was well aware I was in my work uniform and people were close by, but the frostbite that finally showed up in my hand erased everything except the gutless asshole on the other side of the line and my own frustration.

I did not cuss him out, but my tone did. I said he was killing me and he was a miserable, inconsiderate soul and a poor human being. He huffed once demanding respect, and I shut him off saying that where’s my respect, of course you/re damn killing me, he was ditching me on Christmas Eve in the freezing cold after a ten-hour shift. “Don’t bother cancelling the ride, I’ll do it for you. Happy nothing. SIR”, I snarled. I hung up, but I saw he had already cancelled it. That made me even more furious; I was looking forward to putting my first one-star review, and I had been denied.

Not my proudest moment, but hey, I’m only human. I’m only sorry that I couldn’t cancel the ride and comment exactly how I felt, and that I couldn’t invite the guy who finally picked me up –Venezuelan like me– for dinner at our house, because he was all alone on Christmas Eve.

Goes to show, there’s all kinds. But damn, dude, wouldn’t you be a little more compassionate on Christmas Eve?!

Ode to the country in my memory

“From Cotiza To Petare”. Caracas by Teresita Cerdeira. Buy this print here.

I’m closing in on a year and a half of American life, and there is no leaving my “Venezuelanism” behind. It’s not just that it is impossible to live in Florida and not find another expatriate around –heck, the two workers ripping the wall on my apartment to fix it as I write this are Venezuelans– nor that I keep a healthy Twitter feed made up almost exclusively of my countrymen. It’s because I’m hanging on to it with both hands and a couple of teeth.

Crazy, I know. I mean, you already moved here, why would you want to hang on to something that just isn’t there anymore. This is something that many people have told me. Y. –it’s not enough to just call her “GF” anymore– works with a lady that refuses to say she’s Venezuelan to anyone. Some have even gone so far as telling me that, once they’ve established themselves abroad, they’re giving up their Venezuelan citizenship.

I can understand that. I truly do. Being a Venezuelan nowadays is one of the hardest things. Joanna Hausmann showed it ever so eloquently in her latest video. “You feel like you’re on a tight rope (…) with a sumo wrestler on the other end, and you don’t wanna fall, but you kinda do wanna fall…” Being a Venezuelan, be it that you’re living abroad or still at home, is a constant challenge in keeping your sanity. Heck, your sense of humor. It’s dealing not only with the craziness of the country –the blackouts, the crime, the scarcity, the general despair– from within or without, it’s dealing with the assholes that benefit from it, the tools that try to minimize it, the jerks that don’t care about it even as they call you their friend, and the well-meaning souls that don’t understand and to whom you try to explain for the umpteenth time –because you don’t want to feel so lonely on this, because loneliness feels like the slow lane to madness.

Except I truly don’t want to stop being Venezuelan. I don’t want to let go. Venezuela is more than just my country, my other home, my origin story. It’s my identity, my good side. It’s a whole lot of good things surrounded by bad things that sometimes stain them, like soot coming off an industrial chimney, but eventually find themselves clean again as they toss and tumble inside my memories.

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