Interview

From the couch, I called my mother over from her Macintosh computer. She said she would be over in just a second, right after she finished up on some of her 2nd grader's report cards. There was a man in our backyard hammering parts of our porch as the remodeling goes on. It's loud but not quite as eye catching as my favorite songs, which I had just started streaming from GrooveShark.com. My ears perked up as my all-time favorite song, Battlegrounds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sxB9cN-jZ0), started to hum through the speakers like an irresistible aroma. I started singing along softly as my mom swore quietly and questioningly to her computer as if it could hear her, and answer likewise. Finally, she started to waddle over to me, with a few random books in her arms, and the newspaper between her legs. Finally, we could begin our interview.

After plopping down on the couch next to me, two of our cats followed her up and sat with us. We sat there comfortably for a few minutes petting them and chatting about our day. After her saying she had a terrible day because her 2nd graders were being annoying because of their almost-summer-hype, I realized I had to make the interview as quick and smooth as possible so she wouldn't get even more stressed. I started out short and sweet by reading the poem out loud while also giving her a copy I printed out so she could read along. That's when the first questions started to arise. She asked what a "Todas" was. I promptly responded with the answer while she read ahead, searching for more words she didn't know. The cats purred loudly at our sides as the music played eerily in the background to our thoughts. She then asked if she could read the poem silently to herself because I was reading far too slow for her to gather any key points in the poem. Since I'm the expert on the poem, I let her do her thing, and plan what I'm going to say once she's done in my mind. It's hard to concentrate because of all this racket on the back of our house. They are really getting at it with their power tools now, like holy crap! My mom looks up at me after I zoned out, and has to poke me to get me to stop thinking about what to say. We then proceed to actually discuss this poem that Octavio Paz has birthed.

The first thing my mother noticed was that the poem is kind of hard to follow. I completely found this true, but still thought it was neat the first time I read, and picked it as my own. The main thing she noticed was  quite different however, as it is still very prominent today. She thought the poem was about elders not being respected and ignored by the people who need their insight the most. I found this very intriguing because I never thought of this masterpiece in this way. We chatted for a bit on how this is actually relevant. I visit my grandparents about once a year, and never spend very much quality time with them to hear what they think is most important in life. This will be even more prominent when one of them passes away. That's when we all wish we could have just one more minute to listen to what knowledge they have to give. We never really love something until it's gone. That's the sad side of this poem. My mom also noticed how the poem ended on a very happy note, while it seemed to have started on a rather misfortunate one. The very last few lines really shows this: "The sky grows in the night,/eucalyptus set aflame./The charitable stars/not crushing- calling me" (Paz 37-40). We discussed how these lines made the poem have a sense of lifted-ness, and how the sad reality of the poem fades away almost completely. Almost. There is still hope to get back on our feet. There is always hope.

We ended up agreeing on many aspects of the poem, and the interview lasting way longer than expected, but she didn't seem to mind. I am sure about something though; the cats didn't mind our long couch session. They still purred consistently in their purrfect, (harharhar) careless slumber. Cat's understand nature and elders better than humans it seems. They use 100% of their time doing whatever they want, living life to it's fullest, sleeping everywhere, playing with everything, pretty much not giving two shits about anything. That's what I think this poem is trying to get at. We waste so much of our lives at work and trying to make our lives better, that we never stop and look around at how beautiful our lives already are; we always want more. There is still hope, never forget that. After we finish, we shake hands and go on our ways to our normal lifestyles; only this time we know more than when we woke up this morning; when the sun shined on our faces.