Breathe
By Claudia Pérez Atamoros
I'm going to find out...
For the time being, my dear Pam Cerdeira, so direct and clear, embraced my whole soul: "no matter what age you lost her, you lost your mother".
Wham! Then then ... The strange feeling is not because of my age, or my mother's. It is the plain fact of facing her death. It is the plain fact of facing her death.
The death of me-ma-dre.
I am in shock. Stunned. Stunned. That childhood fear is finally a reality.
I am an orphan. Or-fa-fa-na.
Despite what the RAE says (orphan, na. (From b. lat. orphănus, and this from gr. ὀρφανός)1. adj. Said of a person of minor age: To whom the father and mother or one of the two, especially the father, have died).
Pamela Cerdeira is right. I lost my-my-mother. In autumn, in her winter. With a thousand colors, in her home.
Their absences are corporeal. Their presences are infinite.
Without father or mother. I am not the first, nor the last. I add to the orphanage.
One lives to die. Like time. Like life. Once they go, they never come back.
Moments remain. We immortalize memories. We capture instants and idealize events.
It is goodbye without being goodbye. Definitive. Never permanent, much less perennial.
That's right. You will always be Naomi. Beloved. My mother. Mythical.
The indecipherable. The journalist. The advanced. Capable. The precious stone. Natural and polished. Total.
The writer. Simple. Punctual. The intellectual. The voracious traveler. The quiet mother. Meditative. Peaceful.
The only daughter. The wife. The quirky mother. The open-minded grandmother.
Revered to the end.
Pioneer. What's more.
The mythologized mother. The lonely woman. The beloved woman.
Bird of prey. Spiritual. Swan. Majestic. Totemic frog. Liberating. Adaptive. introspective. Fierce.
Instant in perpetuity.
You are otherness. Absolute. Period.
You described yourself fully. You perpetuated yourself. Without end.
"I am amethyst, ruby, pearl and jade. I am an oak. I die on my feet. I am autumn and all its colors. On my way from Soria to Logroño. Sunrises and sunsets. I close circles. I am the room where music is heard. I am the music. A delicious cheese plate, a tequila, a juicy pear. A home. Bookcase next to the bed. I am my children, my grandchildren and all their offspring. A tree-lined avenue. A tiger to decipher the symbols of my fur. Frolic in the great African plains. Forest, jungle, desert, caravan, oasis, palm tree, cluster, date, the Nile River. The Papaloapan. Butterfly. Mockingbird, trill, flight. The Coatzacoalcos of my memories. Beach, sand, conch and sea. Moon, star, sun. Guitar. Love song. Writer. Impressionist painter. Intense fire. I am yesterday, today and tomorrow. I am always. I am the Universe. I am all in the One and one in the All".
NAZ 2005
Noemi Atamoros was born on September 19, 1932 but... she decided to be born on the 13th, her lucky number. Daughter of a Mason who fought for the inclusion of women in Freemasonry and of an independent and free woman, divorced to boot.
In 1950 she graduated as a journalist. She was a companion and contemporary of great women. Elena Poniatowska refers "being a journalist and a woman in the fifties was not easy and we should remember the heroic Elvira Vargas, Rosa Castro, Anita Salado Alvarez, María Idalia, Noemí Atamoros, Aurea Acosta, Guadalupe Appendini, Maruxa Vilalta, who wrote a pioneer column: Mujeres que trabajan; Magdalena Mondragón, author of Los presidentes me dan risa; María Luisa Mendoza, la China...; and so many other columnists and editorialists..."
She joined Excélsior in 1952 under the guidance of Don Manuel Becerra Acosta.
Learned English, German, French.
She was one of the first police and cultural reporters. She covered "social" from a different perspective. She always pointed out that, from the most frivolous pages of magazines and newspapers -social ones- the good reader could decipher the national panorama at will. He used to say that, between drinks, weddings and weddings, the dressmaking classes were about politics and affiliation. The social events gave room for crass deals and juicy decisions. Creating the first cultural miscellaneous section was an honor. It was a consolidated achievement among that group of first-rate women journalists, such as the reporters of the now defunct Section B.
He traveled from Australia to Patagonia. She traveled continents and seas. She traveled to the African desert and through the Arab countries in the company of another woman in the 80s. Another advanced woman, Evangelina Elizondo, the actress, the painter.
Together with her great friend and accomplice, the extraordinary painter Laura Elenes, she developed the literary pictographic system ATELÉN.
She was an expert on Sor Juana and some even consider her to be the first woman Sor Juana disseminator. Many years before Sor Juana became fashionable. She was president of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Cultural Association and left a legacy of art and culture that has transcended borders.
He gave life in Mexico to the writing group Tiran lo Blanc, which he headed until the day of his death. He graduated as Grand Master of the spiritual current known as Science of the Mind. He led meditation groups for the last 20 years of his life.
She gave voice to the "señoritas Mexico" with interviews that showed that they were not only pretty faces back in the 80s.
He interviewed intellectuals, politicians and artists of his time.
She was a pioneer in the diffusion of the UFO phenomenon in the 1960s.
She was the coordinator and ideologist of the first exhibition of women's journalism in 1973.
He directed Rotocolor and Magazine Dominical de Excelsior.
She was head of Section B of Excélsior after Bambi's death. She remained at that publishing house for more than 55 years.
He wrote for Cine Mundial, Plural, Revista de Revistas. Latest News.
She made alliances of respect and friendship with women reporters. Journalists respected her to the end.
She participated in the founding of the Group 20 women and one man but soon left it to dedicate herself fully to writing her first book.
She was a pioneer in opinion columns. She was a tireless promoter of culture. Multiple awards, medals and distinctions, but the most valuable thing is that she was loved so much, so much and more. A thousand anecdotes.
A very elegant and difficult to fill bag. One size fits all.
Pd.
I am grateful for the virtual embrace of solidarity from so many. The obituary of my dear Soledad and her team; the punctual call of Pamela Cerdeira with her reassuring words; the physical and total presence of Stephanie Lewis in the company of Fer Medellín; the wasaps of Sandra and Jimena; to Opinión 51 for being a house with beings of light that illuminate lives and are full of culture, wisdom and forcefulness.
And to L'oreal de México for that spectacular crown for the queen mother, mother of 2 others, my brothers. He is a dermatologist; she is a communicologist in the service of spreading the importance of skin care.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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