Ana perches
Pa’ qué son lujos - A condemnation of superfluity and waste, ostentation, and vanity. And an affirmation of dignity and restraint, forbearance, and respect for the value of a hard-earned dollar. Or peso, in this case. Ana Perches, 2020.
La Calle
“Es una calle larga y silenciosa.
Ando en tinieblas y tropiezo y caigo
y me levanto y piso con pies ciegos
las piedras mudas y las hojas secas
y alguien detrás de mí también las pisa:
si me detengo, se detiene;
si corro, corre. Vuelvo el rostro: nadie.
Todo está oscuro y sin salida
y doy vueltas y vueltas en esquinas
que dan siempre a la calle
donde nadie me espera ni me sigue,
donde yo sigo a un hombre que tropieza
y se levanta y dice al verme: nadie.”
— Octavio Paz (Mexico, 1914-98)
mbfitzmahan. New York. 2020.
What if, instead of feeling stress, I felt energy. Instead of feeling scared, what if I felt inspired - for having energy, for feeling safe, for having food, clothing and shelter. Why should I feel stressed?
I am not entitled to feel stress when so many others are in dire straits or on the brink of being there, while I’m not there… yet.
If mere compassion leads to inaction, I’m back to feeling guilty again, about not feeling stressed, or about having the luxury to pretend I’m not stressed.
So, do I then get up from my chair to act, as Jean-Paul Sartre would have a person of “good faith” do? Let’s not get existentialist or philosophical here because that’s a luxury, too. While people are out scrambling for food, finding ways to make their next car payment, or come up with money to pay their mortgage or rent or…. With what nerve am I searching here for the perfect metaphor? A rhetorical question during rhetorical times. A Peruvian poet spoke of that in the 20th century, as have many other writers.
mbfitzmahan. 2020.
Yes, I’ve known stress before. But today, knowing what I know now and what I still don’t know and never will know, am I allowed to feel stress? I’m not asking for anyone’s permission but my own, and my answer from me is: No, Ana, you’re not allowed to feel stress.
Okay, I’m not allowed to feel stress. Because so many people are so much worse off than I am.
My father had an expression, which is à propos here. His expression was Pa’ qué son lujos, which is hard to translate but literally means, “What’s the point of luxuries?” We would hear that phrase from my father when he was enjoying a simple plate of Mexican beans instead of a pricey meal at a two-star restaurant. Or when having the money to buy himself a Rolex he would instead choose a Casio from Costco. Pa’ qué son lujos? Luxury! Who needs it. Or say, if we were at a restaurant where the waiter would brush away the crumbs from the white table cloth using a small dustpan and shiny blade, my dad with a sarcastic smile and a shake of the head, pa’ qué son lujos! What does luxury know? Know, about life. Or if someone insisted on using the correct fork for a salad or… you get the idea.
mbfitzmahan. 2020.
His remark was also a way of saying, “If only you knew what it was like to have lived during the Revolution.” His comment was in itself a metaphor because he was born after the Revolution, the Mexican Revolution of 1910, that brought the first massive wave of Mexican labor to the United States. What my father meant by that expression is that some people can do all that fancy fanfare and stuff because they don’t know what it’s like to go hungry. His philosophy of ¿para qué son lujos? was not unlike that
Pa’ qué son lujos is colloquial for ¿para qué son lujos? Pa’ is short for para in informal speech.
When I think of the Americans who lived through the Great Depression or of the immigrants and refugees arriving on American shores with nothing but a small suitcase and perhaps two nickels in their pocket, I think, pa’ qué son lujos. How could they understand their grandson or granddaughter whimpering about the pesto coming out too salty, or too caloric?
“Bubba, I’m on a diet, don’t add so much heavy cream, or butter.” Or, “Abuela, lard is fattening, I can’t have tamales! Or, “Tata, you know I can’t eat raw onions …pico de gallo has raw onions!” Pa’ qué son lujos! is not really a question but an exclamation. “You’re worried about that?” You’re stressed out because the tile isn’t lining up exactly straight above your $7,000 Miele stove? Or you are upset that you should have chosen a grout color a bit more grey instead of that brown hue? Pa’ qué son lujos!
My father did survive many micro-revolutions in Mexico, hard times for someone like himself who knew the value of work and who did not have parents to help him out along the stormy ride. He never talked to us about stress. In fact, there is no word in Spanish for stress, which borrowed the word from English starting around the 1970’s and called it “estrés.” My father got lucky, but not everybody does.
I walked along Solano Avenue on Monday. Deserted and empty stores on both sides of the street. Where are the people who work here? Who’s going to pay their rent? Will the owners of those businesses go inside once in a while, deactivate the alarm, turn on the lights, flush the toilet and wonder, “How could this have happened to me and to so many others?”
Restaurants displayed their hand-printed signs, “Take-out only.” And there was the lighting store with the old-fashioned lamps getting dustier each day. The dry cleaning stores were open, just in case you wanted your pants ironed or cleaned - if you wanted a crisp, starched shirt for work. Work. A luxury - or a painful reminder that a privileged few don’t need to work. Or some can work at home and don’t need a starched, ironed shirt while millions of others are out of work.
While I don’t mean to downplay the many kinds of stress people of all walks of life are feeling these days. As David Brooks has shown in his recent heart-wrenching editorials, as long as my situation is stable I cannot claim stress under my current circumstances. That would only be claiming another privilege I happen to have… for now. Pa’ qué son lujos.
My father’s tone of voice when he spoke those words, and the look on his face, conveyed at the same time a condemnation and an affirmation. Pa’ qué son lujos. A condemnation of superfluity and waste, ostentation, and vanity. And an affirmation of dignity and restraint, forbearance, and respect for the value of a hard-earned dollar. Or peso, in this case.
Ana Perches
Words by Ana Perches - Berkeley, California
Photographs by Maureen Fitzmahan - Pawling, New York. Photos of mid-Hudson Valley New York.
Ana & Maureen are Founding Members of The Art Junket.
“A long and silent street.
I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall
and rise, and I walk blind, my feet
stepping on silent stones and dry leaves.
Someone behind me is also stepping on stones, on leaves:
if I slow down, he slows;
if I run, he runs. I turn: nobody.
Everything is dark and doorless.
Turning and turning around these corners
which lead forever to the street
where I pursue a man who stumbles
and rises and says when he sees me: nobody.”
— The Street by Octavio Paz