Ode to the Bag / Regina Coyula

(Facebook picture from my friend Elena Madan that I love and posted without authorization, but with confidence)

There are decisions that for some may be insignificant but this one that I finally got to make today, was pivotal.

Years, many years, I don’t know how many or I do. I think since the shortage began and notice how old the shortage is. Can you imagine that I am 61 years, 2 months, and 6 days old (I owe you the hours), and since my adolescence, the shortage has followed me, well…there!

Well yes, and returning to my main topic…

They were all there (those here, because those I have there is a lot), serene, like every day, some enjoying the nice air conditioner in the room; others in the hallway closet, comfortable, stretched, well bended, sharp (like my wise great-grandmother would say), not without being a little hot since the air conditioner didn’t reach them there. Others in the kitchen suffering the different dashing aromas that are emitted from my culinary aptitudes and the most blessed, those that would spend all day with me, trailing me economically from here to there and from there to here (and yes because I always return when I leave)…

All of them and each of them with their size, their colors, their personality…some elegant, fine, austere; others colorful, with shine, personalities, how I love those with personality; others very small, precious, those drive me crazy, I have found those everywhere. In the end there were so many, always attractive, a show of authentic goodness because: what would our lives be without them but…

I needed to follow through with this decision, I had taken too much time pondering it and I knew that sooner or later I would do it.

My psychologist told me once that the brain is like a library and that psychological disorders in general have a lot to do with the manner you order them and that topic has always impassioned me but…

How difficult it was for me to let go of all the nylon bags I collected from different parts of the world. To know that the last time I was in Miami was in the year 1998 and that I had kept examples from that trip…let’s not speak of the others…

It has not been easy. I would put them back, take them out, I would put them back again and I would take them out again (I’m referring to the bags). What a guilty feeling, what nonsense, what responsibility after so much time, but I had no other alternative, until finally!

I finished getting rid of that monstrosity, that sickly and intolerable amount of examples that I had selfishly kept, after so many, many years.

To those I give this small homage and I hope all goes well!

And to you all.

Translated by Brenda Rojas, Boston College Cuban-American Student Association (CASA)

21 October 2013