Paisaje pegajoso/Sticky sororidad Crónica

Abstract

This crónica is really the first time I’ve written about my childhood. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I have many black holes—up to my early teens, when things sort of snap into focus. Hi-res focus, even. Although I’ve lived in and visited a number of countries whose cuisine is imprinted in my memory and even my day-to-day practices in southern California, I decided to focus on only one place: Zapopan (Guadalajara), Jalisco, México, where I spent summers with my family as a young girl. After informally interviewing my sister, Sarita—my closest childhood compinche (she’s only 18 months younger)—I decided to take this issue’s prompt, the notion of sticky memories/emotions, literally. Stickiness functions as a sensorial structuring motif, recurring in different ways in each of my crónica’s four vignettes. However, as is my wont, it offers no sense of resolution or closure. Rather, it appears as a floating signifier: these memories of scent, taste, feel and place have “stuck” with me throughout my life, but they evoke neither univocal nor consistent feelings. The same image or memory can feel now comforting, now disquieting, homely yet uncanny, familiar yet alien. Ultimately, it is this ecotonic, interstitial modus vivendi, which I’ve been inhabiting since about age four, that I hope to convey to the reader.