Age is a useful marker. Our intuition only works moderately well when it comes to the passage of time. A good time can feel so brief and a grueling experience so gruelingly long. And the longer the intervals of time, the more our memory seems to take over; and, with it, illusion. The more powerful instances in our lives remain in the forefront of our consciousness, current despite having occurred long ago, and can rightfully be deemed "timeless" because time doesn't seem to tarnish them. Things that did not make as much of an impact can seem more distant than they actually are. And those that are especially banal often fall away so completely that they drop out of our perceived timeline and may as well have never happened. Try to think of what you had for lunch on Monday one month ago and you get a sense of memory's selectiveness.
Like any other marker (mile markers on a hike, highway signs, rings on a tree's trunk), though, age is only an indicator of the distance between points (in this case in time) and says little to nothing of the the things that lie between. Age is silent when it comes to the things that have occurred, the things that were prevented from occurring and, perhaps the most impacting, the things we wish would have happened or wish we would have done.
The last of these is especially powerful because we carry them with us from year to year, over our lives, re-evaluating, rethinking and sometimes hoping that the opportunities passed up in prior years may present themselves again. They become part of our baggage, often the heaviest part. And will only stop nagging us if we face them or, rare as it is, if we manage to forget them. They are so integral to us that you could say they are part of our identity and may even remain so (and often become more powerful) when forgotten. They can be major dreams and aspirations, like the desire to be a professional dancer or performer. They can be deep seeded connections with someone, as in the sense of having a soulmate. And they can be completely senseless but persistent urges to visit a certain place or be part of an event.
I've looked for an accurate word to describe these in their totality and no word that I can come up with offers the proper connotation. "Whims" are almost uniformly dismissive, and "yearnings" sound far too serious and sad. The best I can think of is "hankering" and even this seems to lean towards the severe. The best word I know is not an English term but a Spanish one: "antojo." It is one that I'm particularly familiar with because I was accused as a child of having more than my share of these senseless pulls to do, eat, or say something. Pulls that more often than not embarrassed the hell out of my parents or anyone from my family who was with me at that moment.
They never failed me, though, at least from my point of view. Among these antojos were the desire to apply for the Magnet School of Art in South Miami Junior High, to drag my best friend since 5th grade with me there, and, once that program was done, rather than continue with art, to apply to the International Baccalaureate Program at Coral Gables Senior High School, which focused on science, math, language and history (not art at all). It was there that I was first drawn inexplicably to journalism. And when I left, rather than pursue art or journalism, my antojo was to attend the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan, a place unlike any other I had lived in. But I was drawn there. I could give you the precise reason, because I do remember it, but it would not make it any more easy to understand.
It was easy to follow these hankerings when I was younger. To change things up as needed. Having lived in three countries by the age of nine, the concept of establishing roots was not one that I found necessary or especially attractive. But on getting older, I found that these antojos were less likely to be fulfilled, and so have accumulated at increasingly higher rates, shelved until I find a more appropriate time or a more obvious opportunity to pursue them. But the time is never good, and these things are less about opportunity and more about determination. They are so senseless, their logic almost mystical by nature, that no one else would understand, let alone support them on their own merit. They are things best measured by the strength of the yearning itself.
And so it's on facing the age of 40, replete with (some) positive and (mostly) negative connotations regarding the time we have spent and the time we have left, that I've decided to start this project, "40 antojos," a means of facing these desires that I still carry in my heart, that I have carried for so long in many cases, in an aim to fulfill them sooner rather than later.
It is as much on exploration and self-study as it is on achievement, because the path and cadence of our lives, I suspect, has much to do with how we address or ignore these pulls that we're given. For those who believe in God, and I undeniably fall into this category, these antojos are signs, means of communicating with God in this ancient and universal language of purpose. These aren't like other desires for fame or fortune, whose benefits we can taste long before we achieve them, but rather are more like the coaxing of a whisper in your ear, with curiosity as its fuel and self-discovery as its fruit. No one will think better of you upon having achieved these things. And many will actually laugh at your for trying, and for even giving them importance in the first place. But it is these pulls that brought me to photography and Yoga and HP and Kevin. It is these pulls that gave me the beautiful time I had living with my best friend since high school, that made me think it was a good idea to live in a house with 17 people from all corners of the world in a city I knew nothing about, and which led me to spend Christmas alone in the middle of Joshua Tree National Park, the place where I would discover what true silence sounded like.
Each time I have pursued one of these it has lead me to something that I haven't forgotten, no matter how long ago it occurred, and so I can't believe that they are anything less than the most critical things we are here to do.
In the coming posts I will list the 40 antojos that I am setting out to fulfill before I leave the age of 40; one for each year I have been alive, not because I feel I am running out of time, but because I want in my remaining years to make a habit of pursuing them. And with each fulfillment, I hope to turn another page, and perhaps close another chapter... all for the purpose of letting go of these things that I may make room for more of them.
This is me on my 39th birthday, May 6th 2013, enjoying a piece of the dulce de leche cheesecake that my partner, Kevin, made for me the day before. I am not generally a fan of cheesecake, but I am a huge fan of Kevin's baking.
