California

(Rodrigo Peñaloza, Dec 3rd, 2017)

Near UCLA, in Westwood, Los Angeles, there was a street fair every Friday, where we could always buy food listening to good jazz as background music. My son Bruno was extactly one week old when we took him to the fair. We filled his stroller with fruits and vegetables, so there he was, cute as ever, carring fruits and vegetables in his stroller rather than toys and extra diapers. It was his first hanging out, just one week old. From that day on, he had zoo, Venice Beach, cafés, university, street music, museums.

There was almost no such thing as alcohol-sterilyzed pacifiers. We provided him with the best antibodies. If Bruno survived Venice Beach, Hollywood, downtown LA, an earthquake, and his daddy finishing his PhD, then he got enough antibodies. In spite of the difficulties, it was a nice phase in our lives.

When he was born, he was the biggest baby of the day, 4,2Kg, and was named by doctors Bruno the Bruiser. The anesthesist was a crazy Russian doctor. When his mom complained about the anesthesia, he said “It seems you are not Californian!” I’m not sure he wasn’t stoned . In the delivery room, a CD by Santana was on. So Bruno was born, listening to a guitar solo by Santana. I had to take a whole Lamaze course to be allowed to be there, but no one can remember the breathing techniques when glasses get blurried with tears, so I don’t blame myself for my total failure. Anyway, I got my Lamaze diploma.

We had no relatives around. The whole time we were there, we counted on ourselves only. Sometimes I hear people saying how their moms, aunts or sisters moved in to help them with their newborn, and I remember we had nobody. In the first time we bathed him, I was so nervous…, unsure about the right warmth of the water. His belly button took one month to fall off. We went to the Santa Monica beach and throw it into the sea. Not the baby: the belly button. It was a kind of mystical ceremony we totally made up. It was a cold day. It was sunny but the wind was very cold.

The pediatrician was a Chinese woman. When we took Bruno there for the first time, he had a stuffed cow with him, or so I thought. She asked its name and I said Mimosa, the typical cow’s name. Later on I found out it was a hypopotamus, and this explains the doctor’s face after my answer.

When we came back to Brazil, there was this nice Persian lady near us in the flight. She got amazed by our knowledge of Persian cinema. She spent the whole flight eating my son up, squeezing him, pinching his cheeks and baby-talking, “cutie, so cute, cutchie cutchie!” It was funny.

Just like the song says, so is California, “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!”