Anoche mientras sentía una brisa suave en mi mejilla me transporté a los pasillos de concreto y piedra del centro de Cuernavaca, en la avenida Guerrero. El ruido, el tráfico y la muchedumbre existían en función de un aire vivo que jugaba entre las antiguas columnas de piedra y los puestos de cremas. De vez en cuando me acariciaba, pero yo no lo sabía. Esas caricias eran besos, sellos que debían ser abiertos sólo con el transcurso del tiempo. Y anoche abrí uno.
Yo antes era Cuernavaca. Yo era sus calles- y sí las caminaba- desde Chipitlán hasta el centro. Una vez llegué hasta Vista Hermosa con un amigo. El grafiti, los baches, las rutas, todas esas cosas fui yo.
Yo antes era también el centro, su zócalo y su fayuca. Era sus puestos de playeras negras de rock pesado, metaleras, piratas. Era también la moda underground que se estrenaba en ciertos círculos de jóvenes, pero no de los que vivían en Vista Hermosa. Ellos no, porque yo también era la tierra de la preparatoria número uno que se levantaba al son del sonido del ska, aquél sonido libertador y problemático. Más problemático aún eran los deliciosos pulques de don Abel, que también los fui.
The French have a word, flâneur, that means "he who walks the city in order to experience it".
Last night, I felt a soft breeze on my cheek and I remembered the stone and concrete passageways on Guerrero Avenue in downtown Cuernavaca. The noise, the traffic, and the crowds existed in relation to a rare kind of air that played in between the old stone pillars and the open-air cosmetic stands. Every now and then the air caressed me, but I didn't know that then. Those caresses were actually kisses, seals that could only be opened with the passage of time. And last night one was opened by me.
I was Cuernavaca once. I was its streets, and I walked them from Chipitlán to downtown. One time I made it to Vista Hermosa with a friend. The graffiti, the potholes, the public buses, I was all those things.
I was also its downtown, its plaza, and its black market. I was its bootleg heavy metal shirts. I was the underground style that reared its head every now and then among certain groups of young people, but not the ones from Vista Hermosa. Not them, because I was also the dirt that was kicked up during ska's liberating and problematic beats at public high school number one. Even more problematic were don Abel's delicious pulques, which I also was.
