Ding Dung Dang

When I was younger than I am now––I sang a song called, “jump in the shower.” It was a funny song that went with a dance. Picture a small child rolling their arms and hopping around boisterously. It had to be sung because it was hard for me to do basic things like get clean, even then. I refused, quite stubbornly, to get up and shower and be dressed and have my hair brushed.

I can vividly remember standing under the man-made waterfall of my childhood––I would look up at the shower head in absolute hatred when its rain poured down on me. I sometimes look at my shower head now and think of its metal sputtering in similar disdain. But back then, I had a song to sing.

It’s funny how something so simple could motivate me to hop inside the shower with absolute glee. In the true magic of childhood, that song was a powerful force. The chorus was the song––there were no interludes, no three-part structure. Simply,

“jump in the shower

jump in the shower

jump in the shower

jump in the shower.”

My dad came up with the song, so effective, so truly catchy. Very motivating indeed.

The song is one of those family quirks that every family has. Like whenever there’s a mild inconvenience, we go, “ding dang dung dang.” Like the words taita and ñaño. Like many many expired prescription bottles in cabinet corners. Wine bottles in secret places. Empty candles of the Vírgen de Guadalupe being collected along a hand-made fence. A checkered couch that sits sadly by the window sill. A hole punched through our wall covered by a beautiful picture frame, or, a picture frame hiding our punched-out wall.

I look at my family and at myself and see a complicated portrait.

If I were to undergo the task of portraiture, this canvas would be symbol-laden.

The style would be expressionist; there might be a desert in the foreground and the volcano, Pichincha, in the far far distance. In the center of the portrait, our family might be holding a bowl––one of those mended bowls where the broken pieces are cemented together again with gold.

My dad used to say to me, “trust is like piece of paper, once you crumple it, you can smooth it out as much as you like, but it’s just a crumpled mess. It will never go back.” I had broken his trust. I was trying to smooth out the edges. But, trust isn’t paper. Trust is kintsugi: the practice of turning what is broken, and mending it so that it may become more beautiful. In the end, my family is a vessel, broken and mended.

The portrait would have the five of us. My parents are in the back, taller, and the three of us in the front, shorter, as children. My parents would face away from one another looking on either side of the horizon. I would be wearing a soft pink dress, and my sister’s would be a clear sky blue. My brother would stand between the two of us with his arms around our shoulders. The kintsugi bowl, placed in front of us, would have three colorful eggs. One of the eggs chips and breaks, and from it, emerges a bright light. Brightness is blinding, so we, the three of us, would have our eyes closed.

I think of eggs often, of chicks hatching from eggs, really. My mom used to sing ‘los pollitos dicen.’ Whenever we got sad, she might hold us in her arms and sing, “pio pio pio.” She would get lost at the “la gallina busca” part. She would tell us too, “I always forget the rest of the song.” She would shake her head and continue to soothe us of our sadness. I imagined us as little birds in her nest with the way she would sing.

Even now, I think I’m very bird-like. Maybe an insect with wings. Only––the wings would be clipped or damaged, and I would roam around on legs… Isn’t this true of all people? I wonder how many of us imagine invisible wings, never to be used. Maybe in our portrait, we would each have wings made visible. I can imagine my brother: his arms turn into a huge, soaring wingspan. My dad might have feathers too. I think my sister and I would have dragonfly wings, appearing as fairies. My mom is a blue monarch, without a doubt.

But in the portrait, our wings might show signs of use. Tattered or torn or ruffled. Maybe the feathers would drift in the wind, filling the portrait’s negative space with something solemn. None of us fly, we all stand together, with grounded limbs.

Familismo is a term that is new to me, but also familiar. There is knowledge and there is gnosis. The term describes the support derived from a family unit in times of stress. The -ismo ending makes it sound bad. Isms of the world aren’t usually looked upon favorably. But this -ismo is good, according to data collected––I’m told by the internet. Familismo limits adverse mental health consequences such as isolation under times of duress, mitigating symptoms of anxiety or helplessness. Being close with family is a strength.

Then, why is my family portrait so morose?

I wonder, sometimes, what it means to get closer to the light. In English, light has two meanings. The light of the Sun and the feeling of weightlessness. Two things can be true at the same time, but I have never known what it is to float. I think that the light which emerges from the egg is a spiral.

When you reach into the light from an egg––look into its yolky sunshine––what do you feel? Does the yolk break? Does the yolk break in the form of a swirly spiral? I look into the light of an egg and see something abysmal, something vacuous and deep. Depths are heavy. My family feels weighed down right now. We can’t fly, but we experience depth. We experience the heaviness of love. How limitless, and massive, and burdensome, is love? The weight of love is the eternal abyss, and from the light emerges the spiral, and holding the spiral, a family gathers.