Any comments/revisions would be greatly appreciated!
The prompt I answered was about the person who influenced me most and why.
Thanks!
"True knowledge comes from compassion."- Anonymous
<<El conocimiento verdadero viene de la compasión.>> - Anónimo
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Sitting in a hippy-era vegan café, I stumble upon this aphorism. It is scribbled on the tag of a yellowed chamomile tea bag, probably as an afterthought. I am instantly transported to when I was eight years old. My mother and I were vacationing in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico during the summer. She had decided to take advantage of her interim sobriety to have a "mother-daughter-bonding-experience" with me. Despite her good intentions, after she spotted the first tequila stand, all likelihood of bonding evaporated. I decided to explore on my own. I swam in the famously beautiful Playa los Muertos and gawked at the multi-storied hotels and resorts. But I also saw the dilapidated shanty towns and the kids my age playing soccer without shoes, a sight I had never witnessed in U.S. middle-class suburbia. One of these children was a boy named Jorge. Although he didn't speak much English and I didn't know any Spanish, we spent the whole week laughing and playing fútbol together. On my last day, I was complaining that I was hungry. Jorge proceeded to buy me an orange with what I now realize was likely the only money he would have for the month.
When I returned to school in the fall, I sat down to class in my itchy uniform (I attended a private school at the time), surprised to see a new face among my peers' of a distinctly darker hue. In homeroom, I learned that she had just moved to Texas and her mother had recently taken a job at the school. All I heard during lunch were shrieks of "She's from, like, Mexico or something!", "Her mom is a janitor!", and "I can't believe they let that wetback in here!" accompanied by the exaggeratedly horrified faces of my schoolmates. Recalling my friend Jorge, I couldn't imagine why they would be so mean to her. I was resolved to be her friend. The only impediment to my plan was that she absolutely refused to speak to anyone; except for her mother, I barely saw her make eye contact with a single plaid-skirted or Oxford-shirted soul. Determined, I approached my future friend during recess one day and introduced myself, offering her a hand to shake.
"Me llamo Marisol" she whispered.
Mar-i-sol. I pondered the syllables aloud. Each sound felt strong and fiery, emboldening me to ask more questions and to avidly absorb every word... although I had no idea of what she was saying. There, on the blistering cement with Marisol, I experienced a spark of what would later become one of my most ardent passions: a desire to communicate. I didn't know anyone else who spoke Spanish and my school didn't offer it as a class, so I made it my own mission to learn the language. I scoured my local library for grammar instruction books, invested my allowance in a collegiate Spanish dictionary of intimidating size, and impressed (or annoyed) anyone within earshot with my growing vocabulary. By the end of the month I planned on penning poetry like Pablo Neruda and delivering orations like Emiliano Zapata. Of course I only learned to count to ten and conjugate a few verbs in two weeks, but I didn't feel defeated because Marisol and I were able to piece together what we knew of each language - enough to hold increasingly longer conversations each day. Eventually she told me of her family in Mexico, her journey to the United States, and her homesickness. I realized what courage and strength it must have taken her to get here. I thought that all the other kids were missing out on getting to know her. If they had known all that she had endured, I felt certain that they would have a different point of view. She agreed. "Sólo no comprenden." They just don't understand.
Marisol clasped her patron saint medallion, a gift from her grandmother, around my neck. I offered her a poorly hand-woven, string bracelet in return, thinking of Jorge and his humble gift. Even though neither Marisol's necklace nor my bracelet was a Tiffany charm bracelet, as all the other girls were sporting, we each wore our friendship tokens to school the next day with pride.
Years after that casual exchange under the pecan tree, her few words still resonate with me. Gradually, thanks to Marisol's insight and other intertwined factors, I began spending more and more of my time trying to do just that: understand. I was already voraciously devouring any books I could get my hands on, but after my experiences with Marisol and Jorge I recognized that true knowledge can only be derived from connecting with others and understanding their situations.
All these memories revived from just little slip of paper on a tea bag. I tuck it into my pocket. Interestingly, the English word "to know" has two denotations in Spanish: "conocer" and "saber," the former meaning to acquire factual information and the latter indicating awareness or consciousness. I strive for saber. I crave knowledge that is based not only on textbooks and teachers, but also on communication and connection with others. I still can't write like Neruda or speak like Zapata, nor have I formulated a cure-all for the world's ills. But I have never lost my friendship necklace or mi pasión.
