My American Dream

I love the silent nights, the nights with the light off and the stars on. I love nights alone with myself because that's where I can listen to myself without being bothered by the hustle and bustle outside. I love the nights where I have myself and I can see my life from another place, calmly and unhurriedly. I like to feel, like music, for example. I really enjoy when I close my eyes while listening to  LoFi  and looking at the night sky full of memories, illusions and dreams. It's a journey to anywhere my head and heart want to go. These last few days I have traveled to visit myself as a child, yes, time travel is possible.  Each trip through time has made me see the infinity of doors that exist and the hundreds of decisions we make every day that take us to places totally different from those we may never have imagined. There are doors that open paths to places we have never seen, doors that make us meet people we never thought we were going to meet and doors that when crossing make everything different from what we already knew. Doors that connect with other worlds that are very different from ours. I love those trips and I love those quiet, unhurried nights, where I can see everything I've traveled to this day. I have crossed many doors and traveled from another world to reach this one, which many call the American dream. 

I remember when I was a kid and I used to play all day until I was tired. Whole days having fun with my brothers and friends on bikes or playing soccer. In the rain running from place to place for no reason, just enjoying the cold drops that fell from those huge gray clouds, everything was perfect. I used to look forward to the arrival of my father in the evenings when he returned from work. I used to run to him and hug him. My mom was preparing dinner and my siblings and I watched TV until it was late. Everything was perfect and then later with a kiss of mom on the forehead those days were over and when I woke up it was another story that was repeated. One night I woke up not knowing why, it was already late and everyone was sleeping except my parents who were talking in their bedroom. It was about the visit of my uncles, brothers of my father who came from the United States and would stay for a while in our house in El Salvador. It was the first time I heard about the United States in my life. The next day when my whole family was awake mom and dad announced the news and apparently, I was not the only one among my brothers who did not know that it was the United States and my father described it as another world and those words were stored in me.

Weeks later, we were preparing for the arrival of my uncles  who were strangers to me because it was the first time I would see them. As is customary in my home country, together with all my family we went to the airport to wait for them and receive them in a very warm way. The time came and the plane in which they were traveling landed and while the people on the plane began to leave, I waited a little anxious that my father could identify them so I could see how different they were because they came from another world according to my father. When almost all the people had gotten off the plane two men with a height of about 5' 11 feet stood out from the crowd, it was them. Wearing a canvas jacket and a cap that said LA, the first of my  uncles  approached to greet my father with a hug, while the second who wore a hoodie and nike   basketball  shoes  looked at me and my brothers as if he wanted to tell us something. Anyway, everyone was happy and after collecting the suitcases we went to the car. My uncles spoke differently, they had a hard time pronouncing a few words and in my curiosity I didn't take off from them for a second. They noticed my curiosity and told me that they had moved to California years ago as teenagers because of the armed clashes between the guerrillas and the national army in the 1979 war, a war in which my father had been part defending on the side of the national army. 

In my head there were many questions, but because of my shyness they only stayed there. It is normal in me, I tend to be silent outside, while inside my head and inside my heart there is a lot to  say,  however, many times I let myself be carried away from the impulses in which for no reason I only say things without thinking. So it was, an impulse that to this day continues to amaze me led me to ask my uncle why they had been able to escape the war and my father had  not. Followed by the question everything was silent and it was one of those moments in which discomfort took over everyone and much more of me as if I had asked something I should not. No one said anything and suddenly the silence was broken when my father announced the arrival at our house. At that moment I was filled with even more intrigue and curiosity to know what had happened. When we opened the car door, you could hear those familiar sounds, the old lady selling fruits and vegetables at the entrance of our passage and the cumbia that filled our neighborhood with joy. Everything felt good.